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On Saturday, November 22, Santa Clara University was home to a panel presented by Project Greenlight and Omeid International and Illume Magazine titled Connecting Universal Struggles. This event was the last of three events produced by Omeid in an effort to raise money to build an orphanage for children displaced in Afghanistan.

The panel consisted of Tomas Alejo of the Brown Berets, Shamsia Razaqi of Omeid, Kim Pearce, professor of Communications at DeAnza College, Pietro Calogero, an Urban Planner who has spent time in Afghanistan, and hip hop artist and social/political activist Immortal Technique. Representing Illume were panelists Imam Zaid Shakir and filmmaker/writer Naeem Randhawa and moderator Adisa Banjoko, journalist. Guided by a mix of questions from Banjoko and by some of their own prepared statements, the panelists spoke about experiences that ultimately made it clear that the struggle of Afghanistan is our own struggle and that there is much that we can do locally as well as internationally.

Professor Pearce began the presentations by speaking on the topic of Human Rights Communication and Evolution of Consciousness. With her presentation, she put the audience in the right frame of mind for the rest of the panel. She spoke about how we all need to figure out what each of our role is to promote quality, dignity, and respect. In order to do so, she said, we need to observe how we act with those not like ourselves and also be able to understand that we need to look at each situation and act in a manner that fits the complexity of that particular situation.

Naeem Randhawa, filmmaker and also the writer of Illume’s previous cover story Tea With the Taliban, shared his experiences with the audience and panel. After he described traveling within Afghanistan under protection of a general and his squad in order to get footage of the country’s schools, Randhawa told the audience that they have a responsibility to help the people of Afghanistan because they are now aware of the conditions that the people have to endure just to get something as basic as an education.

Imam Zaid Shakir went further and said that we all need to not only look at other countries but also look “under our nose” as poverty and other issues plague communities around us as we may remain blissfully unaware.

Tomas Alejo of the Brown Berets, a group whose goal it is to help those who are marginalized locally, continued with Imam Zaid’s rationale that we need to also help those within our own communities. Alejo told the crowd that the community needs to be both economically and physically involved. He believes that the youth should be kept out of the military and instead given an education in which they are not taught “domination and conformity” but instead “tolerance and self sustainability”.

Immortal Technique (real name Felipe Coronel), who performed both Thursday and Friday in an effort to raise money for Omeid, talked about his upbringing and then why he was helping out Omeid International with their cause. He felt he needed to speak for Afghanistan because of the need for justice. He felt that this was a “true and righteous cause”.

The evening was filled with insights from the diverse panelists. Randhawa spoke about being surprised about the hope that the citizens of Afghanistan still exhibit despite living in war torn conditions for the past 30 years. He talked about how all of us, him included, get caught up in the petty things in life and yet here are these people whose everyday life can become a constant struggle and are still able retain some level of optimism.

Pietro Calogero, who is currently completing his dissertation on Urban Planning and has lived and taught in Afghanistan mentioned something quite interesting. He brought up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and that theoretically fulfilling the first layer of basic needs, that of food and shelter, should be enough. Yet, he found that for the people of Afghanistan, the need to fulfill their spiritual self - Self Actualization as portrayed in the topmost layer of the Hierarchy - was in fact a basic need for them. Also, he tied into a concept that Professor Pearce spoke about. He said we need to understand a place like Afghanistan first in order to ask the right questions.

Imam Zaid Shakir ended the night with a short statement in which he summed up the reason for all of us being there. He emphasized the need for charity and told all of us to consider it an investment for our soul, to enhance our spirituality. This is just the beginning though. Shamsia Razaqi of Omeid said the orphanage they hope to open in Afghanistan will be able to house and provide the needs for 20 children. She mentioned that there are thousands of children who could use such facilities. There is still so much to be done.

Looking back at the event, one is able to grasp the enormity of what lays ahead. For any of us to make an impact on either our local community or the international community in order to combat such things as poverty, homelessness and lack of resources for an education, we need to look within ourselves to see what it is as we can and should do. “The purpose of life is life with a purpose,” Immortal Technique said at one point. Words to live by.

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