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Positive Attitude
Young women today are intimately aware of the problems facing our world: war and violence, environmental degradation, HIV/AIDS, and poverty.
But instead of complaining or getting depressed about things, they’re actively seeking solutions. Armed with new resources, creativity and a positive attitude, they are motivated and determined to create change.
Be inspired by Prudence Maybele's story about "Positive Women" who struggle together to challenge negative perceptions of HIV-positive women in Africa.
Turn dreams into action like Mayerly Sánchez. In her essay “The Dream of Creating a Better Country" as she relives her campaign to make Colombian politicians listen to the voices of the country's youth.
Challenge uncertainty with Manal Al-Dowayan's powerful photograph "Pointing to the Future." which brings together diverse Saudi Arabian women to take control of their own future.
How are you creating positive change?
Join the conversation!
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Your stories, music, films and images overwhelmingly speak of a generation of women persevering in the face of adversity. The positive way in which many of you approach life has a profound effect, creating new opportunities, changing the way governments are run and inspiring us all to not give up hope.
Through this exhibit, we have explored personal, political and global hardships that we all face on a daily basis. None of us are immune to the effects of disease, war, and a deteriorating planet. But your stories and artwork have taught us that, from time to time, the most dire situations can be overcome through the simplest of acts; harnessing a positive attitude.
What hardships have you overcome through the power of positive thinking?
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Posted on Monday, November 19, 2007 11:06 PM
I don’t think that this generation of women is any more positive than our mothers’ or our grandmothers’. Contemplating my generation of women in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, I am actually of the opinion that our generation of women is comparably less positive. That does not mean that I believe that young women in Croatia and BiH are apathetic and passive, on the contrary; I simply believe that we are, unfortunately, less enthusiastic and our step less bouncy and buoyant.
My grandmother, who is 83-years-old, was 15 when the World War II broke out. That was a terrible war, and particularly so in the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. People lived in unimaginable fear: Every type of solder that walked the European continent could and did descend on them at any given time. On odd days it was the Germans and the Italians in their planes that circled the Croatian krs “like birds.” On even days it was either ustashe or cetniks, hungry for blood. They were also at the whim of the partisans who, both hungry and angry, would strike down all “enemy collaborators.”
Well, my aging grandmother remembers every detail of it: the planes overhead, her mother hit and loosing her leg, bleeding to death as the pigs squealed deafeningly in their pen. She remembers hiding in caves, mothers holding their babes’ mouths shut so they would not cry and reveal their hiding-place, terrified men threatening to kill them both if either made a sound. She remembers painting her face black, as she calls it, to hide her beauty from the ravaging troops; and hunger, she remembers terrible hunger.
Nevertheless, her joy is limitless, more than 60 years later, when she remembers the energy of the liberation; the joy of Yugoslavia; the joy of working on a railroad in a distant town she had never heard of before, building bratstvo i jedinstvo from scratch. They sang songs as they built that railroad, and she remembers every single word of every single song. They all dreamed of a better world, a more perfect world. Their terrible past could not taint their rosy future, and they were elated, spirited, and yes, positive.
I feel like my generation of women has never felt an energy as that—a positive energy that races through all bodies all at the same time; an energy that surges through fingers on your hands and makes you itch for another hand to hold in your own, thousands of hands holding one another, convinced of a better tomorrow.
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Posted on Monday, November 19, 2007 5:04 PM
Thank you for your responses. When we say "positive attitude" we aren't referring to a generation of women that looks at the world through a rose-colored lens.
Our generation of women see the problems around them and actively seek solutions. They embrace a can-do-approach to life.
But what do you think? Did our mother's and grandmother's generations approach life in a similar way? |
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Posted on Monday, November 19, 2007 5:04 PM
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