Miami University

For over thirty years now, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have been living to defeat death. While the Dirty War of Argentina is today just a memory, the Mothers gather every week for “Jueves en la Plaza.” They walk for thirty minutes around the plaza in front of the Casa Rosada. The plaza today has become one of the only original plazas in the world where people still gather to get their voices heard; it’s the political center of Argentina. However, when the mothers started their weekly walk, it wasn’t this way.

The World Health Organization states “major depression is now the leading cause of disability globally and ranks fourth in the ten leading causes of the global burden of disease” (World Health Report, 2001). Developing countries, especially those burdened with disease and caught in violent conflict are the ones suffering the most. “Today, some 450 million people suffer from a mental or behavioral disorder, yet only a small minority of them receive even the most basic treatment” (World Health Report, 2001).

While marching in a gay pride parade in Paris, France, I took this picture of a few strangers who captured my heart. My participation in this event was part of my experience in the International Health Study Abroad program provided by the Department of Kinesiology and Health at Miami University. Look at the faces of these people. Could you look any of them in the eye and tell them that they do not deserve to be treated as human beings? Could you say that they do not deserve the same rights you enjoy?

I took this photograph in Northern Ireland in summer 2007 during my Undergraduate Summer Scholars project. This homeless man was sitting outside of a grocery store, carrying all of his worldly possessions with him. He played a haunting song on his flute that people walking by pointedly ignored. Though no human stopped to help him, he had one friend—a loyal dog who loved him and kept him warm. I deliberately included the garbage can in this picture because in this moment I realized that both here and abroad, the homeless are often treated like trash.

On the surface this is just another cheap prayer card, such as you could find in churches and Christian shops around the world. But this particular card is more than that. It is one man’s cry for help and for me a life changing moment.

Todo se ha trasmutado siempre en capital europeo o, más tarde, norteamericano, y como tal se ha acumulado y se acumula en los lejanos centros de poder. Todo: la tierra, sus frutos y sus profundidades ricas en minerales, los hombres y su capacidad de trabajo y de consumo, los recursos naturales y los recursos humanos. El modo de producción y la estructura de clases de cada lugar han sido sucesivamente determinados, desde fuera, por su incorporación al engranaje universal del capitalismo.
Es América Latina, la región de las venas abiertas.
Eduardo Galeano (Galeano 2)

"The biggest cruelty we face is invisibility, the feeling that we don't exist.” Benedita da Silva

The Genocide That Keeps on Giving
By Jennifer Garitson

In the spring of 1994, our country, along with every other country in the world, turned a blind eye to what may be the most egregious act of our lifetime. In a small country in the middle of Africa hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered in an attempt to eradicate a certain ethnicity. This genocide was allowed to continue despite the pleas from the Rwandan people for help. In just over three months, an estimated one million people were systematically hunted down and murdered (Eyewitness 74).

Sometimes the only thing you can do for people is talk to them.

Each summer, the streets of Paris are lined with over one million people who come from all over the area to watch the La Fierté parade. The parade does not celebrate a holiday, or a military victory though; the event champions the rights of those who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, and is attended by individuals from all ages and walks of life. The parade lasts for hours, and the excitement and enthusiasm of the crowd gives hope to individuals who support GLBTQ rights around the world.