Finding Home

“Every day is a journey and the journey itself is home” (Matsuo Basho)

My voyage up until now has been a steady one, I have been blessed with a family and friendships that have shaped me and expanded my opportunities. I still cherish memories of days by the beach as child skipping stones, time at university sharing first kisses and first love and days in my twenties learning what it meant to meet others in the world and form friendships that go beyond language. My most treasured gift has been my faith. My belief in Christ is central to me and defines who I want to become as well. In the UK this puts me in a minority as I dwell in what is now a secular and often spiritually apathetic country. I am a wife, a friend, a teacher, a student, a commuter and a sofa-sitter. I am most exceptionally just ME!

I hesitated before applying for the Voices of Our Future course as I believe that one of the key things this course does is enable women who don’t have the same platform I have had to be able to speak and be heard. As I then looked further into myself I also came to the conclusion that although I am fortunate enough to have had a comfortable and uncomplicated upbringing that does not make my story any less interesting. I am zealous in my reasoning that one of the key ways we will see change in the world is when sisters and brothers in privileged countries like the UK stand up and demand justice for our family around the world. It is just as important that we explore and challenge the paths people choose to tread in countries like my own because we have such an influence on the lives of others.

I believe that one of the ways our world will change and our shared journey will become one marked with joy is when we work together in an open, honest and vulnerable way. In raw vulnerability comes beautiful storytelling and in beautiful storytelling comes inspiration and change. I am, and want to get better at, being a digital global storyteller. I love people. These two things mesh my ambitions and hopes well with the philosophy of Voices of Our Future and of World Pulse. My biggest aspiration is to see a world where media professionals and journalists seek to present others with dignity. I grinned ear to ear when I read that this would be the first year digital storytelling would be included on the course, as if I were to define myself by any phrase it would not be photographer or writer – it would be visual storyteller.

I like to think I have only taken baby steps in my life so far but the best thing about the journey is not where we head or where we have been; it is that we have the potential to find our home there.