The Many Labels I Have Worn

My story like everyone else's has it's ups and downs and twists and turns. I was born in Malaysia to two parents who loved each other but not each others families. So they left to start a new life in a new country. New Zealand. So already at one year old I had two labels besides that of child. Indian and Immigrant.

As a teenager of fourteen years old my mother died. This devastated me and also left me with another label. Object of pity. It was during this time sick of all the grief inside that I turned outwards looking at the world around me. At 16 I founded a group at my school, the humanitarian group, to focus my and my fellow students passion and compassion. So I acquired another label. Political.

I went to university, I was lucky enough to have that privilege, where I studied political studies and women's empowerment. Instead of saddening or depressing me like people said it would it inspired me. I saw all the potential there was in the world for change, for good.

After university I thought I needed to learn more about the world than what could be had from books so I went to Thailand and worked for a women's empowerment organisation where I had yet another label. Intern.

I mention the labels I have acquired through my life for a reason. They have never really been things I have chosen for myself. They have in some cases thrust upon me and in others given to me. What is true for all of them though is they have affected how people see me, how I am treated and often they are seen as an indication of what I deserve.

World Pulse gives me a place where I can define the rules of my engagement. Where I choose what labels I have. In the continuing tale of me World Pulse amplifies my voice.

Through voices of the future I hope to continue to be able to show the world my voice on my terms. To tell the story of what it means to be a child of diaspora two times over, to tell the story of what it means to be a woman straddling cultures and values, to tell the stories that the world doesn't often hear