Shafii Issa Nillongo, Grade 11
UWCEA (Arusha)
As I reflect upon my life during this “stay at home” period, It’s only now that I realize being at UWCEA has been one of the happiest times of my life. Before I joined this school, I went to an all-boys secondary school for four years. Attending this school was a bitter experience and yet the one that I will always be grateful for. This was a place where everyone had standards of how a boy/man should be. “A man must be muscular, tall, strong, non-emotional, must play soccer and so on”. As the shortest boy in the school, I had to suffer from these stereotypes every day.
“You’re too short, you’ll never amount to anything”, “you’re too short to be a leader amongst us”, “you’re too short to play basketball”, “you are as short and weak as a girl” (a sexist comment indeed). These are the kind of comments that had become part of my life at a very young age (i was only eleven, can you imagine?).
Eventually, I believed them and started to hate myself so much. It worsened when I could not open to anyone and became suicidal. I spent countless sleepless nights crying on my bed, and many months wishing I was some else with a body that meets society standards.
Fortunately, through the years, I learnt to accept, love and appreciate myself despite society standards. However, At UWCEA, everything is different. My differences were embraced for the first time. No one ever looks at me as a “short, weak boy” but rather “a teenager who has a lot of potential to unleash”. I have met people who accepted and loved me for who I am, these people no longer made me feel insecure and thanks to them, I have been able to get rid of whatever little insecurity that was left in me. I have met strangers who became friends, and now I consider them as my family. “So different but united in love”, this is how I define my UWCEA, a place that I call home.
To those of you who are reading this, I invite you to reflect on all the labels that society sets on people that make them feel insecure. I invite you to;
And then I urge you to accept the fact that the society that we live in is engrossed with diversity and that even identical twins are very different so there is no way we can all be the same. The differences in our society are inevitable, so instead of criticizing the differences that don’t appeal to you, I urge you to commend and celebrate those differences. You will save the world if you do that. Asante!
“You’re too short, you’ll never amount to anything”, “you’re too short to be a leader amongst us”, “you’re too short to play basketball”, “you are as short and weak as a girl” (a sexist comment indeed). These are the kind of comments that had become part of my life at a very young age (i was only eleven, can you imagine?).
Eventually, I believed them and started to hate myself so much. It worsened when I could not open to anyone and became suicidal. I spent countless sleepless nights crying on my bed, and many months wishing I was some else with a body that meets society standards.
Fortunately, through the years, I learnt to accept, love and appreciate myself despite society standards. However, At UWCEA, everything is different. My differences were embraced for the first time. No one ever looks at me as a “short, weak boy” but rather “a teenager who has a lot of potential to unleash”. I have met people who accepted and loved me for who I am, these people no longer made me feel insecure and thanks to them, I have been able to get rid of whatever little insecurity that was left in me. I have met strangers who became friends, and now I consider them as my family. “So different but united in love”, this is how I define my UWCEA, a place that I call home.
To those of you who are reading this, I invite you to reflect on all the labels that society sets on people that make them feel insecure. I invite you to;
- Think of all the girls whose insecurity makes them suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa
- Think all the disabled people who cannot even get out of their houses due to the way that society looks at them
- Think of all other people who are being judged just because they are different.
And then I urge you to accept the fact that the society that we live in is engrossed with diversity and that even identical twins are very different so there is no way we can all be the same. The differences in our society are inevitable, so instead of criticizing the differences that don’t appeal to you, I urge you to commend and celebrate those differences. You will save the world if you do that. Asante!
www.unitedworldwide.co