You do not realize you’re a leader until you see the impact you have on your community, says Bahia Braktia, a Fulbright foreign language teacher assistant from Algeria.
There are more similarities than differences when we look at culture and language.
Understanding humanity and feeling compassion can create a leader in anyone, was the message of Bahia Braktia, Ayumi Yamamoto and Alison Thompson, on Tuesday in speech to about 70 people in the Cape Florida Ballroom at the Student Union.
From the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in 2004 and the tsunami in Japan last year, and the cultural effects of 9/11, these three women have proven that marginalizing people and their culture is an illusion that all three have risen above from and are challenging others to do the same.
“My mission is to build bridges between two languages, two cultures,” Braktia said.
The presentation was UCF’s 6th Annual Forum on Women and Leadership: A Global Perspective sponsored by UCF Global Perspectives Office.
Braktia, a young woman, who looked to be about in her 20’s, is teaching Arabic this year at UCF. Ayumi Yamamoto is also a Fulbright foreign language teacher assistant from Japan who got her B.A in English. Alison Thompson’s international volunteer work earned her the Order of Australia; the highest civilian medal awarded by Queen Elizabeth II of England, and her documentary film The Third Wave focuses on her experience volunteering in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami.
“You are not defined by the one thing you went to school for,” Alison Thompson said.
Thompson is a former mathematics schoolteacher and medic who moved from Australia to New York City in 1990. On September 11, 2001, Thompson gathered medical supplies and strapped on her roller blades to help victims covered under the ash after the collapse of the twin towers.
“You don’t need a masters degree to give out water,” Thompson said, recounting on a woman who drove from Chicago to take hot tea to people at ground zero.
Thompson had gone to NYU for film and was in the middle of filming episodes for the popular television show Law & Order when she saw news that a tsunami had hit Sri Lanka.
Gathering medical supplies, and what little resources she had to book a flight, what was meant to be a two week volunteer trip, ended up being months.
“Over 300,000 people died, I was in shock, there was no help at 10 days out,” Thompson said. She continues, “What they needed was just leadership, someone who had to keep their head on their shoulder”.
“First, it was a 15 foot wave, than a 50 foot wave, and the third wave is when volunteers flooded from all around the world,” Thompson said referring to the title of the documentary.
At ground zero, FEMA tried to shut Thompson down, but she hid behind firemen and the rubble to get to the injured. In Sri Lanka, she faced challenges by some of the Sri Lankan people who did not want her helping criminals.
“Leadership is hard, you’re not always popular,” Thompson said.
My mission, Braktia says, “is to build bridges between two languages, two cultures”.
Braktia is from Algeria, a country in Northern Africa, that she says most people she has encountered, since her arrival in the U.S, are unfamiliar with her country of origin.
“Algeria? You’re not black? Muslim? How come you don’t wear the veil,” people ask Braktia. She replies, “I don’t need to wear the veil”.
Since 9/11, Braktia says there has been a misunderstanding of Arabs and Muslims, she has “encountered an issue of lack of knowledge”.
Even within her own country, where women are viewed as inferior to men, she references Sojourner Truth’s speech Ain’t I a Woman? saying, “I pay my bills, and Aint I just a woman? I am a tutor and a student, and ain’t I just a woman? I’m an ambassador for my country, which is your country, and ain’t I just a woman?”
“I am changing the idea that women are too fragile to take care of themselves,” Braktia said.
“We have more similarities than differences,” Ayumi Yamamoto said in reference to last year’s earthquake in Japan that caused fatalities and many people to leave what was left of their homes.
Yamamoto said we are connected by our humanity, even though our appearances and looks are different.
All three speakers had the same message summed up by Thompson.
“Dare to reinvent the world,” Thompson said.
