Image from Weebly.com Write about a story from the Girl Rising film that was memorable to you.
I found the story of Wadley to be joyful, sad, and inspiring all at once. How she dreamed of a carefree life frolicking in the wildflowers but woke up to study her readings. How she generously brought food to share with a classmate who recently lost her father. She was so creative and loved to write of the wildflowers from her dreams, but her simple life was forever changed by the 2010 earthquake and now she wonders the tent encampment dreaming of simpler times when she could, once again, dance through the wildflowers. I learned so much from her story, the most profound being empathy and compassion. I have heard of the earth quake that devastated Haiti back in 2010, and it has been easy for me to look at it from a public health standpoint analyzing how the lack of adequate infrastructure, reliable electricity and roads for easy access to rural communities magnified the devastation (Pallardy, 2020). But I have never taken the time to look at this tragedy through the eyes of those who lived through it, especially the young girls. These factors greatly impacted the life trajectory of this child as she no longer has a home of her own and her mother can no longer afford to send her to school. It makes me wonder how different her life would be if Haiti was supported in the same way as the Dominican Republic? Could we even go as far as to say that the devastation this young girl faced was due to our global social ecological factors dictating how we support countries like Haiti? Though Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same land, the Dominican is a much wealthier country with a stable government that has more funding for natural disasters such as these (Park, 2016).With Haiti being the poorest country in the western hemisphere, should other economically stable countries be required to help these people during a crisis? Or better yet, help them develop a nation that is better equipped to handle these natural disasters on their own? How would this impact the lives of woman and young girls in Haiti who have been classified as some of the most vulnerable people in the world? There are many social ecological factors that contribute to the devastation Wadley has lived through, many of them being at the political and global scale. Who’s responsible for shifting the scales in favor of children such as Wadley and how can we support her and other young girls in Haiti whom suffering can be traced back to these global social ecological factors?
As I have previously mentioned, there is a wide range of social ecological factors that impact woman, some of them being on a global scale, and some of them being specific to individual communities. Global social ecological factors that impact woman in impoverished countries include, access to health care, education and equal rights in the workplace. Countries such as Haiti are uncapable of providing these resources for Haitian woman, and even if they were, would they make the effort to make these things a priority? This is where I believe it is the responsibility of wealthy countries to help improve the quality of life in these poor nations, and that starts with improving the lives of woman. As mentioned by Dr. David Allen boys and men are healthier in communities with healthy woman (David, n.d.). It is in the best interest of these underprivileged countries and those who support them to ensure health, education, and equal rights to woman to ensure a bright future for all.
By: Haley Barton
Pallardy, R. (2020, January 5). 2010 Haiti earthquake. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/2010-Haiti-earthquake
Park, M. (2016, October 11). Two countries, one island, life-and-death differences. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/11/americas/haiti-dominican-republic-visual-explainer/index.html
David, A. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j_MCYknSqQ&feature=emb_logo
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