VOF 2013 Application: What I learnt!

Have you ever heard those inward and outward daunting voices scream at you “UNWAVERING FEMININE PROTAGONIST, NO ONE CARES ABOUT THOSE UNPOPULAR ISSUES YOU GIVE HEED TO, PEOPLE ARE MORE INTERESTED IN MORE CONTEMPORARY ISSUES, SO TAKE A LEAP, GIVE WAY AND SHUT UP”! The voice is so loud and drowning and gives you that feeling that makes you want to zip up your voice. Yet an invisible still voice within and many other cheering obvious voices urges you on “Keep walking and speak out louder until your change yearning voice is heard”.

Dear faithful sisters, dependable friends, unrelenting allies, bubbly change makers, dedicated feminists, way paving trailblazers, stirring heroes and sheroes, painstaking listeners, devoted followers and inspired writers, as an unrepentant and unapologetic but unassuming environmental activist, I have walked that path of life, and also known and experienced very limiting feelings many times over. I have come to accept that my love for being green is innate; and I have no doubt too that what you are passionate about is intrinsic, worthy and laudable.

As I looked though the list of the 2013 VOF Finalists, I found the names of a number of buddies whom I was privileged to have already connected with through the their stories and others who have great stories which I somehow never had the opportunity to read. Beyond the names on the list, I could not but also reflect on the many other names I thought I would find but didn’t because the list could only take 31 names. Now I do not envy the responsibility handed to everyone who took part in the selection process; because it is evident that the process must have been a very complicated and a difficult one.

In realization that it is actually a lot more easy to speak thank to listen, I just preferred the fact I was an applicant. More so, finding my name listed just taught me to never give up, keep speaking out, stay focused and committed to the cause(s) I believe in; particularly because my participation was my second go at the ‘Voices of our Future Correspondent’ challenge. With all sense of humility I would like to say to every 2013 VOF Applicant, “Let’s stay on course and keep talking our talk, walking our talk, talking our walk and walking our walk because together WE CAN and WILL birth change ”!