Project Third World: June 2015

P T WPROJECT THIRD WORLD

HEALTH|EDUCATION|WORLD|CHARITY

Feature StOryProfessor MunjedAl Muderis Orthopaedic Surgeon & Leading Pioneer

In the Development of Prosthetic Limbs

VOLUME 3 EDITION 3 June 2015

JUNE 2015

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Contents Racism

Addressing the issues of racism in sport and society.

EditorialOn progress and perfection. 04

182430424653646772

Immunisation StatusA dose of knowledge.

Healthy TravellingStaying tip-top as you circle the globe.

PurityWho am I?

Plight of the RefugeesThe war in Syria.

Giving our BestA review on the benefits of giving and the exploration of altruism.

MeatDo we need it?

Food of the GodsTheobroma...Cacao Beans.

Feature StoryProfessor Munjed Al Muderis.

As 2015 looms into the business quarter of the year, it feels as though the world has slowed down its raging pace. We ourselves have slowed the development of our projects, and will use the upcoming months to review and develop Project Third World internally.

During this time, we will give our supporters and followers time to also review our own work and gain further insight into the growing concerns and issues surround our globe. In this issue of PTW, our Project Manager in Kenya has given her experiences as a volunteer for Project Third World, along with a glimpse at what has brought her to the Project.

From our supporters, the most popular request has been to initiate a project on Australia’s Christmas Island, and help improve the circumstances of many future-Australians. Like all new projects, Project Third World spends extensive periods of time researching before adopting locations to support. As an introduction to this new project, Associate Professor Munjed Al Muderis shared his inspiring Rise-And-Fall, and Rise-Again story of being a refugee and experiencing the harsh realities of Australia’s detention facilities; an insight which touched on some of the many complexities and difficulties which Project Third World will have to address and factor for before such a project can be initiated.

EditorialOn Progress and Perfection

PROJECT THIRD WORLD 5

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Whilst the possibilities of new projects are dawning within Project Third World, it seems as though darkness is shadowing the globe with recent events. In the past few weeks, we have witnessed one of the most destructive natural disasters in recent years in Nepal, where an earthquake has reportedly exceeded a death toll of 8,000, along with almost 20,000 injured. For the surviving people of Nepal, their lives have all taken a harsh and vast step back from the prospering progress which they have made in recent years.

Amidst the fear that extremists have brought to Australia is the topic of race and culture. With a global media fuelling the extremist issue as a culturally and religiously-rooted issue, pockets of Australian citizens began rallying in what was known as the ‘Reclaim Australia Rallies” around the country. As a group presenting as a political group with their own views and values, Reclaim Australia’s Rallies were primarily held against people living in Australia with a Muslim background. Aside of the multi-layered irony of any group marching to the notion of ‘reclaiming

Australia’, the stance fuelled growing tensions in a country which, according to Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection, has almost 70% of its refugees coming from predominantly Muslim countries. This of course should be of no surprise to anyone, who may have noticed the plight of countries such as Syria and Iraq.

Perhaps the biggest step back in racial unity has been none other than the riots of Baltimore. As a country which has struggled to overcome its racial differences since the time of European Settlers, America’s history of prejudice and discrimination on the basis of race has been a very black mark on the country’s legacy. For centuries, the European-devised America made little-to-no advancements in equality or peace amongst its varying societies and cultures, and was not until the 1960’s that significant progress was made in the often self-proclaimed “greatest country on earth”; Martin Luther King Jr was the first realistic hope of a united and peaceful America, that would accept people from all walks of life, and all colours of skin.


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The light at the end of America’s dark tunnel was diffused on April 4th 1968, when America’s symbol of hope, peace, and equality was assassinated. With the assassination of Martin Luther King, much of the progress made towards equality quickly spiralled back down the dark tunnel America was all too used to, and sparked an old fire fuelled with hatred, violence, separation and unrest throughout the city of Baltimore, and across the country.

Fifty years later, the country seems to have finally overcome their culture of racism when Barrack Obama was elected as the first African-American President of the United States of America. It was to be a proud moment for America, who moved for change and progress. Finally, America was to live the dream that Martin Luther King once proclaimed to the nation; or was this a false symbol of hope?

DREAM


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After a string of arrests and accusations of race-crimes and racially-motivated deaths in 2014 and 2015, including the Ferguson incident, the death of Freddie Gray seemed the tipping point for America’s racially-struggling society. Freddie Gray was arrested on April 12th 2015 with weapons charges. CNN witness reports suggest Freddie gave up without the use of

force and no force was laid against him in the arrest. Mr Gray was placed inside a police van able-bodied, only to be later taken out of the van unresponsive. It was reported that Mr Gray could be heard screaming when entering the van, and that he had severe spinal cord injuries when exiting the van that led to his death seven days later.

For once, American media managed to refrain from depicting the issue simply as a fully-fledged issue of racism, and rather, portrayed the issue as one of law and authority too; nonetheless, the tragedy of Freddie Gray has been met with common insinuating undercurrents of prejudice and racism. With over 50 years since the

Baltimore riots following the death of Martin Luther King, the media was once again flourished with images of Baltimore riots in 2015 with uncanny resemblance to its predecessor. Once again America, too-often portrayed as the ‘perfect’ country, reminded the world of how misleading this title is.

EDITORIAL8

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The world may seems rather depressing at present, and recent outbursts of racism have not helped. This leads us to ask the question: Is racism ending? More-so, is it possible to end racism? For racism to end, it would require a model of perfection from society that the world has not seen. Is this model of perfection at all possible to obtain? To understand if this is possible, we will have to take a few steps back and understand what sits in the reality of perfection, and whether or not this reality can be met for racism.

Striving for perfection is perhaps one of the most common characteristics amongst humans. At school, children are raised to attain the highest possible grade or mark; hence, a perfect score. In many sporting codes, competitors are often scrutinized for their ability to play flawlessly; match statistics

will measure individual performers, or a team’s percentage of accurate passes made, with the mark aimed at 100%. In diving, competitors are given a score out of 10, with competitors aiming for a perfect score of 10. At work, businesses and employers will often strive to have a supply-and-demand equilibrium in perfect balance. In music, the notion of a perfectly played song is matched with the basis that the song is played in exactly rhythm, with each note played perfectly at the perfect pitch and with the perfect volume.

As an isolated concept, striving for perfection is not detrimental; rather, it can sometimes be a necessity, such as in surgery. Perfection can in itself promote progression. The drive to obtain a score of 100% on an exam, a perfect score, can urge a child to study harder, learn more and develop learning methods.

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Yet, this aim of perfection vis-à-vis 100% is rendered obsolete when projected outside this scenario. To the world, an expanding and spontaneous system, perfection on an individual exam becomes a negligible factor from a multitude of others. Time devoted to perfection on one exam may hinder other attributes including: social skills of communication, interacting and engaging with other human beings, coordination and physical skillsets, health, general knowledge, worldly understanding and more. The child may achieve perfection within the isolated context of the exam, however in the context of the world, there will always be an infinite range of other scenarios that would deem the child imperfect. Although elusive, the hypothetical exemplifies one fall-short of perfection, which is quite simply that perfection is, and will always be a negligible occurrence.

The use of mathematics and statistics can often mislead individuals to believe that perfection is quantifiable and potentially objective in its nature. In the sport of Gymnastics, some of the world’s best competitors may achieve a score of 10, id est, a perfect score. What constitutes a perfect routine? How can the judge be perfectly certain that the Gymnast’s body was perfectly contorted into the right position and held for exactly the right amount of time? The landing at the end of a routine, posture and expressions are also reference-points in assessing the quality of a gymnastic routine. The most pressing question: had a different judge,

or set of judges been marking, would the same perfect score occur? In reality, every score is ultimately a comparison of the gymnastic routine to what the judges perceive as a perfect routine. A score of 5 out of 10 is simply the judge’s impression that the routine was half the quality of a perfect routine. Thus, we discover that perfection may be subjective.

Perfection itself suggests that which is perfect cannot be improved, and thereby renders any potential room for improvement. A diver with a perfect score of 10 suggests that it is impossible to improve on the dive, and that the diver has reached the pinnacle of possible diving abilities; thus, a new understanding of perfection follows: that perfection imposes a limit of what is possible. Yet, commentary of Olympics and other diving events would suggest continuous improvement and standards over the many years which the sport has been running.

Perfection is also an absolute. Black-and-white. By its own definition, perfection can only be one value, entity, vision or scenario at any one time. 100% is an absolute amount, 10-out-of-10 is an absolute score, and anything that deviates from this, whether that be 98.9 or 9.9, can only be considered as imperfect. Perfection therefore has characteristics of being solely exclusive to a singularity. The story of Goldilocks also shows that within a spectrum of extremes, perfection is singular.


Absolutes in their own nature are extremes of life. Even extremist organisations such as ISIS act on this model- either follow their intended way-of-life ‘perfectly’, or ‘absolutely’ as the see fit, or anything else even slightly different is imperfect and should be killed or destroyed. To have an absolute entails that no room-for-error or difference can exist and that any differences at all from that which is ‘perfect’, the absolute, is deemed imperfect; conjuring a new reality of perfection: it is not practical in an imperfect world which requires room-for-error and is full of differences.

Perfection can be singular, exclusive, subjective, limiting, impractical and negligible; all descriptions to suggest perfection is the inverse of its own definition- imperfection. It is not unreasonable to assume a general consensus of humans would suggest that perfection does not exist in people or society; yet it is apparent that humans intentionally or unintentionally strive towards, and expect, what they perceive as a perfect world.

This growing mentality of striving and expecting perfection is perhaps reflected in the intention of looking for the ‘perfect life partner’, the perfect set of friends or community to which to belong, and a perception of the perfect life worth living. Envisioning perfection itself is not an issue. The issue resides in expecting or believing perfection to be a reality, and such may be the case with how we approach social issues. In the case of racism, those who embody racist beliefs, along with those who are outraged by any existence of racism, could simply be struggling with the same battle: to accept an imperfect world

In consideration of those genuinely convinced that racist belief-sets are reasonable, it is important to outline why any racial vilification or racial mentality against and person or group is flawed and irrational. The concept of a ‘perfect’ race is necessary to rationalise racism which suggests: a given race of humans might be perfect, or at very least, closer to perfection than all others.


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As stated above, perfection is an absolute. A perfect race requires the absolute conditions of a specific skin tone and complexion, specific set of cultural views and beliefs, specific linguistic patterns, and more. Any deviation from this, at all, would deem the individual’s race different from that which is perfect.

Any existence of a perfect ‘race’ could only be embodied by a single individual throughout all of human history; past, present and future. As culture, history, language and skin complexions have changed through time, and as every individual will be accustomed to varying degrees of alterations in their family or community’s culture, an absolute perfect race is impossible to exceed existence in more than one individual. As perfection is a singularity, no groups of individuals could ever be deemed perfect as everyone would be different from one another in some way.

As biology dictates, no two humans will ever be absolutely the same in looks, including identical twins, nor will two humans ever be absolutely the same in mentality, as every experience and alteration in life will construct a different thought process for that individual. Whilst perfection is an absolute, a community of individuals is a large spectrum with gradients and differences. Herein lies the true rationale for why racism is invalid: for racism requires every individual within a group to be exact clones of one another.

If no race is perfect, then this derives a reality that all races of humans have flaws and renders this possible mentality of racism unsubstantial.


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The second rationale for racism is that there is no perfect race, however, any one race may be superior to another. Much like judging a gymnast or a diver, how does one define or measure superiority? Perfection, as noted, is also subjective, deriving the notion that any racial vilification made under this context is opinion and not fact. Thus, racism is not a valid argument. Such a rationale can be compared to suggesting that a blue hat ‘is better’ than a red hat.

Even if there was a particular trait which one would isolate, and it were possible to measure this trait fairly, it would again be a negligible trait to measure the merit of an entire individual or group. As stated, the occurrence of 100%, such as on a single exam, or anything else in life, is a negligible occurrence compared to all the infinite other factors in life. Similarly, the occurrence of a single scenario of superiority, or even one-hundred scenarios of superiority are negligible as there will be an infinite more scenarios in which there is no superiority, and could inadvertently expose an inferiority.

Objectively and rationally, there is no outstanding superior race on earth throughout history or today; nor is there a perfect race. As such, any such model of racism can immediately be rendered irrational. Another concern brought about with racism is distrust, along with a lack of education resulting in a fear of the unknown. The ‘Reclaim Australia’ Rallies displayed this nature. Just as one occurrence of perfection is negligible, so too is creating fear on the basis of one difference or one point of conflict.

Not only is there an infinite number of similarities between different races, but there is an infinite number of differences between people within the same race- hence why no individual community or country has ever agreed on one political party or belief system or come to agreement on all matter unanimously.

'Perfecto?no sucha thinga!!'


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To isolate a particular difference or similarity is to undermine the expansive, continuous and spontaneous nature of the world and its inhabitants.

Vocalising against racism is certainly a noble and necessary part of social development if we are to unite the world; however, in recent times, this stance against racism could be admirable, yet a mistaken understanding for the cause. In the wake of events such as the Reclaim Australia Rally, we witnessed extreme reactions emerging from those outraged by racism.

Violent acts of racism should certainly be punished and stopped as much as possible, though not for the fact that it is racism, but simply because it is an act of violence. When an incidence involving racism and violence is reported by the media, there is a strong tendency for the media to emphasise the racial elements of the issue and passively review the act

of violence itself. Whilst the Baltimore Riots were sparked from the alleged accusations of violence racism, multiple other individuals around America were undoubtedly being affected by domestic violence, gang-related violence, alcohol-related violence, crime-violence and more; yet these other issues surrounding violence did not result in a reported $20 million damage cost from the actions of the outraged and a military action to calm the outraged.

Perhaps the issue is not racism itself then, but simply how we tackle racism in society, and how we approach racism. Much like the mentality of some racists, anti-racists may too be sinking into an unrealistic expectation of perfection in their own way. Whilst people might feel frustrated or emotionally hurt by racist vilifications to or from their own race, it is again important to remember that perfection is an irrational expectation.

Baltimore Riots


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Perhaps it is part of the human condition, but it is very unlikely that racism will be irradiated from society, as this in itself would be an unobtainable absolute or a subjective viewpoint, like racism itself.

Thus, when reports of racial vilification are released, or should an individual be a direct victim of racial vilification, it is important to remember that racism is simply another imperfection in a world of imperfection. It is important to remember that the attack does not truly represent any whole race, nor does the one ranting racial abuse represent any whole race.

The final question that remains: Are things getting better or worse? How do we know? The Baltimore riots might be déjà vu for the history books, but are things just as bad as they were at the time of Martin Luther King Jr? Absolutely not. It does not take much to see how far society has come in understanding and uniting with those from differing races, and how much racism is ceasing. Not long ago, and within the lifespan of those alive today, apartheid was deeply rooted in societies around the world, along with an acceptance and approval for racism. By today, we have had a South African President who himself was native to the country, and we have also had a democratically elected African-American President of the United States of America.


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These are all symbolic of how society as a whole has changed their view on race over time. Today, even a single act of racism is shunned by media outlets and celebrities around the world and no-one would stop to think or become alarmed at how many people from different races, backgrounds, faiths and cultures are interacting harmoniously at school, university, in the workplace, in restaurants, on the sporting fields and most significantly, on the internet. In order to see how things are, it is important

to strive for progress rather than perfection. Unlike perfection, progress is a far more objective measure, as it simply takes the single variable, such as an individual or group, and compares it to itself over time.

Whilst perfection is often a subjective judgement, progress is often an objective action; it is through action and an objective approach that racism will see a rapid decline. This action and objective approach will come through rational thinking, cooperation and education.

Whilst perfection has a set limits, there is no set limit to how far humans can progress. Whilst remaining in a state of ‘perfection’ would hinder change from occurring, through progress, the world can go further, and eventually, go further than what was once thought to be the highest possible achievement, and change how we perceive and interact with the world and its inhabitants.

There is still much room for improvement in society; there always has been, and there always will be. Often progress and development can seem stagnant and very slow from an individual perspective, especially if the individual has only lived for 20 years or so, and a single event or incident can consume thought, leading to a closed understanding of reality.

To overcome this, it is important to reflect on history as a whole, individuals as a whole, and society as a whole, and see in the vast expanse of our world, just what the reality is for racism, and the human species in general. Even 10 racial incidents do not compare with the millions-upon-millions of harmonious interactions with people from different races across the planet on a daily basis. This would never

have been thought possible pre-1940 in many societies around the world.

Although this article may be confusing and hard to follow, the key note to take is simply to strive for progress rather than perfection in all aspects of life- and is one of Project Third World’s primary dogmas; but in the contexts of recent issues, society too should strive for progress rather than perfection including the contexts of racism. It is important to therefore put education, in its broadest sense, at the forefront of ending racism and reducing the effect racism has on individuals. As demonstrated, most of the education in regards to racism within this article was not directly about racism, but rather, how we think about these topics.

Education evidently will be the driving force, means and mechanism by which we improve on society and humanities ability to unite and cooperate; but it may also be education that is able to teach people to see past racial vilification that comes towards them, and understand why it occurs, and liberate individuals from being affected by racial vilification, and in turn, progress our society on both fronts to a more unified and more peaceful world. ■


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I head into a coffee shop, I’m almost 23 years old now – I better purchase the “Herald Sun” Newspaper. Who pays $2.99 for an over glorified newspaper? I do. I get too distracted trying to read relevant news on my computer or

[ MASS NOUN ]1. Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior

phone. I’m “old school”, I learn more that way. Who am I kidding, even the “Herald Sun” bores me a little. I’m flicking through the paper, trying to look like I have interest in anything but the sport section.


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“Why is the sport section at the back?” I ask myself. 35 seconds pass & I’ve almost read the whole paper; pretty quick huh? Why didn’t I just start from the back? Not long now and I’ll get to see that photo of Steven Gerrard celebrating the goal he scored! Bang! It hits me: ‘RACISM’. The headline is massive. Who wouldn’t stop and read when the racist card is played? “Not again”, I think, “please not in Melbourne”. I’ve managed to flick through so far that the “Racism” headline is connected to the sport. I’ve got a bit of reading to do.

Racism in everyday life is something that disappoints me more than anything; racism in sport makes my blood boil. I continue to read, disappointed that these things still take place in modern society and in the city I was raised.

Muslims seem to be targeted of late. An Australian man assaulted another Australian man who defended three Muslim women on a Melbourne train recently. Sometimes humans think in logics of: if one late night kebab makes you sick, so will the kebab the following week. False. ISIS is an extreme terrorist group. I repeat, ISIS is an extreme terrorist group. We shouldn’t generalize and we should know the difference. By 2015 – we should know the difference.

Thinking too simply can be the subject of other issues, such as, you guessed it – Racism in Sport. These public events are broadcasted to the world. As we all

know racism is unacceptable in society, and perhaps it is much less acceptable from our childhood heroes and sporting athletes.

Racism in sport has been evident across the globe for years. In 2006, Dean Jones a former Australian cricketer was sacked from the commentary box after referring to South African cricketer Hashim Amla as a ‘terrorist.’ 9 years on, racism in sport is still ever present with the effects on the victims still the same.

Adam Goodes : Victim of RacismSydney Football Club

RACISM20

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In Australia, the national game of AFL was struck with that dreaded “R” word in 2013. A match between Sydney and Collingwood saw footballer Adam Goodes referred to as an “ape” by a 13 year old female supporter. Goodes pointed the young girl out, shamed her in front of a full stadium and later received an apology.

Was Goodes’ reaction to the racial slur a little over-the-top? Is being referred to as an ape a racial remark? Goodes responded, "When I saw it was a young girl, I was just like 'really?'. I was just like 'how could that happen?' This week (indigenous week) is a celebration of our people, our culture…It's not her fault. Unfortunately it's what she hears, it's the environment she's grown up in that makes her think it's OK to call people names…. She would have no idea how it makes someone feel, calling someone an ape. She's 13, she's uneducated. If she wants to pick up the phone and apologise, I'll take that call.

Similarly, on the other side of the world, Mario Balotelli from the English Premier League team Manchester City threatened to walk off the pitch if he was to be racially abused at the Euro 2012 Football tournament, and even added he would “kill” anyone who dared to throw a banana at him in the street, following football fans depicting Balotelli of being an ape for his race.

The racial remark itself isn’t always what hurts the victim the most; it’s the situation and the belief that after so much education and awareness of the problem, racism still occurs. Goodes felt that part of the disappointment was due to shock of a young girl having the confidence and audacity to racially discriminate. He believed society knew better. Balotelli stated “Racism is unacceptable to me, I cannot bear it. We are in 2012, it can't happen”. Goodes later confessed that it’s not the first time on a footy field he’s been referred to as a monkey or an ape.


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With so much pain caused to Mario Balotelli and Adam Goodes and his Indigenous community, we must explore how long has racism been around in our sport. Are we hearing more about it now due to the stance victims are taking and saying?

Its no secret racism still exists in modern society, on-and-off the sporting field. It’s an ongoing issue. Even today, I opened the Age Newspaper, this time on my iPhone and saw a heavy title screaming ‘Racism.’ I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes. “Not again” I thought. I had a moment of clarity though and pondered: since racism is always such a hot topic in our newspapers and mainstream media, do victims go looking for racist taunts? Are there people using the racist word far too often to get a reaction and a headline? Is our society really as racist as what we make it out to be?

I do believe, whatever the media say, is with ‘extra sauce’ so-to-speak. They turn issues and concerns into detrimental life-changing, society-breaking events. I do believe the media has both a negative and positive effect on the way we perceive racism. If we had never heard of the term, would we subconsciously never think of racist taunts? Is the fact that the word is thrown around make a racist taunt all the more acceptable? I mean, ‘that bloke’ was racist 2 weeks ago! It happens all the time, right?

As it turns out, racism has a significant effect on the individual athletes’ careers. Andrew Symonds cricketing career spiraled downhill after the India vs Australia debacle in 2008. Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh was accused of racially vilifying Andrew Symonds by calling him a ‘Monkey’ during a match in 2008 summer.

Mario Balotelli

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While play stopped and attention was given to the incident, the reaction of Symonds didn’t seem to personally affect his life as much as it did his cricketing career. Symonds' Test career petered out later that year, while his stint with Australia's one-day and Twenty-20 teams was over by May 2009 following a string of off-field incidents. Although not the central cause of his downfall, racism effected Symonds who felt that Cricket Australia did not treat the matter with the justice it deserved. Australian Captain Ricky Ponting felt that the lack of fight from Cricket Australia (CA) against the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) led to "his career <spiraling> downhill after that because I know for a fact that he didn't feel like he could trust the people he needed to trust". The national Dutch Football team too had “isolated incidents of racist chanting” aimed at their players during the training for their Euro 2012 campaign. This took a deeper emotional toll on the players who had visited Auschwitz the day before the allegations.

The coach team reported that “When the players heard this they said they would do another lap and if they heard monkey noises again they would stop." As well as the emotional impact on players, racism too causes significant disruption to the players, teams, the competition and the sport as-a-whole and reduces the integrity and standard. Racism may not be as speculative as we might think.

In America, the National Bureau of Economic Research delved into research to determine if racial discrimination among NBA Referees existed. Whilst there were some flaws in their study, the results from their research suggest that the racial views of the referees had enough of an impact on their judgement to change the outcome of a game.

Do we really want to live in a world where the outcomes of sport are based on racial similarities to the referees? I always thought the best teams and best players where the ones who played the best.

While all incidents isolated can cause short term grief and pain to the victims of racism, we as a society should be better aware of the long term implications that racism has on one’s personal wellbeing, their family & in some cases their career. A study accomplished by the University of Deakin, Australia, drew correlations between racial incidences in community sports, and mainstream society in Australia separating themselves from migrants, refugees and Indigenous people and excluding them from a sense of belonging at school in public and on the sporting field.

Sporting fields are one of the most applicable places to show unity across the globe. You don’t need to look further than the Football World Cup to see how diverse the representing countries are.

PROJECT THIRD WORLD 23A single sporting match such as India vs Pakistan and USA vs Iran can change how the two countries engage socially. If racism is allowed to occur in sport and with athletes, it could have a negative impact on how society and children perceive racism and other countries or cultures. The sporting field can also be a good example for how people of different backgrounds and skin-colours can come together and enjoy something as simple as kicking a ball between two posts, or throwing a ball into a hoop.

So next time you sit around with your friends and pass light hearted comments about the color of one’s skin or their comparison to a not so attractive animal, just remember that a small joke is a spark to a much larger problem. A problem that we must eradicate. ■

Jay Himat

JUNE 2015


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HeaLTRAVELL

There is no doubt that more people are traveling the world every year and therefore the importance of travel health awareness has never been so vital. In 2013, the collective number of arrivals in the five most visited countries was 318,545,000 (France, USA, Spain, China & Italy), compared to 204,594,000 in 2004. Governments, medical practitioners, research and non-for-profit organisations all have a significant role to play in the design, delivery and evaluation of travel-health information, resources and programs.

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THY

ING


THY3

Before and during traveling, there are a number of important areas every individual should consider to reduce the risk of contracting disease or illness.

As international travel constantly increases, so does the risk of communicable disease transmissions. Immunisations are an important public health measure and significantly reduce the risk of contracting diseases and disease transmission between people. As a traveller you should be assessed individually before any immunisations

IMMUNIZATIONS

ROUTINE IMMUNIZATIONS

Health care providers recommend that travellers should be up to date with diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles-mumps-and-rubella (MMR) and influenza vaccines.

RECOMMENDED

Recommended immunisations are according to where the individual is traveling, length of stay and planned activities. Such immunisations may include: cholera, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, Japanese meningococcal, rabies, typhoid, tuberculosis and yellow fever. Some of the countries where vaccinations for such diseases include tropical countries such as Kenya, India, Fiji, Australia’s Northern Territory, Brazil and more. Many of

these countries have poorer health and hygiene control or have tropical weather conducive to harbouring infectious diseases in the water supplies, food or air.

REQUIRED

Required immunisations refer to those legally required under International Health Regulations, a visa requirement or where a country has stipulated a requirement. Two common required vaccines include meningococcal and yellow fever. Whilst you might be able to enter a country with the disease of concern without the vaccination, if you do not have a required vaccination against a particular disease, you might not be able to re-enter your home or country of origin.

are recommended. Risk factors for immunisation-preventable-diseases include length of stay, planned activities, rates of infection and epidemiology at the destination. Immunisations used in the travel health setting are usually divided into three separate categories:

HEALTHY TRAVELLING26

• If you take medications overseas ensure that you:

• Have enough to last you the entire trip

• Carry a letter from your health care provider stating that the medications are for personal use

• Leave the medicine in its original packaging with you name on it

TRAVELLING WITH medications

Discuss medications with your health care provider before departure and carefully follow the directions for use, including dosage and when to seek medical care. Before you leave check the medications you plan to take are legal in the country you are visiting.

INFORMATION FOR TRAVELLERS WITH A DISABILITY

• Book flights well in advance and call the airline to ensure that all disability-related needs will be met.

•• Find out about medical

facilities in the areas you will be visiting.

• Carry a letter from your health care professional detailing your medical requirements.

The logistics of travelling if you have a disability can be particularly challenging, especially if preparation has not been adequate. See below some important considerations to make before and during traveling:


EATING AND DRINKING WHILE TRAVELLING

The most common travel-related illnesses are gastrointestinal diseases usually picked up from poorly prepared foods or untreated water. To avoid diarrhoea, stomach pains, nausea and vomiting associated with these illnesses:

Always wash your hands with soap and water after using the toilet and before preparing or eating food:

• Use boiled or bottled water, or water purifiers or tablets

• Avoid ice in drinks

• Eat fruit and vegetables that you can peel yourself, such as oranges

• Avoid unpasteurised milk and dairy products

• Make sure food is cooked thoroughly and eat it while it’s hot

• Take care with personal hygiene

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AVOIDING INSECT BITES WHILE TRAVELLING

The most common travel-related illnesses are gastrointestinal diseases usually picked up from poorly prepared foods or untreated water. To avoid diarrhoea, stomach pains, nausea and vomiting associated with these illnesses:

Cover exposed skin by wearing long-sleeved shirts, long pants and hats

Stay and sleep in screened rooms

Use a bed net if the area when you are sleeping is exposed to the outdoors

Wear mosquito repellent that contains at least 30 per cent DEET by using tropical-grade insect repellents if needed. Avoid using a combination insect repellent-with-sunscreen as the sunscreen effect can be significantly reduced by the insect repellent and the toxicity of the repellent can be increased by the

Most common active ingredient

in insect repellant

DEETN,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide

sunscreen. Furthermore, sunscreens should be applied in high quantities throughout the day, whilst insect repellents should be used less often in smaller amounts. If you require both, use the sunscreen first, and then apply the insect repellent half an hour after the sunscreen.

29

• Organise health insurance and consider medical evacuation insurance to cover the cost of transporting you out of the country for medical care.

a mednt for specific conditio• To reduce jetlag symptoms, drink

plenty of water, avoid eating too much and readjust your schedule to local time as soon as possible.

• During long plane, train, bus and car rides your risk of developing deep vein thrombosis (blood clots in your legs from sitting too long) increases. To reduce your risk, move and stretch as frequently as possible and drink plenty of water. ■

Rebecca Meldrum

OTHER TIPS

TRAVEL SAFE, TRAVEL HAPPY.

A basic health kit is important wherever you travel. Medications and first aid supplies may not always be readily available. It is essential to know how to use the first aid supplies in your kit. Basic supplies may include adhesive bandages (multiple sizes), alcohol-based hand sanitizer, antiseptic wound cleaner, blister pads, disposable latex gloves, safety pins, scissors and tweezers.

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No matter when and who you talk to, chances are that vaccinations will come into conversation one way or another- and everyone has an opinion on them. It is a topic that genuinely seems to have no grey area; people are divided with very few individuals feeling indifferent about the topic or ‘sit on the fence’. The whole topic of immunizations is contentious, however, this raises the question, should it be? The WHO stipulates that immunizations are one the most important tools to come-out of medicine, if not the most important. In this article, I will address, scientifically and rationally, what vaccinations are, why they are important, and all whilst debunking some of the myths surrounding their use.

IMMUNIZATIONSTATUS

A DOSE OF KNOWLEDGE

PROJECT THIRD WORLD 31The first recognised vaccine, probably due to being the best described and documented is the smallpox vaccination that was produced and tested by Edward Jenner in 1976 where he used cowpox to create immunity to small pox; and since that time, with medical and technological changes over the next two-hundred years, this vaccine resulted in the eradication of smallpox. Smallpox, the greatest mass-murderer in human history and once more widespread than any terror organisation, was silenced in 1980 by the power of vaccinations. Since that time, immunizations have been proven to be an effective tool for controlling and eliminating life threatening infectious diseases in a cost-effective manner, which can be accessed by even the poorest countries in the world.

With their introduction it is thought that two to three million deaths are prevented each year. Unlike most things in medicine, which are there to treat ailments as they surface, immunizations are used to prevent, and are an important tool in both medicine and public health. Being immunized not only protects the individuals being vaccinated, but also the community, this is called herd immunity. This is important because as a society we want to protect the likes of mothers to be, the elderly, and people who have a compromised immune system, such as those that are on anticancer drugs, and in general, all of society.

MYTH #1The body’s immune system can cope with infection without the help of vaccines.

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IMMUNISATION STATUS32

The science behind immunizations is not complex and quite intuitive. At its core, to be immunized is to become immune or resistant to ‘something’; that ‘something’ tends to be a nasty bacteria or virus that scientists normally refer to as ‘pathogens’, which cause infectious diseases. How does the body do this? Just as your brain can form memories to help with future tasks, so can your immune system. For example, when trying to solve a problem that is novel, your brain will take many approaches to solve that particular problem, and once it is solved, your brain retains the information required so that, if in the instance the brain encounters a problem similar in nature in the future, it will immediately recognise how to best approach that problem and come to a resolution based on previous experience (memories).

The immune system works in a somewhat similar fashion to the brain, however, there is less complexity associated with the immune system compared to the brain; it has just one objective: destroy the foreign invader.

Initially, the immune system takes some time to determine how best to approach a foreign invader on first exposure, but once this foreign invader is eliminated the immune system remembers what tactic to use on the second encounter, therefore a quicker and more efficient immune response is initiated.

The process of immunizations is carried-out using vaccinations. Vaccines work by stimulating the body into an immune response that subsequently leads to protection against that particular pathogen in the future.

Louise Dyring Nielson / Save the Children Denmark

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There are many different types of vaccinations, but the underlying principle is the same, vaccinations will generate a normal immune response by the body, which then subsequently leads to the formation of memory.

An important difference between catching the pathogen in its native form, i.e. that one found in nature against that of the same pathogen found in the vaccine, is that the concentration of the pathogen is controlled and known, which means that the person being vaccinated receives just enough of the pathogen to cause an immune reaction but not to contract the infectious disease its self, which can be a deadly encounter.

To assimilate, consider the logistics of a military operation. Compare two possible scenarios: one in which the military team has their walls breached by an enemy they know nothing about, do not understand the enemy, and do not know how to stop the enemy. By the time the military team is able to determine who the enemy is, and how to stop the enemy, the enemy might be so widespread and may have already over-run the base. Now imagine a military team that has had a chance to train against and study the enemy, know what the enemy looks like, know how to stop the enemy, and has guards’ on-the-ready for a potential attack.

'every one in two hundred children who come into contact with this bug will subsequently die'

Child infected with'Whopping Cough'

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IMMUNIZATION STATUS34

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Giving a vaccination to the body is like giving training and study to the body’s defence system. It gives the body a chance to prepare should the ‘real thing’ ever attack the body. To miss this ‘training’ and ‘studying’ could result in a potential pathogen over-running the body and causing death.

Take for example whopping cough. Whopping cough is caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis and it is estimated that every one-in-two-hundred children who come into contact with this bug will subsequently die due to the development and complications of whopping cough.

In Australia alone there were 308 065 births in the year 2013 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, so if we extrapolate this

number it roughly results in 1540 dying due to the complications that arise due to whopping cough.

Though a crude estimation, the UNICEF estimates 130 million babies are born each year, therefore roughly 650000 babies die each year due to whopping cough alone of which most can be prevented if vaccinations had been used. It is also estimated that 21.8 million infants worldwide are still missing-out on vaccinations, roughly about 16 % of the world’s infant population.

Figure 1: The below figure shows that after the introduction of the diphtheria vaccination in 1932 in Australia, within a few years the amount of notifications of infectious disease caused by the bacteria reduced from 200 per 100, 000 (0.2 %) to almost zero by the year of 1941. Since the introduction of the DTP vaccination, which is a combination of Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis the amount of notifications is negligible.

STATISTICAL BREAKDOWN


Given the evidence surrounding the use of vaccinations for immunizations, it must be questionable why it is that some people still refuse to get vaccinated. One reason may be the amount of myths circulating about the use of vaccinations. The Internet undoubtedly perpetuates this. Just as it is a source for reliable information, there is an abundance of information out there that is not scientifically scrutinized, not questioned and not reviewed for validity- and unfortunately, it also provides the perfect medium to circulate these myths and presenting them as fact, whilst also fabricating evidence and references. There are many myths, and I will not address all of them but focus on several important ones that concern people:

MYTH #2The immune systems

of babies are protected through the placenta and

breastfeeding, so they don’t need vaccination.

Vaccines are unsafeIn a sense, this myth might be true, as no medicine is one-hundred-percent safe, however, neither is driving car, going on safari, canoeing down a lake, skydiving and just about any other action. In most countries, there is a regulating body to ensure that all vaccines are produced and maintained at the highest standard though rigorous manufacturing processes and constant surveillance respectively. Futhermore, scientific and medical bodies routinely review medications including vaccinations for negative effects they may have caused, or might

cause, and continuously review their use and review their safety profile and safe use. Imported vaccines are obtained from countries that all do so from places that have these regulatory agencies.

Most problems associated with vaccine administration are not due to the vaccines themselves and are just a matter of coincidence. What exacerbates this is that most of the recipients of these vaccines are young infants, who tend to go through many events, such as seizures in their early childhood life.


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Vaccines do not weaken the immune system but strengthen it by stimulating defence mechanisms that provide protection against specific diseases. The body’s immune system begins developing before birth. In the period during and soon after birth, when the functions of the immune system are still maturing, newborns are protected against many, but not all, serious infections by antibodies from their mothers (maternal antibodies). This protection usually lasts for about four months.

National immunization programs are designed to balance the capacity of the baby’s immune system to respond to the vaccine, against the risk of infection. Vaccines only contain a small number of antigens (substances that trigger the immune system) in comparison to what children encounter every day in their environment, through routine eating, drinking and playing, and they do not ‘overwhelm’ or ‘use up’ the immune system. If this were to be true then one could expect by giving multiple vaccines overwhelmed the immune system, then one might expect much lesser immune responses when many vaccines are given at the same time compared with when they are given at different times.

Vaccines Overwhelm and weaken the immune system

However, when vaccines are developed, they are studied to confirm that the addition of a new vaccine (and the existing vaccines given at the same time) still have the same immune response and safety profile. As mentioned prior, the concentration of antigens (pathogens) is at a specific concentration that is safe but still able to elicit an immune response.

Reverting back to a military analogy, imagine that every enemy has an assigned military team. The body is full of multiple military teams. Some defences of the human body will fight against any foreign body, but some defences have specific agents which attack specific infections. If the defences are not enough, the body can sometimes generate more agents to attack the invading pathogen. Giving a vaccination though gives the body a chance to determine how many agents it will need against the pathogen, and ‘size-up’ against it. If the specific pathogen does not invade or come into contact with the body for some time, the body might reduce the number of agents it has against it, in which case, a booster-vaccination might be required several months or years after the first vaccination.


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Some believe that vaccination is unnatural and that contracting the disease will provide optimal protection against it, as well as benefits to overall health. Tied with this is the belief that vaccination interferes with the body’s natural processes. However, choosing to remain unvaccinated, and have the disease rather than prevent it, can have serious consequences. Diseases such as tetanus and meningitis can kill and maim, whereas the vaccines against these diseases are generally

well tolerated with minor side effects. Vaccines provide the same stimulus to the immune system as an infection and can potentially offer more effective protection against certain pathogens. Most importantly, protection through vaccination avoids the complications associated with having the disease. The benefits of vaccination far outweigh those of the infection with a vaccine-preventable disease. Many vaccines are actually the ‘natural’ virus or pathogen that has just ‘had its wings clipped’.

ImmuniZation is unnatural


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While Public Health education and structures are great at improving living standards, healthcare and treatment, and have reduced deaths from all diseases, the additional impact of vaccines themselves is illustrated by the near disappearance of deaths from diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and measles. Such a dramatic decline in deaths after vaccine introduction, often in short periods of time, could not possibly be attributed to improvements in living conditions or medical treatment alone. It would be similar to suggesting that contraception is 100% effective- it is not; it certainly has reduced the number of unwanted pregnancies dramatically, however that does not mean that it is full-proof. Similarly, vaccinations protect the body when pathogens find ways around the social health structures we implement.

Often the best way to demonstrate the impact a vaccination program has had on the incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases is to examine the

impact of the disease in a community where vaccination rates are low but living standards are high. Take Britain as an example: there was a resurgence of measles when falls in measles immunisation rates occurred in the wake of the now heavily-discredited claims of links between the measles-mumps-and-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

This resulted in thousands of cases of measles, including some deaths, and loss of the United Kingdom's previously obtained measles elimination status. In contrast, Australia continues to have no ‘home grown’ measles (i.e. has eliminated measles), but there have been recent measles outbreaks, arising from imported measles cases, in small areas in Australia where measles vaccine coverage rates have been low. Sadly, there have even been cases where children were not immunised with the MMR vaccine and died from what is a very preventable disease.

Public health measures, rather than vaccinations have helped reduce infectious diseases and will

make them disappear in the future.


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Although this theory generated a lot of media attention, the few studies on which it is based have a number of significant weaknesses and have since been retracted. In other words, the science behind these claims were invalid. Ten of the 13 authors of the original 1998 study (published in The Lancet) published a statement in 2004 retracting the paper’s findings, stating that the data were insufficient to establish a causal link between MMR vaccine and autism. The Lancet subsequently retracted the original paper and an investigation into the original data has shown it to be fraudulent.

Since then, the public has played on this false information and neglected the retraction of this information from its original publishers. As the human population has always enjoyed Chinese-Whispers, this misinformation has sometimes been blown out-of-proportion and some invalid sources on the internet have even suggested that any vaccination can cause autism. As a result, scientists have time-and-time again published valid and accurate studies to show that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

As mentioned prior, coincidence plays a huge part in these association studies. What should also be mentioned is that the diagnosis of autism is based on an opinion of a health professional, and will vary across the field, i.e. it is subjective. Any time something simply falls into the subjective category, results, and in this case associations, should be questioned.

Vaccinations h a v e b e e n linked with a u t i s m

AUSTISM?


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This is not the case, the pathogens that cause the infectious diseases are always in circulation. Being vaccinated simply means that one is unlikely to contract the disease. In a highly inter-connected world, these agents can cross geographical borders and infect anyone who is not protected. In Western Europe, for example, measles outbreaks have occurred in unvaccinated populations in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom since 2005 due to increasing international travel, and therefore, international travelling of infectious diseases.

There has also been some speculation circulating in the media recently suggesting that immunizations are a means of the government controlling individuals through the incorporation of microchips in vaccines. Firstly, the amount of time and money that the government will have to invest into something of this massive undertaking is just not feasible or plausible.

There are many questions, such as: How is that microchip going to be stable in the vaccine and the body, how is it going to get into the brain, and hypothetically, how will it then control the brain.

The answer is the hypothetical microchip cannot do any of the above three whatsoever, and physiology and chemistry can help justify why. As we all intuitively know, electronic

equipment and water just do not mix, so how is it that a microchip can be stable in a vaccine and the human body, which is mainly comprised of water. In the instance that the microchip is to somehow circumnavigate this problem, how does it circulate around the body and find a way to penetrate into the brain. For a microchip to pass through the fine vasculature, like your capillaries, it would have to be smaller than the size of a red blood cell (erythrocyte).

Erythrocytes given there structure and internal contents are able to mould and conform enough to squeeze through capillaries, however, it is highly unlikely that a microchip has these same capabilities and therefore there is a greater chance that it will just become lodged in capillaries, potentially leading to complications. On the topic of immune systems, technically speaking the microchip would have to find a way to avoid being destroyed by our own immune system; it is a foreign substance to the body.

In the instance it does find a way into the brain, how is it possibly going to brainwash and monitor us. The brain, unlike other organ systems, is so complicated, that even to this day neuroscientists can’t explain many things. And imagine if the microchip could be used to monitor/control use, think about the amount of resources needed to proceed with this, it would be enormous as it requires intense technology and human resources. P T W

PROJECT THIRD WORLD 41The logistics of creating a microchip that contains all the required information, is 200 nanometres or smaller, and has the ability to cross the blood-brain-barrier, and infect every-single brain-cell to control the brain is purely science-fiction. It is an unfortunate irony that people who believe the evidence for the valid use of vaccinations is not believable, and yet can believe in an irrational and illogical suggestion. Furthermore, the human brain is still yet to be heavily understood, and consciousness itself is poorly understood, and thus, the notion of even controlling the conscious, or even sub-conscious elements of thinking are well beyond our capacity, let alone overcoming the biochemical logistics of putting a device to carry out this operation into a vaccination and successfully have it function in a body that would simply deem it a foreign body.

The evidence supporting the use of vaccinations is both rigid and scientifically scrutinized. On the other hand, all the arguments against vaccinations are based on anecdotal evidence with little scientific support and sometimes accepted without question. In a world where information is aplenty it is important to make an informed decision. Currently there is strong evidence to support the use of vaccinations as a form of immunization therefore as educated readers we need to follow guidelines that are based on strong scientific research; that is to support immunizations.

As an organisation, Project Third World strongly believes in the use of vaccinations as it has helped save the lives of many of the children we are helping around the world. Project Third World believes in health and education, and so long as vaccinations continue to be supported by academia and science, and continue to be far more beneficial to health than causing any potential harm, Project Third World will continue to see this as a very necessary tool in the objectives of creating a healthier, and better world for all. ■

Daniel KocoskiP T WJUNE 2015

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Who am I?

My name is Purity Kinoti. I am a Kenyan lady aged 23. I have studied a degree in Education (English/Literature) at the University of Eldoret, Kenya. I come from Meru- a county about 800 kilometers from Eldoret. I just completed my undergraduate studies last month and will hopefully be graduating in November.

What about my background?

I was born last in a family of five in Meru, Kenya. My parents were not learned and were local peasants. At the age of six, my parents separated and mom left us with dad. By then, our first born was in form three but she left school to help take care of the rest of us. My dad could also no longer raise her school fees partly

Puritydue to financial challenges and also because he used to take a little alcohol. As a result, none of my elder siblings managed to go beyond the elementary primary school level.

At the age of 12, all my sisters got married and I was left at home with my dad and my brother. Life was difficult because I would prepare their meals before I leave for school in the morning and attend to all other household chores, being the only female in the homestead. After completing primary school, my dad enrolled me in the only Day Secondary School that had been just started because that was the much he could afford- and they also needed me around to help in household chores.

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I would leave home at dawn and walk for around 15kilometers to school and back in the evening. I worked very hard and became the first Day School student in the area to qualify for admission in a public university. As a result, I got a sponsor from Canada- through a local NGO-who has taken care of my university fees and upkeep for the 4yrs.

Unfortunately, my dad succumbed to cancer in the year 2012. This was a month after they had reconciled with my mom. This discouraged me greatly and for once life had no meaning to me. I however accepted and gained strength but am still fighting the painful memories.

How about my philosophy and contribution in Project Third World?

I have a simple philosophy in life: No one has nothing to offer. I have taken part in quite a number of activities. I have taught in a few schools and I love the profession. I am also a project manager by profession, I have a diploma in the same.

I have joined Project Third World because I believe I can’t lack something to offer to the children. In Eldoret, I have offered to work with Project Third World to help better the lives of the many desperate children in the town. I am coordinating the activities of Project Third World in Eldoret- basically Rescue Center.

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What about Eldoret and the Rescue Centre?

Eldoret is a densely populated town. It is known to have a high number of street families. This especially went up after the 2007/2008 post-election violence that left many displaced and children lost their parents. Rescue Center is one of the homes used to accommodate these children and get them basic needs from donors.

The management also seeks to connect children to their families and some are taken in. In this center, Project

Third World has assisted the children by stocking a library for the children, hence promoting their education. The facility is ready and being utilized at the moment. The only challenge is getting willing volunteers to assist the kids to use the facility.

Recently, most of the children have gone into boarding schools and are only within the place during holidays. Others have been reunited with their families. ■

Purity Kinoti


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Life is an unpredictable journey, where this journey ends is entirely upon the creator or one’s destined fate. Every individual expects to have a good lifestyle whereupon returning from work or school he is relaxed and finds every comfort in his house. Whether it be watching

Refugees Refugees Refugees The Plight of

a daily episode of the favourite soaps or the cricket world cup. However, millions of people around the world are displaced from their homes annually. One of the contributing factors includes Wars. This article discusses about the Syrian Civil war.

PROJECT THIRD WORLD 47PROJECT THIRD WORLD 47

It is estimated that since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, close to 9 million people have been displaced and forced to move to countries such as Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. Imagine leaving their homes where all their children played with cousins or the school where they once went for education.

In 2014, a study was conducted by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) titled “Living in the Shadows” which discussed in depth the kind of life

Source: Syrian refugees' camp | Credits: © Nikolay Doychinov/AFP/Getty Images

these refugees are exposed to in Jordan. They have had no choice but to opt for inhumane living conditions, some having to use non-functional toilets or not having enough space to lie down in the night. A family is living in a chicken shack with only a few mattresses to sleep on.

In another case, a mother is obliged to share accommodation with another family leaving her feeling uncomfortable to the extent that she is unable to remove her veil either during the day or night.

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One of the stories highlighted in the UNHCR (2014) report discusses how a father tries to show to his children that they are living a normal life even though the latter is not true. Every morning he pretends to go to work as there is no employment for these refugees. The whole day he either stays in town walking around or goes to his neighbor's house and returns home in the evening.

The children seeing this action of the father feel calm and think of hope in a foreign land. This particular family’s name is on the waiting list to be assisted financially; however this is just one of the thousand families waiting for aid.

Another sad incident is that of a husband who tells that he is unable to purchase medicine for his sickly wife. To worsen the situation they do not have any food apart from a loaf of bread which is 3 days old. Furthermore, a parent is always left to choose between the children's school needs and food for the family.

There are many questions to ask of their lives, what are they missing out on or what are they sacrificing? The refugees dreams have been shattered, the ambitions of children have been washed away as the tide clears the sea shore every minute unintentionally. Education is only distant dream in a foggy mind.


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Pondering upon the lives of the innocent refugees one is blessed to have “certain” if not “all” comforts in life which they do not and will not be able to have in a long time to come. The figures are gradually rising, more and more people are forced to give up their homes and turn away from normalcy. Until when?

When will it all end? When will the children wake up to a “Good Morning”? When will they gladly say they “we had three meals today”?

It is said “time heals even the deepest of wounds”, shall we then leave it to time? ■

Prashneel Goundar


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The TICKING TIME BOMB Event PTWThe TICKING TIME BOMB Event PTWThe TICKING TIME BOMB Event PTW


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The TICKING TIME BOMB Event PTWThe TICKING TIME BOMB Event PTWThe TICKING TIME BOMB Event PTW

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As Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” In practical reflection of Aristotle’s words, research has indicated that altruistic behaviour is a pattern of acts or a habit (Rachlin, 2002). The habits we form are vital to our character, so it is imperative we

A review on the Benefits of Giving and exploration of Altruism

develop good habits. So which are the habits that lead us to excellence? One portrayal of an excellent person could be determined by their compassion and generosity, or in other words, their giving nature. From the research provided, it will become apparent why giving is habit worth forming.

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The definition of giving varies in as many ways as there are for it to be conducted or expressed. Giving is an expression of altruism demonstrated through acts of generosity and a way of helping others. Generous acts of giving are charitable giving, love, kindness, help etc. and are those largely associated with intrinsic reward, satisfaction and goodness.

Altruism by psychological definition can be referred to as the motivation that is “other directed” or that aims to increase the benefit of other individuals’ wellbeing (Lopez

In this article I hope to shed light on the significance of giving as part of our moral responsibility and pathway to excellence, governed, but not dictated, by a range of positive associated benefits. We do not want to be guilt tripped into giving all we have to those in need, emotionally dedicate our life to the sole

needs of others, or feeling guilty that we may have more than others do. However, we must have a better understanding of why giving is important, identify the impact and benifets it has on our quality of life and on us as human beings as well as be reminded and motivated to engage in this practice as frequently as we can.

What is Giving?& Snyder, 2009). Lopez and Snyder (2009) suggested that to remain truly altruistic, one must be able to perform an altruistic act for the purpose of not attaining any rewards or salary, because altruism necessitates self-sacrifice rather than self-benefit.

There has been much debate around the underlying motivations behind altruistic acts and whether they derive from biologically programmed desires (much like drinking water to quench thirst or eating when hungry) or as a product of self-interest, or whether altruism is truly

an act that is done for the sake of others motivated by one’s desire to do good alone. Some researchers have referred to this argument as an attempt to take “altruism out of altruism,” which would question the validity of altruisms true meaning.

In regards to giving, if altruism serves as a mechanistic purpose, then one would assume that giving is also done upon biological factors and leaves its virtuous and metaphysical qualities to be questioned along with that of altruism’s.

To extend on the biological viewpoint, altruism is said to be inherent and biologically essential for human survival. This idea has been used in examples such as “jumping into the water to save someone” being referred to as not act of altruism or for the sake of the greater good, but motivated by self-interest or instinct. It is argued that some level of self-interest participated in the decision to engage in altruistic behaviour. However, if these arguments were entirely true, why isn’t everyone always jumping in the river to save the drowning?

BIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS IN GIVING:

A correlation between biological functioning and altruistic behaviour does not necessarily mean that we should rely on “instinct” to govern altruistic behaviour. This would imply that altruistic behaviour is something we do not need to engage with consciously through decision making, given it will happen naturally (as a natural process).

LEARNING & THE ROLE OF EMOTION:

Rachlin (2002) stated that altruism is developed over a lifetime, is something that can be learned, and is not part of any special inherent mechanism. He does not completely deny the existence of a mechanism associated with altruism, however believes that altruistic acts are not merely a result of the mechanism itself. Other researchers also agree with Rachlin that altruism is something that can be learned and that one is often taught to be generous and altruistic through culture, upbringing and is subsequently shaped by life experiences (Burks & Kobus, 2012).

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Although altruistic behaviour can be driven by instinct or reaction and has association with our biological makeup, biology does not provide enough explanation as to why people’s levels of altruism and altruistic acts vary and why giving to others is significantly affected by their beliefs about the circumstances and the self.

This implies that our emotions, connections and feelings are fundamental in determining altruistic behaviour rather than self-interest or Freudian disincentives. Our emotional states are

very dependent on our environment and personal experiences which self-interest may not always want to recognize and therefore illustrates that self-interest alone is not enough to determine altruistic behaviour.

Those who are more empathetic are more likely to give due to being able to put themselves in the shoes of another and feel a greater connection to those in need. Biology can’t always capture what the “heart” can and as Mother Theresa said “It is not how much we give, but how much love we put into the practice.”

“It is not how much we give, but how much love we put into the practice.”

GIVING AS A PRODUCT OF SELF - INTEREST?

The field of self- interested giving is one of paradoxes. Many arguments have been made that giving is a means of maximising utility or fundamentally based on reciprocity: some suggesting that it is mostly concerned with economic gain or reward (Nowak & Sigmund, 2005). This does not however, explain why it has been frequently demonstrated that people from lower incomes are more generous than those from higher incomes, and engage more regularly in altruistic behaviour (Post, 2005), nor does it consider the role of emotions or experience which has found as a greater contributor to giving.

Giving may be inherently rewarding, however if one gives on the basis of reciprocity and for the sole purpose to receive a reward or benefits in return- this is hardly altruistic behaviour. You may receive a reward, you might be aware of the possibility of the reward, but if the reward is the reason to give then the reward transitions from an act of altruism and intrinsic value, to an act of self-interest or strive for an extrinsic goal.

Self-interested giving in cases such as these are really cases of taking. The illustrated transitional nature of reward or economic gain depending on intention nullifies their determining association with true altruism.

Altruistic giving occurs when one loses something without the intention to gain something in return, whereby the person in need, or the “other,” takes precedence over the self. In incidences where the self is taking precedence over the other whether this is considered altruistic behaviour is highly debatable.

Furthermore, self-interested giving in the form of economic or materialistic gain is found to correlate with less giving. Material incentives and advertising of emotional benefits of pro-social behaviour have detrimental effects on peoples’ altruistic acts and desire to engage in altruistic behaviour whereas emotionally evoking content is more successful (Anik, Aknin, Norton, & Dunn, 2009).

What!?

No Reward?

HMPH

HHH,,,

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Self-interested giving is more likely a reflection of people giving in conditions which are personally related to them, or when the self-interest is less of a conscious motivation. It was found that individuals provide more positive feedback to causes they felt a personal connection with than those who didn’t identify with a personal connection to the cause (Ratner, Zhao & Clarke, 2011). This suggests that the role of self-interest in giving is more to do with emotions which do not always necessarily lead to materialistic or economic gains or as a result of reciprocity.

Aside from the motivations which lead to people engaging in altruistic behaviour, what are some of the outcomes of this behaviour? Clichés have well informed us on why giving is “good”, however what are some of the concrete evidences surrounding the notion of giving other than “it will make you feel good inside”?

THE MULTI FACETED BENIFETS OF GIVING: Milton Mayeroff, an expert on caring, believed our innate ability to help others is linked with our natural development and must therefore be “self-focused.” Being self-focused is different to being self-interested or selfish. When is anything not “self-focused” if the self is the participant? Being selfish implies that one gives for the reason to receive, whereas most of the benefits of giving are not always so obvious to use to imply a conscious aspiration towards them is our primal motivation.

Giving has been associated with a range of positive developmental outcomes reflecting its multifaceted nature as an act of goodness.

Goodness is seen to be rewarded with goodness, and this has been evident to the links between giving and (1) Health – increase in mental and physical health (2) Happiness- increase in overall happiness and (3) Social Interactions -Increase in Social Competence and Cognitive Thinking abilities.

The link between positive emotions that facilitate social giving, such as happiness, lead to a range of health benefits. Brown, Consedine and Magal (2005) identified that there are strong positive relations between volunteerism and health, higher life satisfaction, stronger will to live and less mental disturbance be all related to giving.

Although positive emotions are associated with giving, the affect on negative emotions also has an interesting role within altruistic behaviour. The “big three” negative emotions have been identified as “sadness/depression, fear/anxiety, and anger/hostility” (Post, 2005, pg 72). These emotions can have severe detrimental effects on our health. Post (2005) identified positive emotions such as kindness and compassion, enhance health by virtue of pushing aside negative ones. Engaging in altruistic behaviour could therefore result in less severity

and frequency of negative emotional experience, and these findings also suggest that giving to others in need could promote recovery of mental health illnesses such as anxiety and depression.

Volunteering has been found to have protective effect on physical and overall health, and lower risk of death. The protective effect is evident in giving’s relationship with positive mental state. In a study conducted on the elderly and after controlling for physical/mental health, social and demographic factors, those who volunteered for two or more organizations experienced a 63% lower likelihood of dying during the study period than did non-volunteers (Post, 2005).

The plausibility of this research can be called to question as there are always limitations to research, however it does correlate with the findings of Brown, Consedin and Magal (2005). The results could reflect those engaging in charitable behaviour are less concerned about their health and may not report feeling ill-health even if they did, though it is difficult to deny that those who engage in charitable behaviour tend to live a longer and/or better quality life. Giving gives people a purpose and a distraction from their own troubles. It also provides people with a “warm glow” often associated with pro-social behaviour (Bartels et. al, 2013).

INCREASED HEALTH

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Pro-social behaviour has been linked to positive health and development, as well as longer life-spans (Brown, et. al 2004).

As good as giving is, you cannot give “too much.” When balance is lost between caring for others and caring for the self, detrimental outcomes for one’s own health can occur. Medical students need to be equipped and trained to balance their personal energy and resources when working with patients as failure to do so could lead to decrease in empathy, altruistic attitudes and career satisfaction (Burks & Kobus 2012). Similar losses will be experienced by those who engage altruistic behaviour or charitable giving if they do so in a manner that leads to exhaustion and decreased health.

Increase in true happiness...Happiness is both a motive and a reward, and is something that can be achieved through altruistic behaviour. Aristotle discussed the notion of Eudemonia, a state in which an individual experiences happiness from the successful performance of moral duties (Anik et. al 2009) and says to “live well and do well” brings about happiness.

Most of us however take an ineffective path to achieving happiness again demonstrating that self-interest does not always lead to giving, or even happiness. This is why greediness is said to bring about negative consequences. Studies have shown that a lesser connectedness

to one’s future self, results in greater generosity (Bartels, Kvaran & Nichols, 2009). If one was so concerned about their future happiness and engaged in giving because they wanted to be happy- they would be less likely to give and not attain the happiness that altruism or giving brings. It is altruistic giving itself that brings about this happiness suggested by Eudemonia and which facilitates good health, the good-happy.

Previous literature on happiness and giving have indicated a positive feedback loop which suggests prosocial spending (charity) and happiness fuel each other in a circular fashion (Bartels et. al, 2009) Many of us think we know what makes us happy- it is reflected by our very actions and is supported by research which has shown that we often engage in behaviours counterproductive to what can make us truly happy.

For example, is it widely believed that spending on ourselves will increase happiness rather than spending on others? This is very different to knowing that spending on others makes us happy (yes we already know this don’t we? Belief is what we practice, and our practices on a daily basis show that we more so believe that spending on ourselves will make us happy due to it being more prominent in ration in comparison how much we give to others.

An experiment was conducted by Anik et. al (2009) where participants were separated into two groups, one of which were a group whereby they would spend in prosocial fashion and one where they were asked to spend on themselves and all completed a survey at the end of the day to assess their level of happiness.

HAPPINESS


GIVEBECAUSE YOU CAN

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Spending money on others, irrespective of how much or how little, resulted in greater reported happiness for those who spent on others than those who spent on themselves.

This research has been conducted mainly through an economical stance; however giving can be executed through mediums of expression (love kindness, compassion) or contribution (money, skills, advice etc). This economical example has implication relates more so towards aspects similar to that of hoarding or acquiring “too much unnecessarily,” or in other words, not being self-centred in a greedy manner.


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increased social skills and capabilitiesBeing socially skilled and having larger social networks has been linked to better health outcomes. Research has suggested that both giving and receiving social support in economic or emotional form is of benefit to human development (Brown et. al, 2005). Paul Solomon (2013) investigated the relationship between “Psychology of Wealth,” and reported that “lower class people just have a sharper sensitivity to need and to people who could use a little help.” Additionally, other research has shown that increase in social competence mechanisms has been found linked to charitable behaviour. People engaging in charitable behaviour reproduced higher activation of the Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus (PSTS) which is linked to processing incoming information, social relationships and movement control. This also helps explain the notion of why those who have less tend to give more.

The PSTS is responsible for functions of theory of mind (capacity to develop and recognize experiences and beliefs as one’s own), sensitivity to social cues, face processing, speech, integration of visual

SOCIAL COMPETANCE

and auditory information (enhanced activation can enhance speech processing through recognition of facial cues such as lip movement) , integration of emotional information (being able to identify emotional state of someone) , motion recognition (integrating and interpreting motor functioning and emotional cues) and self- blame regulation (underpin self-criticism). One can make the link that engaging in behaviours of giving can improves your ability to have a positive social experience. This makes sense if you think back to giving to others makes us happy- we are social creatures and happy when our social abilities come easily to us. This evidence supports that altruism is not merely an evolutionary phenomenon, but associated with how people view and interact with the world and each other (Jha, 2007).

The neurobiological support of giving adds to the quintessential vitality of its practice. This illustrates that biological mechanisms do play their role within altruistic giving, however there role is more of a reward as a result of the behaviour rather than a determine factor.


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The ways to benefit from altruistic giving are broad, and fortunately, research has found no distinction between material and emotional support or giving, as they are both positively related to each other and are forms of altruism (Brown et.al 2004). This greatly broadens our scope of ways in which we can give and with the current research provided in this paper illustrates that giving itself is a very generous element which has been given to us. Giving itself is a gift to us which signifies its unique eminence.

The benefits and notions around giving are vast. To encompass all the factors and benefits related is difficult to achieve in one paper. Some of the arguments, benefits and ideologies around giving have been highlighted for further thought. Being critical about

FURTHERIMPLICATIONS & CONCLUSIVE STATEMENTS

giving is rational, but engaging in giving and helping others or to encourage is productive accompanied by a range of rewards if done in an altruistic manner. Ultimately, the associated benefits of giving emerge as fundamental to living a greater quality of life, for those who are on the giving and receiving end of altruistic behaviour.

Thus it is important for those who have more to give to those who have less in order to achieve a more ethical world. Happiness and health are fundamental human rights, and if those in need are not receiving, and those who have are not giving, we are left with a lot of unhealthy, unhappy and socially incompetent people. ■

Esma VoloderReferences:Anik, L., Aknin, L. B., Norton, M. I., & Dunn, E. W. (2009). Feeling good about giving: The benefits (and costs) of self-interested charitable behaviour, Harvard Business School Marketing Unit Working Paper, (10-012).Bartels, D. M., Kvaran, T., & Nichols, S. (2013). Selfless giving. Cognition,129(2), 392-403.

No act of kindness,however small, is ever wasted..

AESOP.

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Throughout our evolution humans have always eaten meat. Our digestive systems are equipped to make full use of the healthy fats, proteins and nutrients found in animal foods. Our human bodies have canine teeth, a shorter digestive system and big brains. In fact, consuming meat was one of the reasons humans were able to evolve such large, elaborate brains. There are many positives about eating meat such as the vast and large amount of nutrients it contains such as Vitamin B12, B3, B6, Iron, Zinc and Selenium just to name a few. In saying this, there are many claims

Meat and research suggesting that eating meat contributes to serious chronic illnesses like cardiovascular disease and diabetes; although recently a massive study conducted from Harvard looked at data from 20 studies with a total of 1,218,380 individuals, and they found no association between unprocessed red meat, cardiovascular disease and, or, diabetes. Another study of almost 450,000 people from Europe didn’t find any association either, rendering these previous claims a myth. However, both of these studies found a significantly increased risk for processed meat.

Do we need it? are vegetarians

really healthier?


Despite all the propaganda, there seems to be no actual evidence that avoiding unprocessed meat leads to health benefits, and on the flip side there are many studies showing that vegetarians have a lower risk of several chronic diseases.

However if we look into why this is, these results are explained by the fact that vegetarians are more health conscious overall and more likely to exercise, less likely to smoke, and more likely to plan and watch what they eat. They also more likely to eat unprocessed, whole foods and avoid added sugars, refined grains

Meat Pros:Meat is the best source of protein, which the body needs to function optimally. Red meat is also a good source of iron, vitamin

B, riboflavin, thiamine and niacin.

and transaturated fats. This explains why when vegetarians are compared to meat eaters that are also health conscious, no difference is found. There are many pros and cons for both an omnivore’s diet of eating meat and vegetables and a vegetarian diet. Below are a few to help educate you in your choice of what is right for you.

Vegetarian Cons:A vegetarian diet will result in a quicker weight loss because it tends to be low in calories. You may lose weight but you also may lack energy. You’ll on average get fewer vitamins, minerals, nutrients, and protein, which protects your immune system and builds muscle mass. If you’re on a vegetarian diet long enough, you could suffer from malnutrition, if not compensating for vitamins and protein missing from meat.

Vegetarian Pros:Vegetarians generally have a lower risk of developing high blood pressure, cancers, heart disease, diabetes and obesity, this is due to their diets being usually higher in fibre. Vegetarians as a group are also often healthier, as they tend to be non-smokers

and drink less alcohol.

Meat Cons:Meats have high levels of saturated fat and can raise cholesterol. Also processed meat is loaded with sodium which can raise blood pressure and has also been linked to heart disease, cancer and diabetes. A new study also finds that although it’s often thought of as the healthier option, chicken and turkey have been found to be more strongly associated with weight gain than eating red

or processed meat.


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It is never a good idea to focus too much on one food or nutrient, if this means that you are eating a whole chicken every day or just broccoli without considering the rest of your diet or one type of vegetable all day then you’re not eating a truly balanced or healthy diet. There is no way that adding any one food to your diet is going to make you healthy, a healthy lifestyle consists of a variety of foods, if that means that meat is avoided then the range of other foods has to increase to compensate. In this case, being vegetarian with a well-balanced and compensated diet appears to have no negative consequences and can potentially have a positive health effect.

Being vegetarian does not mean that you are healthy or that a vegetarian diet can’t be done, you just need to work harder to make sure you’re getting a balance of all the necessary vitamins. Whenever a whole food group is cut out there is a risk of malnutrition, therefore visiting a nutritionist or educating yourself on what you can use to replace meat is the best thing you can do as a vegetarian. There is no stand out better option here; it is what works best for you and how much effort you are able to put into your diet is how much you will get out of it. As nutritionist Jamie Mass says “A vegetarian who consumes legumes, fruits, vegetables, seeds, and nuts will have a different health profile than a vegetarian who consumes a diet high in refined carbohydrates like muffins, pasta, cookies, and cakes."■

Sonia Kaurah


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Valuable enough to once have been a currency, a natural aphrodisiac and a history that goes at trace more than 2000 years back – is no other than our ‘Theobroma’, or, our cacao bean. The cacao bean is known to have been grown by the Maya’s dating as far back as 600 BC. The Maya’s would crush the beans making a paste and dilute it with water to make the worlds first chocolate drink. This was a cold, rich and bitter drink, later brought to Europe via Spain. This chocolate drink was received with joy by many and the drink travelled with pace.

GodsThe Food Of The

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Already when brought to Spain, sugar was added to the ingredient list. But it would take hundreds of years before we got any closer to the methods that makes it possible to produce chocolate as we know and love it today.

The cacao pod has a thick layer of pulp that covers the bean. The initial process after harvest is happening at the scene. The cacao beans are left to ferment that in the end will alter and mature the flavour.

Even though the cacao bean is quite tough, the high level of acidity in the fermenting pulp breaks into the bean causing alterations in the cellular structure that in turn enriches the depth and complexion of flavour; a very delicate process that can over-ferment causing it to rot.

After this stage the cacao beans are left to dry, usually in the sunlight. The beans are now referred to as cacao, in its raw state. Most of the time however, the beans are roasted, to further alter the flavour. Now labelled ‘cocoa’, the beans are traded throughout the world. In its nature, the cocoa bean has a high level of fat. In order to achieve the two products; cacao butter and cacao solids, the bean is crushed.

The paste that is a product of this early process is the exact same product the Maya’s would get when crushing the beans between stones. Then the paste is pressed until the fat starts separating. The quality of cacao is completely unique. The saturated fat is the same type of fat found in animal-fat, which sets at room temperature making it possible to have both snappy texture and glossy surface but still a melting point matching our body temperature.

The fat that’s separated from the cacao is the cacao butter you can buy in stores and the solids are cacao powder. Both of these along with sweeteners, usually being sugar and milk solids, are the basic compounds of chocolate. The flavour is like nothing else in its natural state. Today you can find chocolate bars that are 100% cocoa: pure cocoa-mass.

A very rich flavour that would send every dark chocolate lover straight to heaven. There is also nutritional value of this source as well as being made to be free from refined sugars and other additives.

Chocolate today: a cocktail of ingredients.


In the culinary world chocolate can be used in a number of diverse ways that at first sight would seem unusual.

At Noma ‘the world’s best restaurant, (announced such by the Diner’s Club who annually create the top 50 list of the worlds best restaurants) used to have a snack consisting of crispy pork skin and chocolate.

Several old South American recipes for savoury foods have cocoa in them. In general chocolate is a very strong depth and flavour enhancer that goes great with tomatoes and meats. (As a side note, the history of chocolate in desserts is no more than 200 years old). The production of cacao today mostly comes from four types of beans.

The first, Criollo, is cultivated from Mexico and central America. Even at 100% the flavour is both sweet, bitter, rich with a crisp when tempered and a silky indulgent texture.

The other three are; Forastero, that counts for 90% or the world production. Trinitario; a crossbred of Criollo and Forastero. And Nacional; a more difficult sort to manufacture being difficult to grow and keep healthy.

Store-bought chocolate bars that are both glossy and crispy have been tempered. This process is something that essentially is a chemical process of controlling the cooling of molecules.

It turns out that the cacao butter binds with lecithin, the reason why chocolate contains milk-solids making it possible to get an emulsified chocolate.

The art of tempering chocolate is complex. At the University of Harvard they have created a series of lectures available to the public in cooperation with the food scientist Harold McGee. The series is called ‘On food and cooking’ and contains an elaborate explanation and guidance of understanding and tempering chocolate.

Needless to say, I am a big fan of chocolate. In my experience it is definitely worth while to look for certain things like the sort and quality of the bean and

the content of cacao!


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Nowadays the availability of chocolate made from a pure and high cacao content is higher than ever, but it is actually not that difficult to make your own chocolate with quite few ingredients.

In this chocolate bar (pictured above), I used Jarrah honey, instead of sugar. It gives plenty of sweetness and a more nutritional alternative to plain white sugar.

It takes no more than half an hour in total cooking time and in this particular case both quantity and quality totally beats the purchased product!

I highly recommend buying raw and organic it ensures a high purity of both flavour and health. For all of us.

• 150g cacao butter• 150g cacao powder (I have used

raw powder from the Criollo bean)• 1tbsp honey of your liking (Jarrah

and Manuka have excellent health benefits making your indulging even healthier)

• 10g shredded coconut• 15g almonds

Chocolate BarChocolate Bar

INGREDIENTS


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• Prepare the ingredients you wish you flavour your personal chocolate bars with, and make sure you have a mould ready. Either purchase a shaped mould, or let the mass set on baking paper in a tray.

• Bring a pot of water to the boil and turn down the heat. Place the cacao butter in a bowl and place it in the hot water. Let it slowly melt, this takes a little while because of the high melting point of chocolate butter (about 80celsius).

• When melted, take the bowl of the heat and add the honey while letting it drop in temperature. Then slowly add the cacao powder. Divide the batch into two, adding the almonds to one and coconut to another.

• Let it set at room temperature and place it in the fridge overnight. As simple as that, homemade chocolate!

Remember that as great as cocoa is, it should always be eating in the right quantities too. Like anything, too much is not a good thing, and in the festivity of health, chocolate should be considered a small occasional treat rather than a regular food choice. ■

Sofie Sol Araghoune

I made one chocolate bar with roasted and chopped almonds, and one with coconut, which also goes amazingly well with sea salt flakes.

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Professor Munjed Al Muderis is recognised around the world as a leading Orthopaedic Surgeon and a Pioneer in the work of developing Prosthetic Limbs.

Feature Story

Before reaching this point, his life has taken several rises and falls. He sat down with PTW to discuss his life and what it was like going from Royalty to Refugee.

MUNJED AL MUDERISMUNJED AL MUDERISProfessorProfessor

MUNJED AL MUDERISMUNJED AL MUDERIS


Munjed’s childhood was far more comfortable than the average person, but it was the teaching of his parents and family that equipped him with the mentality he would need to overcome much of his most difficult obstacles later in life.

I was born in Iraq in 1972 to a very well-off family as an only child. My family were basically Royalty and were second-in-line to the Iraqi Monarchy. My uncle was a Prime Minister and my father was the head of the Supreme Court. When Iraq became a Republic, they were all marginalised under the Saddam

Regime and pushed away from power; but they still maintained their prestige name-wise. Even today, my family name is very well known in Iraq. My mother was a teacher and ‘self-made’, growing up in a business kind of family where her father was the first car-dealer for General Motors in Iraq.

She grew up in a completely different kind of family where she was one-of-ten siblings and was raised by her mother mostly, as her father died at a young age. Both my parents were very strong.

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Al Muderis and Family

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At the age of 4, I faced my first challenge. The colour of my room was light blue and I didn’t like it, so I decided I would change the colour of my room. I started painting with brown crayons behind the door where nobody could see me, and once I finished behind the door I started to expand slowly. Straight away my mother discovered what I was up to and she came running into my room screaming at me. “You should not change what is there! You’re ruining the wall”.

My father was inside the house with my uncle who was a very famous sculpture and artist. They said to my mum “let’s see what his reasoning behind this is”. They asked me the question “Why do you want to do this and change the colour”, to which I replied “look I don’t like it”. My mother was very much a conventional thinker and she wouldn’t accept any changes whilst my father always asked me to challenge things. My father and my uncle said “let’s give him a go and give him the chance to do the challenge and see if he succeeds.”

My father was the first person, when I was at the age of four, who allowed me to fail, and gave me the chance to fail. So I kept painting the wall with brown crayons, and obviously I failed

because I didn’t have means other than the crayons, and I didn’t have a ladder, so I painted as high as I could with short stature and arms, and the room ended up looking like a river flooded with mud, which was very disgusting. This was the first challenge in my life which I learnt a lot from, and at least my father gave me the chance to fail; if I was never given the chance to fail, I would never feel the glory of being successful.

Life moved on and I entered school, and I learned Arabic, which was a very complex language and didn’t like it that much. I loved English but I wasn’t that good at it. Math didn’t make any sense to me. I quite enjoyed art but the problem was that my art teacher knew that my uncle was the most famous artist in Iraq so I never got honest feedback from her and it was always biased because she wanted to kiss my arse because of my uncle, which was horrible. I knew this because one day I came to her with a black dot on an A4 paper and she was so amazed and thought it was such a great painting, even though I made it as a joke.

It's...

REVOLUTIONARY!!

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I quite enjoyed Theology and Religion because it tells you a lot of fairy-tale stories of basic things in life- what not to do and what to do. One day at school we were told the story of Abraham sacrificing his son when God told him to do so. I couldn’t wait till school was over to go back home and tell my Father how amazing Abraham’s faith was in God that he was willing to sacrifice his Son for God. When I told my father the story, he looked at me and said “this is a whole lot of b******t. What kind

of father is willing to kill his son even if he is told to do so, even if it was God who told him to do so?” He said to me “do not accept what is given if your instinct tells you that this action will cause harm; even if it is written in the Holy Books. Always question and always challenge what is given.” This resonated in my head dramatically throughout my life.

I entered into Baghdad Jesuit School (Baghdad College High School) which was one of the elite schools in Iraq where the King went to and where Saddam Hussein and his Son’s did. At the age of 12 I watched the Terminator and that gave me another inspiration- that I always wanted to make a machine that was half human and half machine; and so this lead to my decision to do reconstructive surgery or do biomechanical engineering.

" A l w ay s question a n d a l w a y s challenge what is given.”


At the peak of Munjed’s life, the wheel for fortune quickly took a dramatic turn, and very quickly he went from wealthy aspiring Doctor in Iraq to a stranded escapee in Indonesia.

I decided to do medicine and everything was fine and life was so easy for me because we were so wealthy and we had the reputation and the name of the family; until that moment when I parked my brand new Mercedes in the University Hospital carpark and went to the Theatre Complex as usual. Suddenly everything changed when I was confronted with members of the Baath Party and Military Police escorting three busloads of army deserters. They ordered us to brand the Army Deserters they had arrested

by cutting part of their ears off under anaesthetics. Straight away, the head of the department refused and said “this is against the Hippocratic Oath, I will not do this. I am a Doctor and I help people not harm them”. So they took him out to the carpark and put a bullet in his head in front of everybody, and turned to the rest of us and they said “now, ladies and gentlemen, we have attracted your attention, anyone who shares this man’s views please come forward, otherwise proceed with our orders”.

Straight away my father’s words resonated in my head, which were that I should challenge and not accept orders that are given if I think that they are wrong. I had to choose to either vocally denounce my rejection to the orders, and end up with a bullet in my head, or obey the commands and live with guilt for the rest of my life, and violate every single principle that I was raised upon; or, come up with another idea where I would run away and hide in the female toilets. I spent 5 hours in the female’s toilets until the operations were over which felt like 5 years. The ‘Wheel Of Fortune’ of my life changed dramatically from being on top where I was, to the bottom, where I was an escapee. As I didn’t perform the procedures, I would already have been considered a traitor, and the punishment would have been execution.

OATH

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After the 5 hours, I managed to run out of the hospital, didn’t go to my car, grabbed a taxi to a friend’s place and asked my friend to take me outside of Baghdad, where he took me to a farm where my family managed to get me a passport and a lot of money, and they pretty much smuggled me out of Iraq into Jordan. Leaving Iraq, one of the officials I had to pass was a patient I had treated 7 weeks earlier, but he was completely drunk when I treated him, so luckily he didn’t recognise me. Jordan was not safe back then as it was the backyard of the Iraq intelligence services; so I couldn’t stay there.

Being an Iraqi national with an Iraqi passport wasn’t very useful as there was no country no earth that would give Visa on arrival except Malaysia for 14 days. I took a plane to KL, and luck played a major role in Abu Dhabi International Transit. As soon as we landed in transit, they confiscated our passports so that we wouldn’t escape from the airport and I sat in the waiting area next to two ‘handymen’ who looked very buff but very nervous about having their passports

taken away from them. They didn’t speak English and in Abu Dhabi, if you don’t speak English or one of the Sub Continent Languages, you won’t get very far in communicating. Though it’s an Arabic country, no one speaks Arabic there. I sat with these guys and told them not to worry as we’d get out passports back. I asked them who they were and they said “we’re tourists”. I said “Yeah right, you don’t look like tourists at all.” I asked them if they were going somewhere specifically.

They hinted that they were refugees or Asylum Seekers and they felt that I would be useful to them because they realised I could speak English relatively well and could translate for them. They told me to come with them and said that they could help me too.

'As soon as we landed in transit, they confiscated our passports so that we wouldn’t escape from the airport'


We landed in KL and then after the immigration, they used a pay-phone and dialled a number. On the other end was a People-Smuggler and I had a chat to him and he told me to come and meet with him in an area where they sell fake watches and Louis Vuitton Bags in KL. We stopped the taxi there and met with him. He looked a bit like Steve Irwin with his shorts, brown T-Shirt, Blonde Hair and Blue Eyes. I started talking to him in English and said “why are you speaking in English to me?” He turned out to be an Iraqi Kurd. He took us aside and said give me ‘x’ amount of money and your passports, and I will get you to your next destination tomorrow. I’ll come back tomorrow. I asked him “how can we trust you with our money and passports? How do we know you’ll come back”. He said “listen, I’m a respectable smuggler and I have a reputation to protect”. I didn’t know what to say, but he did come back the next day and turned out to be a respectable smuggler. The next day he came back with tickets to Jakarta with a Visa to Indonesia. He wasn’t just a respectable smuggler.

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He had given us another number that we were to call when we entered into Jakarta and would tell us where to go. So we dialled the number and another People-Smuggler was on the other line and he advised me to go to a specific hotel on the outskirts of Jakarta, which was a horrible hotel. Again, my Wheel of Fortune changed again from being a bit luckier to downhill again. There were hundreds of Iraqi and Middle Eastern people sitting in the Foyer.

The foyer was filled with people and we started chatting to people. It was a two star hotel and was very rough-looking building. Some people said that they’d been waiting there for 8-9 months or more, waiting to see where they’d be going. Some of them had been waiting for months and months, feeling devastated and had very low hopes. We ourselves weren’t sure of our next destination or when we’d be able to leave. Some people were thinking they might be going to Europe, or America or Australia. The queue was massive.

The government here in Australia often talks about the ‘queue’ of people and I saw what they meant here. I hadn’t seen any queue until that time because none of the countries I had been through

up until that time were signatures of the Geneva Convention that I was aware off. I had to wait there. If I had turned myself into a police office, they would just put you back on a plane to where you came from; which would mean execution for me. There’s no such thing as preference and you don’t get to choose where you go. You just wait and take what comes your way.

Luckily for me, luck again played its role and the two big rough ‘handymen’-looking guys were talking to people in the foyer, telling people that they were a painter and a plasterer, and told people that I was a Doctor. The word spread around that there was a Doctor in the hotel. I went to my room and 2 hours later, there was a knock on my door from the People-Smuggler. He asked to come inside and said “I prayed to God to provide me with a Mullah from Iran, which is coming tomorrow, and I prayed to him to provide me with a Doctor, and you are the doctor. Are you interested in going to Australia?”

This was the first time Australia was mentioned and I said “yes of course”. He said that he had a brand new boat going to Australia in 2 days and would put me onto it.


I asked him why he needed me so badly. He said “the Mullah has a daughter who is pregnant in her last trimester and the Mullah is coming to save the boat because with his prayers, the seas will go quieter, and you need to make sure his daughter is safe.” I laughed at the irony in all this, but regardless I said that’s fine. I asked him about how many people would be on the boat, and he said 50. He asked me what I would need.

I told him I would need 100 intravenous drips, 100 normal saline infusions and 100 cannulas, and a lot of anti-emetic medications. He said, “That’s fine I’ll get you all of these”. I asked him to my surprise “how will you get all of these? You can’t buy them in a chemist or a shop” He said, “don’t worry I have a lot of connections.” Again, this turned out to be another “respectable smuggler”.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/takver/8688180337/

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He came the next day with all the supplies. We left Jakartta 7:00am and arrived to the shore 4am the following day. When we arrived at the shores of an unknown village in Java, we discovered that there were 2 busloads behind us and we ended up with 165 people on a leaky wooden boat, not as he suggested. On the shore we met the main smuggler who was Indonesian and he was surrounded by Indonesian guards with big machine guns. They stripped everyone of their watches and money and jewellery etc. It was horrible. On the boat we were crammed like sardines, and there was no room to sit down.

The waters were calm at the beginning and as the sun began to rise, I noticed a ship with big numbers written across it tailing us. Once we reached international waters, our boat stopped and a small dingy came from that big ship and parked beside us; and the skipper from our boat handed us a rudimentary GPS unit, and gave us directions to continue ‘straight’ for 30 hours, and we would reach Christmas Island. If we miss the Island, then in

2 weeks we would reach the mainland. If we missed the mainland, and reach white area with a lot of Penguins, then go back. That means we went too far. After that, our skipper jumped onto the dingy and left with the big ship, leaving us to the elements. Again, my Wheel of Fortune kept changing.

Once we reached international waters, the sea had started to become very rough and was raining. It was a horrible journey with large chop and swell s and a lot of current, and was extremely difficult. Luckily we had an Iraqi sailor, who was an Escapee from the Iraqi Navy, who managed to steer the boat and took us to Christmas Island.

By the time we got to Christmas Island, there was only 10 to 11 of us who were conscious. The rest were drowning in their own vomit and urine. The reason I managed to stay awake was because I was too busy putting drips in and putting fluid into people to make sure they don’t comatose from dehydration.

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Whilst Munjed’s journey to Australia was gruelling and horrific, it was nothing compared to what was about to confront him. After several days of pleasantries, Munjed was hit with the full reality of being in one of the most infamous detention facilities in the world.

By the time we got to Christmas Island, the Federal Police came and they had to wear masks and heavy gloves because it was awful. The smell from the boat was putrefying and extremely bad. We were taken from the boat and put into a basketball stadium and given Salvation Army clothes to change into, along with showers which we had to queue hours for. There, I started interpreting for people, and found the Island quite beautiful. We were there during the Red Crab season. I met some very lovely people on the island during my time; two of them were Australian Police officers. Christmas Island back then wasn’t a detention centre, and it was run by Federal Police- a captain and his 4 deputies- as I recall.


On the third day of Christmas Island, the Captain came to me and said “the majority of the people on this boat are Muslim aren’t they? So they don’t eat pig right?” And I said “yes”. To which he said “Are you aware that I’ve been feeding you Ham sandwiches all this time?” and I said “yes”. He said “well, I should tell the others”, to which I advised him sarcastically not to because the Mullah would take control of the island. This was one of the first times I saw the true Australian Spirit. He didn’t listen to me and the people caused a lot of havoc, but it just took a couple of shots in the air from the Captain to calm everyone down.

Another incident that showed me the true Australian Spirit was when we heard that another boat was coming and so the Captain took me with them to intercept the boat in one of the barges because I could interpret for them. I was with one officer on my barge, and that particular person looked at me and said “your family don’t know if you’re alive or dead do they? When was the last time you spoke to your family?” I said “No. The last time I spoke to my family was when I was leaving Jakarta”. He had a satellite phone on him and he said “sit on the ground, don’t show anyone you have the phone, dial your mum and let her know you are safe”.

That was the best thing that had ever happened to me in my life since I was born. A true human being looking after another human being. This guy didn’t know who I was and we had just met

that day. He literally broke the law in allowing me to make that call because we were not allowed to call anyone or make contact with anyone; so I am forever thankful for his humanity taking over anything else; and that’s how it should be. I dialled the number and spoke to my mum who couldn’t stop crying but at least she was assured that I was alive. The officer told me to tell her that she might not hear from me for two or more years because we didn’t know when I would be released.

We were then charted from Christmas Island by plane. I was the last person to leave Christmas Island because I was interpreting for people, which made me a bit upset that I was being held back; the captain told me to enjoy it while it lasted. He said it was better there on the Island than in the detention centre. He was right, because the minute we got into the plane to go to the centre, we were handed over from Federal Police who gave us beautiful treatment, to the ACM Company, who were as rough as they could be. They were very harsh and very rude.

They treated us like animals basically. The treatment continued for the coming 10 months that I was in the detention centre. The first thing they do in the detention centre is strip you off your name, they took photos of us and tagged with numbers, and instead of names, we were known by numbers. So basically it was a dehumanising act. I was ‘982’ for the 10 months.

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There was no communication. The only communication given was when representatives from the Department of Immigration came and said “You are not welcome in this Country, the Australian people do not want you. If you choose to go back, we will facilitate your return to where you come from, otherwise you will be left here indefinitely and we do not know when we will be processing you. I got onto Australian soil on the 8th of November 1999 and the first time anyone asked me my name was on the 17th of May 2000- as far as I recall. It was a deliberate kind of delay of the processing.

There’s no way I can do justice to explaining how bad it was, but I can give you a small example of comparison. I was a naughty-boy in the detention centre and couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I kept challenging the establishment like my father taught me to and kept asking for our rights.

Close to the time of the Sydney Olympics, apparently there was a political push to process detainees as far as I was aware. Funny enough, the processing started for the detainees.

320 people has been in detention

for 0-3 months220 people had been in detention

for 3-6 months2,035 people had been in detention



for 18-24 months168 people had been in detention for

over 2 years.As of June 2014

There were 1,252 people detained in the centre and everybody received a solicitor or a migration agent and a case officer to assess them, except me, and my name dropped off the record and was the only detainee that was not processed.

It was a mysterious kind of incident, so I had to throw a piece of paper with my number written on it to the main compound, asking people to contact their solicitor or migration agent, so that they could contact my mum in Iraq. When my number dropped, it was the lowest I could have gone in my Wheel of Fortune as I was basically like ‘Borne Identity’, where I didn’t exist in the system; I could have been left there forever to rot without anyone knowing about me.

When they start processing people, they basically take you from one end, process you tightly and take you to the other place, like sand in an hour glass. Numbers kept going, and I ended up the only grain of sand, stuck on one side. Everybody else had ended up on the other side. There was no explanation and no communication.

My mum contacted a migration agent in Sydney, who contacted immigration and told them that I am representing 982. Finally I was processed and found to be a legitimate refugee.

To add to my misery, I had to spend some time in different prisons in Western Australia. I spent a few times in the maximum security prison in Broome and Karratha jail; and ironically these places were lovely in comparison- they were like heaven on earth.

At least here we were treated like a human, I was called by my name, and we were treated with respect. I was fed proper food and given proper clothes, which was the prison clothes.

It was a prison uniform but at least it was proper clothes, because for the 10 months I spent in the detention centre, I spent it with the same clothes that I would wash whilst I wore a towel, and wait until it dried. The only clothes we had were the one pair of clothes we were given from Salvation Army when we arrived at Christmas Island.

1,252 people detained

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The times that I was spending in jails and lock-ups, I had access to phones, and so I was calling Amnesty International with information about our Human Rights situation. The ACM took me back from the prison to the detention centre and I spent the remainder of my time in solitary confinement of the detention centre; part of which was spent in the suicide box which was a 2.5m by 1.5m wooden box with only a mattress on the floor, no sheets, no pillows and no windows, and a purple fluorescent light which was on 24 hours a day.

The rest of the time was spent in ‘The Hotel’ which was another solitary confinement. The only companion I had was my last anatomy book, which I brought with me from Iraq and I learnt how to make good use of my time. So thanks to the Department of Immigration, because of them, I studied so well that when I was released, I managed to sit my exams and pass them straight away because of the nature of solitary confinement, which lasted for 40 days, with 2 guards. At least here I had a toilet to use just for myself, which was a luxury in comparison to the rest detention centres.

Real photos from the life of Munjed Al Muderis


My Visa came eventually and the group that I was supposed to leave with were taken to plane by Brisbane. I knew I was supposed to go with them to Brisbane because my HealthCare Card also came from Brisbane, but the immigration official in the detention centre decided to leave me in there for another 24 hours and then after said “we don’t need to take you

to Brisbane, so you can just go”. I said “go where?” to which he said “We’ll just open the doors for you, and you can just go”. I said to him “you do realise I’m in Derby, in the middle of the Royal Air Force Base, in the middle of nowhere, in the North West of Australia.” He said “yes, but there is a bus that comes goes from Derby to Broome. You can catch the bus.”

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Broome / Western Australia

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Munjed may have been released with no help and no support, but that didn’t stop him from taking full advantage of the long-yearned freedom he now had.

I thought he was trying to punish me, but I made use of the situation, as this would be the only time in my life where I could circumnavigate Australia by bus. I did things quite smart, but dangerous, because I had $3,500 strapped to my belly remaining from the $20,000 I left Iraq with. So I took the trip from Derby to Broome, then Broome to Perth, and then Perth to Adelaide, and then Adelaide to Melbourne, and I quite enjoyed all of it. When I arrived in Perth, I knocked on Perth Royal Hospital’s door and went to the receptionist and said that I need to speak to the on-call doctor.


The doctor turned out to be an Iraqi doctor, and I said “look, I got released from the detention centre yesterday and I’m looking for a job. I’m a doctor, can you hire me?” His answer was “are you kidding me? You need to go out, do some study, collect some money for the exam, and then come back and start from the beginning”.

So I thought Perth wasn’t my best chance. I went to Adelaide and Melbourne where the same things happened. I found that this wasn’t

the right approach so I spent the money I had on printing my CV to every single medical centre in Australia. Within 2 weeks I received 2 job interviews from Shepparton and Mildura-both of which offered me the position.

I took the Mildura job from the 26th of August in 2000 as a reliever and started officially as a doctor on the 1st of November 2000. Almost a year from the date I arrived in Australia, I received my first pay check as an Australian doctor.

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Sydney Harbour Bridge

After months of living with nothing, Munjed’s ambitious-self and determination pushed him to quickly rise up the mountain he had once fallen so far down.

I spent 2 months living on Centrelink Government Support before getting paid and paying tax. Things moved along and I galloped through the training and always had a goal as a surgeon. When I was in Iraq, I was a first-year resident; so basically I had just finished internship and moved onto residency and was a very junior doctor. I started from the beginning here in Australia and

spent the first 4 months like a resident, and then jumped to a registrar level in Melbourne for a year, before moving to Sydney, and from there I entered into the surgical training program; so I didn’t really lose any time. I entered into the same level that I was when I was in Iraq and funny enough, when I finished to become a consultant, I was at the same age of my Australian peer. I had a goal to become a consultant within 10 years and I did that in 8 years. 2 years later I then became a professor of Orthopaedic Surgery with Notre Dame University, and I’ve been in Sydney ever since.


From an Australian perspective, Australia seems like the place everyone would want to live. Naturally, this self-image can often suggest to Australians that people from other countries are simply taking advantage of the great country which Australia is, but to the rest of the world, the benefits of living in Australia are all but unknown. In fact, as Munjed highlighted, Australia is a much unknown country to the rest of the world, and that it is only by necessity and chance that many refugees end up in Australia.

Similarly to anyone living in Europe or anyone living around the world, my knowledge of Australia is simply what we read or hear about in the news, or what gets covered briefly in Geography, and what we learn about with the animals in the country, but nothing in particular really. The most striking thing that we learn from outside of Australia is when the O-Zone layer was opened above it. Unfortunately on the world map Australia is very small. The rest of the world doesn’t know much about Australia, so we knew about the crocodiles, the Sydney Harbour, the Opera House and the fireworks, but that was pretty much it.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

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Welcome to AUS ;)

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To most Australians, their home is considered “The Lucky Country”. Even so, Munjed certainly didn’t find his settlement into Australia easy, even within his prestigious line of work.

I faced many challenges in terms of settling into Australian society. The main challenge I faced was being accepted by my medical peers, as it’s still an insular society, particularly the field which I’m in. It’s usually the, ‘private-school-rugby’ kind of kids who were my peers, and they had a closed-box kind of mentality; and even now it’s very hard to feel that you belong to the hospital society because it’s very close-shelled. This is of course normal for anywhere you go.

Being from Iraq, Munjed received his share of prejudice remarks and interactions; but Munjed feels much of this is due to ignorance and a lack of understanding people have for others, rather than a sense of superiority above others. Munjed feels a lot of this is also due to misinformation from the media and a lack of truthful, in-depth coverage of world issues.

Some of the media is very biased and very ill-informed and so they are ill-informing people. Now it’s a bit different because people are starting to become more aware of the Iraq conflict and becoming more open to the situation, but when I first came, I was met with scepticism, especially after 9-11 because the Americans portrayed Al-Qaeda and Islamic Terrorism and Saddam Hussein all as the same thing. So they didn’t differentiate at all. So when I came, some people linked Arabs, Al-Qaeda and Muslims all together which was pretty stupid.

Racism is an issue that many people take personally. Whilst people often let themselves become affected by racism, Munjed’s approach allowed him to move past discrimination and make it a simple, unimportant part of his life.

Obviously racism is everywhere and if you asked me if I faced racism, then of course I did; everybody does, and wherever you go there is racism. Its human nature which is unfortunate but it does exist. It’s about how you deal with it; whether you make it complex and let it affect you, or if you just face it and say “bad luck, I’m here. If you don’t like it then you can leave”. That’s how I approach it. When people confront me with it, I say it’s not going to affect me, it’s going to affect you. It’s unfortunate that some people are narrow-minded but the vast majority are good.

Munjed was forced to abandon his home, but after living away from Iraq, Munjed has no interest to go back, as his hometown is no longer the hometown he remembers.

Iraq is a destroyed place now. From a secular dictatorship to a religious domain and horrific place where people are killing each other based on their colour and religious background; which is very stupid. It’s nothing like what it was before. I have very few family or friends left in Iraq. Many of them are educated and literate and have moved on. My mum migrated to Australia under the parent migration scheme, and she died here and is buried here. My father died in 1995 and I’m the only child. I have distant relatives and I have some connection with them every-now-and-then, but the vast majority are in Europe, America or Australia.


Munjed’s identity to others could be ‘Royalty’, or ‘Iraqi’, or ‘Middle Eastern’, or ‘Refugee’ or more, but to Munjed, his identity is very clear with his circumstances and what he values in life.

I am an orthopaedic surgeon, I am Australian, Sydney is home now and I am a typical Aussie now- that’s what I feel. That’s my identity. The past is past and I’ve moved on from everything. Despite its looming resilience to change and misinformed media and ill-informed public, Munjed believes that Australia has the potential to be a much more prosperous country by educating its citizens about the value of refugees such as himself, and the benefits of taking and helping such people respectably. Like many global issues, Munjed feels education will play a fundamental key.

The government is playing on uneducated protestors. Some of the media is extremely biased, and unfortunately, a lot of people are ill informed. Our job is to educate people on the true story of what happened and what happens every day. Australia is a signatory to the Geneva Convention and we are doing less than optimal to our duties in regards to the international society.

Australia is one of the top 20 richest countries on earth and is 48th in the world for number of refugees hosted.

There are a lot of countries much poorer, much dire that are taking in refugees. Countries such as Jordan are taking in over 747,000 refugees into their tiny country according to the UNHCR. They are proud of themselves for doing so and they should be proud. So, for Australia, things should change.

This misinformation that ‘boat people’ are going to come take our jobs and take our identity is demeaning because yearly we have illegal migrants and asylum seekers coming by air, and the majority of people who come are coming by air are from countries with legitimate Visas, and then overstay their visas or claim asylum. I think that’s around 28,000 people a year. It is our duty to educate people on what is happening and how things are happening.

Majority of people coming by boat are escaping terrorism or atrocities such as war. People who are getting to our shores are people who are often affluent and have money and they are the ones who challenge their own governments; so they are not the “economic” migrants that they are always claimed to be.

We still need people. For Australia to become a prosperous and strong society and country, needs man-power population of about 40 million. We’re way below that.

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I don’t know where the fear is coming from but the way we are treating Asylum Seekers is wrong, because it will cause them to have post-traumatic-stress-disorder, cause them to become non-functional and not part of society. If we encourage people to treat them more humanely, then they will be more productive in society, and there will be more help in building the country. Our Human Rights Record in my opinion is atrocious. We are the only country I know off that incarcerates children.

A lot of these children are unaccompanied minors and in the detention centres, these children can be exposed to all kinds of violations from sexual violations, physical violations, and more. In my opinion, there’s no place on earth besides here that allows that as a first-world country.

I think most Australians are accepting of cultures and it is a multicultural society. The thing that we need to do is build a good reputation. Every time I go overseas to Germany or the rest of Europe and tell them about Australia, people look at me and say “you should be ashamed of yourself; you treat refugees very poorly”. This is a bad image to have because it discourages

people from doing any business dealings with Australia or with Australians. If we continue to think that we’ll survive by China contributing to buying our coal and buying our steel then we should think again, because one day all this will dry up. We need to have a much more service-kind of productivity and export, and part of that is having a good relationship with Europe and the rest of the world, and not just China; and the best way of doing that is to have a better reputation. No reputation is not very good.

Whilst Munjed has learnt much from his dad, he also has a lot from his mother, taking the value of education and sharing it with the rest of the world.

I am always interested in teaching, it is a duty of mine, which is why I am linked to Notre Dame University and Macquarie University. . We have to pass on our knowledge- that’s the beauty of it. What’s the value in you learning about something if you don’t pass it on?

Munjed has persevered through life, overcome the most arduous of obstacles and achieved great heights. Whilst he may have made a name for himself as a refugee, it is the life-changing experiences he has given back to his patients, that Munjed feels is his greatest achievement.

I haven’t reached the main highlights of my life yet as there’s still a lot to do, but so far, the main achievement is the smile on one of my patient’s child when he saw that his father could walk again after being wheelchair bound for 5 years.

Munjed’s story can be seen as inspirational, tragedy, misfortune or even luck. To Munjed, these are all elements of his one story, his Wheel of Fortune, and are all the same elements we all share, regardless of where on the wheel we are currently sitting.

The wheel of fortune is what it is. When you’re at the bottom, always think that it can only get better. When you’re at the top, be prepared for when it gets worse. So, life keeps going, and it will always change, so never give up hope. You can always start again. I started again a few times in my life. If I fall, I will get up again. ■


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Project Third World: June 2015