In My Hands Today…

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The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World – Melinda Gates

For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission. Her goal, as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has been to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, invest in women.

In this candid and inspiring book, Gates traces her awakening to the link between women’s empowerment and the health of societies. She shows some of the tremendous opportunities that exist right now to “turbo-charge” change. And she provides simple and effective ways each one of us can make a difference.

Convinced that all women should be free to decide whether and when to have children, Gates took her first step onto the global stage to make a stand for family planning. That step launched her into further efforts: to ensure women everywhere have access to every kind of job; to encourage men around the globe to share equally in the burdens of household work; to advocate for paid family leave for everyone; to eliminate gender bias in all its forms.

Throughout, Gates introduces us to her heroes in the movement towards equality, offers startling data, shares moving conversations she’s had with women from all over the world—and shows how we can all get involved.

A personal statement of passionate conviction, this book tells of Gates’ journey from a partner working behind the scenes to one of the world’s foremost advocates for women, driven by the belief that no one should be excluded, all lives have equal value, and gender equity is the lever that lifts everything.

World Braille Day

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Many years ago when I was in college, we used to have many visually handicapped students studying there. This was because it was one of the few colleges which had a fully functioning braille library and I remember them starting to add more books and resources to the library. This library was right next to the main college library and we also used to get students from other colleges come to use these resources. At one point, I was also recruited by a friend to act as a writer to a visually handicapped student for the final exam. My experience there was not very good as the student I got was not interested in the exam and since it was my subject and the student was a junior, they used to ask me to write the exam for them with no input from their side for each question. I refused to do so after the first question and the experience ended badly for me. But I did see sincere students who had prepped for the exams and even today, I remember this student who had so much to say that the student writer assigned to them had a cramped hand at the end of the exam!

Today is World Braille Day and this post is apt for the day. Celebrated since 2019, World Braille Day is observed to raise awareness of the importance of Braille as a means of communication in the full realisation of the human rights for blind and partially sighted people.

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A tactile representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols using six dots to represent each letter and number, and even musical, mathematical and scientific symbols, Braille, named after its inventor in 19th century France, Louis Braille is used by blind and partially sighted people to read the same books and periodicals as those printed in a visual font. Braille is essential in the context of education, freedom of expression and opinion, as well as social inclusion.

Eye conditions are remarkably common. The World Health Organization estimates that globally 36 million people live with blindness and 216 million people have moderate to severe visual impairment. Persons with vision impairment are more likely than those without to experience higher rates of poverty and disadvantage. Vision loss often represents a lifetime of inequality, poorer health, and barriers to education and employment. In November 2018, it was decided to proclaim 4 January as World Braille Day, recognising that the full realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms relies on an inclusive written promotion. Why 04 January? Because it is the birth anniversary of Louis Braille

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World Braille Day is a reminder of the importance of accessibility and independence for people who are blind or visually impaired. Today’s reality is that many establishments such as restaurants, banks, and hospitals don’t offer braille versions of their print materials like menus, statements, and bills. Because of this, people with blindness or visual impairments often don’t have the freedom to choose a meal on their own or keep their finances private. This day spreads awareness about braille and other accessible forms of communication. It makes a visually impaired person be able to access educational opportunities and employment, be independent and be able to communicate with family, friends and society. Everyone deserves and is legally entitled to the same accommodations and service, regardless of ability. Let’s remember that and do our part to make our workplaces and community areas more accessible for everyone.

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World Braille Day signifies inclusion and diversity. It is important to celebrate such days so that children become aware that people are different and unique, gaining an awareness of varying needs and requirements. Through celebrating days like this, it helps children raise important questions about additional needs and expands their knowledge of different people in our society.

2021 Week 00 Update

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Happy New Year! May 2021 bring to you and your loved ones loads of happiness, abundance, prosperity and good health!

I decided to start this year with the week 0 because this week was split between 2020 and this year and so it’s week 0 according to me.

It was a fairly quiet week at home and Singapore had a very rainy start to 2021. With such a weather, a warm bed with a book and some hot beverage sounds so appealing, but this year because I have decided to finally take my health into my hands, I couldn’t just sit and chill, but had to make sure I walked my targeted steps for the day. I have also decided to read more this year because in 2020, social media and OTT shows took quite a bit of my time which I want to reclaim back. There are other resolutions for the year, but let me see if I can actually keep to them before I share it.

The world is reeling with more than 84 million positive cases and the United States leads the pack with more than 20 million cases and India following behind with 10 million cases and Brazil at number three with close to 8 million cases. But there is a silver lining because many countries have started vaccinations starting with their medical and frontline workers before moving on to their elderly and the vulnerable. In the past week, Singapore has gotten double digit cases more than once and though most of them are imported cases, we also now have at least two local community clusters which are most likely to be cases within a household. Hopefully this gets contained soon and we go back to single digit numbers. Currently there are about 150 active cases in the country.

This year, in my weekly updates, I have decided to spread some positivity and so here’s something I made. I hope to share a new positive thought each week which will brighten up our week. Have a wonderful 2021 and stay healthy!

In My Hands Today…

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The Girl Who Escaped ISIS: This Is My Story – Farida Khalaf

A rare and riveting first-hand account of the terror and torture inflicted by ISIS on young Iraqi Yazidi women, and an inspiring personal story of bravery and resilience in the face of unspeakable horrors.

In the early summer of 2014, Farida Khalaf was a typical Yazidi teenager living with her parents and three brothers in her village in the mountains of Northern Iraq. In one horrific day, she lost everything: ISIS invaded her village, destroyed her family, and sold her into sexual slavery.

The Girl Who Escaped ISIS is her incredible account of captivity and describes how she defied the odds and escaped a life of torture, in order to share her story with the world. Devastating and inspiring, this is an astonishing, intimate account of courage and hope in the face of appalling violence.

The 2020 Words of the Year are…

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2020 is finally over. Happy New Year! Welcome 2021 and hope this year we finally see an end to all the suffering worldwide!

2020 has been a year like no other we have seen in our lifetime for which there is no precedent in living memory. And every year, most dictionaries put out what they feel is the most important word for the year, something that encapsulates what the year has been. The German tradition, Wort des Jahres was started in 1971. The American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year is the oldest English-language version, and the only one that is announced after the end of the calendar year, determined by a vote of independent linguists, and not tied to commercial interest. However, various other organisations also announce Words of the Year for a variety of purposes.

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A Word of the Year is a word or expression that has attracted a great deal of interest over the last 12 months with shortlisted words hotly debated by llexicographers, editors and even the public involved in choosing the word that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year and to have lasting potential as a word of cultural significance. So the word of the year is one which sums up the state of the world succiently and defines it.

For the first time, the Oxford Dictionary did not come up with a word for 2020 because according to them, it quickly became apparent that 2020 was not a year that could neatly be accommodated in one single “word of the year”, so they decided to report more expansively on the phenomenal breadth of language change and development over the year in their Words of an Unprecedented Year report. This report examines, in detail, the themes that were a focus for language monitoring in 2020, including Covid-19 and all its related vocabulary, political and economic volatility, social activism, the environment, and the rapid uptake of new technologies and behaviours to support remote working and living.  One of the year’s most remarkable linguistic developments, according to them, has been the extent to which scientific terms have entered general discourse, as we have all become armchair epidemiologists, with most of us now familiar with term like R number, flatten the curve and community transmission. You can download the report from here.

The Cambridge Dictionary has chosen Quarantine as their Word for 2020. According to their data, it was one of the most highly searched words on the Cambridge Dictionary this year. Quarantine was the only word to rank in the top five for both search spikes and overall views, more than 183,000 by early November, with the largest spike in searches at 28,545 searches seen the week of 18-24 March, when many countries around the world went into lockdown as a result of COVID-19. Noticing this spike in searches, the Cambridge Dictionary editors started to research how people were using the word quarantine, and found a new meaning emerging: a general period of time in which people are not allowed to leave their homes or travel freely, so that they do not catch or spread a disease. Research showed the word was being used synonymously with lockdown, particularly in the United States, to refer to a situation in which people stay home to avoid catching the disease. This new sense of quarantine has now been added to the Cambridge Dictionary, and marks a shift from the existing meanings, which relate to containing a person or animal suspected of being contagious. The two runner-up words to the word of the year was predictable – lockdown and pandemic. To know more, here is a short video.

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Over at the Mariam Webster Dictionary, Pandemic was the word of the year chosen by them. According to Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large for Merriam-Webster, this year the word pandemic is not just technical anymore, but has become a word in general usage and is probably the word which will be used to define this period and searches for the word pandemic on March 11 2020 were 115,806% higher than look-ups experienced on the same date in 2019. The word Pandemic, with roots in Latin and Greek, is a combination of the word pan, which means for all, and demos, for people or population. The latter is the same root of democracy and the word pandemic dates to the mid-1600s, used broadly for universal and more specifically to disease in a medical text in the 1660s, after the plagues of the Middle Ages. According to Sokolowski, the the traffic for pandemic was attributed not entirely to searchers who didn’t know what it meant but also to those on the hunt for more detail, or for inspiration or comfort.

The online dictionary, Dictionary.com also had Pandemic as its word of the year for 2020. An overwhelming choice, the word kept running through the profound and manifold ways our lives have been upended — and our language so rapidly transformed—in this unprecedented year. On March 11 when the WHO declared the COVID-19 as a pandemic, when only 4,291 lives were lost around the world, searches for pandemic skyrocketed 13,575% on Dictionary.com compared to 2019. The search volume for pandemic sustained the highest levels on the site over the course of 2020, averaging a 1000% increase, month over month, relative to previous years. Because of its ubiquity as the defining context of 2020, it remained in the top 10% of all lookups for much of the year since.

2020 has changed our vocabulary in ways that cannot be fathomed. Words that were previously scientific in nature have now become commonplace and are used in daily usage. Languages are constantly evolving but I don’t think there has been so many changes in such a short period. 2020 will be a year most of us will never forget, for many reasons and the pandemic that COVID-19 brought will be the foremost reason. This is a year, every one, including children will recount to their children and grandchildren and I pray that the future generations learn from our mistakes and don’t repeat them.