NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

Ameer­ah Ho­sein is plead­ing with every­one to treat oth­ers, as well as the Earth, with more re­spect and kind­ness. The 19-year-old’s lat­est short sto­ry, ti­tled To­day’s World, tack­les top­ics in­clud­ing pol­lu­tion, war, race and gen­der sep­a­ra­tion. Ul­ti­mate­ly, she wants read­ers to un­der­stand that a lit­tle change can go a long way.

The Freeport na­tive at­tend­ed the Preysal Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege in Char­lieville and, in ad­di­tion to writ­ing, has hopes of be­com­ing an ear­ly child­care ed­u­ca­tor.

She told WE she has al­ways had a love for writ­ing, and her friends and fam­i­ly have al­ways urged her to “put her work out there.” And now, she is do­ing so for the first time.

She said To­day’s World high­lights the dan­gers caused by hu­man ac­tions, both to our­selves and to the plan­et.

“I’ve been watch­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al news and it’s made me very heart­bro­ken, to be hon­est,” she ad­mit­ted. “So the neg­a­tiv­i­ty we are fac­ing on Earth right now is what gave me the idea for this sto­ry.”

Asked what she hopes read­ers take away from it, she said, “I want them to tru­ly re­flect and re­alise this is the on­ly Earth we have. We have to start tak­ing care of it oth­er­wise, it would be the end of us.”

To­day’s World

by Ameer­ah Ho­sein

To­day’s world is filled with neg­a­tiv­i­ty. Plan­et Earth isn’t as it was. Hu­mans have been de­stroy­ing it: pol­lu­tion, war, re­li­gious sep­a­ra­tion, race sep­a­ra­tion, gen­der sep­a­ra­tion and many more. All this is caus­ing us to want to leave. Hu­mans have a ten­den­cy to take what they have for grant­ed. Our ex­is­tence is frag­ile, yet our ar­ro­gance is end­less. We curse at the uni­verse when some­thing goes wrong, yet it is we who have our lives this way; we can’t blame the uni­verse, we can on­ly blame our­selves for what has hap­pened. The uni­verse gave us so much, yet we are un­grate­ful, self­ish crea­tures.

Hu­mans have a habit of de­stroy­ing things. We take what we are giv­en for grant­ed and seek to de­stroy it. We can­not blame the uni­verse for our ac­tions. The uni­verse cre­at­ed us; it’s up to us to mould it. The uni­verse should not be ques­tioned for our do­ings, yet we are nev­er sat­is­fied. We al­ways crave more, al­ways want more. The uni­verse has giv­en us so much al­ready. What more would you want from the uni­verse? The Earth is at risk, but no one seems to care. Times like this make me won­der, why do hu­mans have so much, yet we want more? Why does one ru­in to gain? If there is a time af­ter, a time of soli­tude, we hu­mans would nev­er be there; we haven’t tak­en care of the gift the uni­verse gave us, so why should we have that mo­ment of peace when all we did was de­stroy what we had? There are many things the uni­verse has giv­en us, yet all we do is ru­in them with our own greed and self­ish­ness.

Hu­mans are the dis­ease of this world. Ru­in­ing it with our poi­so­nous touch. Be­cause of us, oth­er crea­tures are go­ing ex­tinct. Be­cause of us, the ice caps are melt­ing. Be­cause of us, the world we were giv­en as a gift is dy­ing.

We are to blame for all that is hap­pen­ing: the change in cli­mate, the change in sea lev­els, the rise in deaths, and the rise in nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. The ocean is be­com­ing a hot tub be­cause of us; the wa­ters in the clouds are be­com­ing dan­ger­ous, maybe acidic one day, if all this doesn’t change.

Hu­man hate to­wards oth­er hu­mans is al­so a big is­sue; we shouldn’t be judg­ing oth­ers based on their gen­der, race, or sex­u­al­i­ty. We are all hu­mans at the end of the day; we all bleed the same colour. What oth­ers choose should not af­fect you; it’s their de­ci­sion. We all have dis­likes and opin­ions, but we re­spect oth­er peo­ple’s opin­ions.

Per­haps it’s time for a change? Maybe it’s time to get up and do some­thing, even a lit­tle, that would help the world. A lit­tle change would make a huge dif­fer­ence. There are many fundrais­ers and events, and you can even help by re­frain­ing from lit­ter­ing or dam­ag­ing na­ture. You can al­ways help by clean­ing the parks or beach­es, or even by clean­ing your street or back­yard.