On Thursday the 10th of October, WSO hosted the TEDx Youth event – an event everyone had heard of since September. Through a great deal of tenacity, drive and teamwork, the event turned out to be a great success! Young creative minds stormed the stage with their brilliant thoughts and truly showed everyone that night of how their ideas and lessons could spark curiosity and change a life.
Hosted by Shizah Kashif, organized by the Yr13 students and made possible by the WSO faculty, the event was quite special to all those that participated. Our eight wonderful speakers were Vedank, Soneni, Shayaan, Asli, Anoushka, Anmol and guest speakers Afra and Mashal who spoke about dealing with loss, the power of words, shared struggles, poetry and even attempted to redefine the word “smart”. It is safe to say that the attendees went home with a new outlook on WSO students.
Interview summaries
Masha Aqwal:
Masha Aqwal is the Chief Operational Officer and Co-Founder at the Tempest: a site which gives a voice to those who need it. She was a guest speaker at Tedx Youth @ WSO and was kind enough to spare a few minutes to discuss certain topics and provide her insightful opinions. When asked about avenues like Tedx Youth and its role in media, she maintains that it is important. She raises how we keep seeing the same faces providing the same opinions all over media, and the most important thing for growth is to provide multitudinous perspectives from various societal groups. She also discussed with us representation and diversity. Outlining that diversity is not simply just about having people from various groups, true diversity comes from differences in opinion and perspective. Having 10 people from various social groups providing the same perspective is in actuality less diverse than having 10 people from the same group providing 10 different opinions. Another important aspect of diversity she mentions is the role of opportunity. Many valuable voices aren’t heard due to both known and unknown biases and this is a massive opportunity cost for media. While it is difficult to eradicate these biases completely, Mashal insists that it is imperative for us to firstly acknowledge the existence of these biases, and then have a continuous conversation about them; this is what would truly help improve representation in media. She advises students to never stop expressing themselves, no matter what outlet they’re comfortable with. There are always avenues for every person to express their voice, no matter how alone they feel. She encourages everyone to find this avenue for them and voice their opinion and find their community.
Afra Atiq:
Afra Atiq is an Emirati spoken word artist, scholar, travelling poet and mentor. She too was a guest speaker at Tedx Youth @WSO, where she recited two of her powerful spoken word pieces. Like Mashal, she insists that everyone will find the avenue to express their thoughts and feelings. And if they don’t find one, she encourages them to create one for themselves, and those likeminded. Inspiration was discussed heavily as it’s something very prevalent in Art and something Afra utilizes a lot. She clears a misconception about inspiration: it doesn’t just come to you, you have to find inspiration. Regardless of what field you’re in, inspiration can be found anywhere, from books to music to language to even just conversations with people. However, inspiration doesn’t work unless you do. You have to work hard in synergy with the inspiration you find to truly create meaningful art. A lot of the power of Afra’s poetry comes from her raw, unapologetic emotion and self expression. This is why her words reverberated in the minds of everyone who heard her. However, this isn’t easy. For many of us, expressing ourselves honestly, especially on such a massive scale, is incredibly nerve wracking. Afra reminds us that the most important thing is the validity of our voice. Regardless of the medium we express ourselves in, everything we feel is valid. We have a responsibility to ourselves, a responsibility to our craft, and a responsibility to the community to speak with strength and candour and we, like her, should take this responsibility very seriously. She understands that it is frightening to be vulnerable and pour your heart and soul into your work, but that is what art is, and that’s what makes it beautiful. And if we don’t share our story, someone else will. Except they don’t do it right. So we owe it to ourselves to express ourselves honestly and fully.
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