My First Month Update at ALA
An Essay by Kater El Nada Helali
‘https://medium.com/@nadahlali/my-first-month-update-at-ala-a176e03c7cca
This reflection won’t be talking about any of the superficial things a first month feedback at a new institution usually has. This is about an idea that is worth sharing.
It was just after lunch when the whole Omang* class gathered at the soccer field just like our two teachers required before the break. We’d been asked to stand in a circle so that we could play some kind of a game:
One of the teachers would read us a text while we were closing our eyes and “standing” in a squat position. The other one would go around the circle and designate students to rise up, open their eyes or move however they liked. So the more times the teacher designated me by touching my shoulder, the more freedom I would have during the exercise.
The game started and the teacher was reading something about imagining whether or not we would feel unlucky if we were prohibited from education, climbing chairs next to a classroom window hoping to catch some of the knowledge we were so thirsty for.
At first, I was focusing on what I was listening to, but that didn’t last long since my legs started to hurt as I was standing in that weird squat position. Fortunately enough, the teacher passed next to me and designated me to stand straight. That was the first touch. The suffering was finally over, and I could focus once again on listening. Few moments later, she touched me again and I was allowed to open my eyes: I wasn’t the only one to be released. There were people who had the complete freedom to move and I noticed that easily since some of them were lying on the grass, resting from the painful squats.
They were lucky enough to be touched three times by the teacher. But there were also people who weren’t touched at all; people who were still battling with pain until the end of the exercise, when the teacher finished reading the text.
We later discovered that the ones who had been allowed to move as desired could have just touched the others who were still struggling in order to set them free! After all, no one said we should only be designated by a teacher. We just assumed that because we were not expecting ourselves to interfere, nor did we actually think about a way to end our peers’ continuous suffering. How did we miss this? How could we not think of that? Would we have any chance to change what just happened? What is more disturbing is that the text we were listening to, was about empathy as a strength.
This is actually a metaphor about the fact that in this life, every single one of us has been “touched three times”. We tend to make ourselves believe that we cannot help others as we are not allowed to do so. However, we shouldn’t even wait for permission to share our blessings because we will simply never have that permission.
Less than a week after the exercise, we were told that the whole class would be sent to a care center in an underprivileged neighbourhood in Johannesburg, where we would volunteer to help children. We weren’t exactly excited about the program until our teacher said something — something that could not be said in a 30-minute motivational YouTube video or a four-page Mother Teresa speech. It didn’t take our teacher more than 10 seconds to exponentially boost our enthusiasm towards volunteering.
“Now remember that you have been touched three times,” she said. “This is your chance to touch others.”
Omang: Foundations in Entrepreneurial Leadership and African Identity. A course that has been developed especially for the African Leadership Academy students.
“I’ve always found writing a chance for me to immortalise my thoughts. To put them aside, come back to them and polish what I no longer agree with is an opportunity for me to grow.”
Kater Ennada Helali is a 19 years old student from the ALA Class of 2017. Email her at nada.tunisia@gmail.com.
