Where are we going?

Over the course of my years at the University of Waterloo I have been accumulating names of various films I would someday like to watch. Last night I finally started in on the list. The first film I decided to watch was The Human Experience.

The film is the story of two brothers searching for answers to some very simple yet complex questions. Who am I? Who is man? Why do we search for meaning? In order to try and answer these questions for themselves they decide to travel the world. While doing so they have some amazing experiences that open their eyes to the beauty of humanity. Their journey brings them to three spatially different places: living with the homeless in New York City, working with the orphans and disabled children of Peru and lastly meeting the abandoned Lepers of Ghana.

"The breath taking reality of a new, unrepeatable, unprecedented adventure of a human life." The film ends with this quote, and I think it summarizes the film very well. The aspect of the film that moved me most was how it managed to show the human desire for life. That all these individuals they met on their travels, whether homeless, disabled or exiled from their own villages still managed to find joy in their life and still live their lives to the fullest.

As a student in International Development this film had a great impact on me. After feeling so overwhelmed and defeated from constantly researching and discussing all of the problems that exist this film truly was a breathe of fresh air. It allowed me to recognize the beauty that is being different and all the amazing people that exist globally. But at the same time it also allowed me to realize that despite the all of the differences we may have we are a family. We share this planet and everything that is on it.

There are many lessons that an individual can take from this movie. However, words don't do this film justice, I believe that it is something everyone should watch, like many Grassroots Films. So, I suggest everyone take the time out of your blockbuster movie schedule and squeeze this film in, it has renewed my hope for humanity.

The Informed Masses

For the last three days I have been sifting through various news sources looking for a potential topic or just searching for a story that would inspire me to write a blog. What I realized after three days of reading article after article is that Canadian citizens really can't be all that informed of global issues if they rely primarily on the big news sources. Our major Canadian news sources focus on internal issues, which makes sense, as well as international news. It is the international news that I have an issue with.

The international news sections consistently contain stories of war, disaster, political upheaval and death. These events are obviously important but there are so many other issues that are happening continuously and only appear once in a blue moon. Instead of relying on these conventional news sources I looked up international development news and came across various small scale new sources that focus on these different issues, the news that is consistently changing and effecting the lives of thousands of people.

One source that I found to be particularly interesting was the Guardian in the UK. It has articles on food security, climate change, commodity prices and population growth. Of course the Guardian also covers it's own internal news but somehow manages to do justice to international issues as well.


Maybe it's a commentary on North America in general. Hundreds of North Americans donate money to various causes to help the 'poor black children', but how many are fully aware of the issues behind this poverty? I am willing to bet that not many do, even within my own family there are many misconstrued notions of global issues that exist. Unless you going looking for these global issues they probably wouldn't even be a blip on the radar of many North Americans, which is a crime in itself. I think its time we took a step outside of our North American bubble and really looked at the world around us.