PEACE AND RIGHTS: with Amandine Roche
Shrika Janakiraman is a 14-year-old high-schooler aspiring to give a voice to those hidden thoughts. She is on a journey, trying to figure out her ambition, and purpose, and peculiarly also enjoys tutoring middle schoolers secretly.
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Personally, I would say that peacebuilding and human rights are what destroyed racist, classist and sexist stereotypes. We happily live in a more united world now because of the efforts put in by others who felt for the welfare of the future generation. One of those brilliant people is Amandine Roche, a Human Rights lawyer.
She would have to be one of the bravest women I have heard of, and rightfully so. In September 2001, she was invited by the Taliban to Afghanistan! The most impressive thing is, that she went! Her job there was to give confidence to women and make them courageous enough to stand up for themselves — for them to finally do what they wanted to. Not everyone who was fortunate enough to meet the 14th Dalai Lama (the spiritual leader of Tibet) as a teenager can accomplish nearly as much as her. Amandine has traveled and worked in more than 80 countries! She has promoted non-violence and peace almost her whole life.
Peace. Caught in the middle of our tedious monotonous routines, we forget how much value it holds. Peace is sensitive. It is so very sensitive that a slight imbalance can wreak havoc. In a global pandemic such as now, it’s truly depressing how many people are suffering. Many, whose main jobs were being manual labor, are now starving. This, hard enough as it is, comes along with the threat of a deadly virus. Even though there are people helping those in need, the number is drastically low when compared to the affected. Apart from taking measures, there is one more thing we lack that may have an immensely positive effect on our situation — peace.
In a previous video I saw of her when asked what would bring changes in the attitudes and actions of people in order to reflect peace to the outer world, Roche smartly replied, “You can’t bring outer peace if there is no inner peace.” She is correct, how are we going to help others if we ourselves aren’t calm? We see what we are and what we see now, is polluted streets, suffocated trees and struggling people — all in all, a barely surviving planet. Don’t you think it would be of great use if we tried our best to get rid of problems that we cause? Is the extra baggage really necessary?
It takes a massive amount of effort to create big change but making the little ones are always up to us. I am inspired by Amandine and I will do whatever I can, to get the word out.
Did you know? The upcoming GLOW Heartfulness Webinar by Amandine Roche interestingly is about “Peace & Prejudice”. It will be webcast LIVE on Youtube and Facebook.
Hopefully one day, I will be able to say that my life changed after I wrote an article about the great Amandine Roche!
