What do Beirut, New York, and five other global locations have in common? The HDC, of course.
July 31, 2017 – My first trip to Lebanon took place weeks after a school bus full of children was bombed. When I arrived in Beirut following this tragedy I learned how much my visit meant to our collaborators, members, and friends. I was brave, they said. Their willingness to serve as witnesses to human […]
Philosophical Applications on the Road to True Freedom
The concept of human freedom, at least in today’s society, is often an abstract, theoretical concept whose definition is variant and may change depending upon different situations. This complicates any attempt for governments to create national laws and, furthermore, for any kind of international treaties or resolutions to be made. For laws, treaties, and policies […]
I Choose Joy
I woke up at 6 am – hardly slept a wink the night before due to the lack of air conditioning in my apartment. My commute from Jersey took two and a half hours as trains and subways suffered from construction delays. I trudged through the streets of New York, my stomach angry at me […]
Seeing Without Sight
Often, there is the misconception that to be disabled means one must be in a wheelchair. This may be attributed due to the universal symbol of accessibility that we so often see today, is of a man in a wheelchair, hence, the assumption. But what does it really mean to be disabled?
The Power of Fairy Tales
I love stories. I like to read them and write stories of my own. Growing up, I have always enjoyed listening to fairy tales. What is the essence of a fairy tale? Goodness always defeats evil, the end is beautiful, and the author uses characters to try to convey a moral lesson to young listeners. […]
Unaccompanied Refugee Minors in the European Migrant Crisis
Unaccompanied Refugee Minors in the European Migrant Crisis have been the principal victims not only of abuse back in their countries and during their dangerous displacements but also, and sadly, of neglect and violence in Europe by our bureaucratic systems and law enforcers, as well as common citizens. WYA Europe interns had the opportunity to […]
Chapter 1: My WYA Story
Four days could really make a difference. I proved that statement when my friends and I joined the first ever Chapter Leadership Training or CLT here in the city of Iloilo in the Philippines.
On the Experiential Demands of Human Dignity
This weekend, my colleague Julia and I—along with our summer batch of interns, our president, and one of his headquarters interns—welcome to New Hampshire twenty students from around the world for our International Summer Camp (ISC). Sure, ISC is an academic and formative experience, but beyond it, it is an experience of solidarity, which authentically […]
Lessons from the 2017 European Arts Forum
What is beauty? This is the question that the European Arts Forum (EAF) attempts to answer. Beauty is seeing clearly into each other with a complete respect for each other’s dignity and I can truly relate to this belief that EAF holds. After working on EAF for two and a half months, I was exhausted […]
Consequences of Living in a Post-Truth Society
The recent political and news landscape is cause for serious concern, not necessarily because of the policy decisions of the new administration but more of the way they conduct themselves in press interactions and on the internet. Our new president has been caught repeatedly blatantly lying, and it’s reached a point of public desensitization. In […]
