Category Archives: Personal Empowerment

King Khan aka Shahrukh Khan urges fans to support and encourage the COVID-19 warriors that are working with dedication in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Shahrukh Khan took to twitter and posted a video asking support for the health workers fighting on the frontlines. The caption read, Lets support the brave health officials and medical teams that are leading the fight against the coronavirus by contributing towards supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE). A little help can go a long way. The video was originally posted by Meer Foundation.

Shahrukh Khan and Gauri Khan are enthusiastically working together to provide relief to the daily wage workers as well as helping the healthcare officials in the battle with COVID-19.

Shah Rukh Khan provides 25,000 PPE kits to frontline health workers in Maharashtra

Besides, Shah Rukh Khan has also donatedin PM Cares Fund and Maharashtra CM Fund and contributed to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for Healthcare Providers, Ek Saath The Earth Foundation, Roti foundation and Working Peoples Charter. Meer Foundation, used for quarantine centre, also donated to Support for Acid Attack survivors.

Meer Foundation is SRKs Non-Profit Organisation that focuses on the rehabilitation of Acid Attack survivors under the work for Women Empowerment.The Foundation was incorporated in 2013 and aims to affect the change at ground level.

Link:

SRK urges fans to support healthcare officials fighting against COVID-19 through his Meer Foundation - Newsd

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BRIGHDE DOUGHERTY

This story initially appeared onBehind the Whistle,the official blog of the IWLCA, and is being republished with permission from the organization. Brighde Dougherty is a founder and coach for FLOW Self Empowerment.

In January, I had the great fortune to volunteer with World Lacrosse and travel throughout Africa looking to increase player participation and strengthen capabilities of the three member nations hopeful for eventual participation in the Olympic Games. Our role was to coach the sport at the grassroots level, train local coaches and officials, as well as support existing programs where possible.

In 12 flights throughout five countries (Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania), we coached over 1,000 athletes, trained over 50 coaches and 20 officials and left equipment in every country. We worked in fishing villages, slums, prisons, boarding schools, high schools, with U-19 teams and met with a Minister of Sport. Some of the children had seen few white people before, let alone lacrosse. Others had traveled to Canada and the United States to represent their country in World Championship events. We saw fledgling programs, grassroots development successes, emerging leaders doing the best they can, but perhaps most importantly, all had a desire for more lacrosse.

Through all these adventures, and so many more, there was one common theme the purity of sport. Regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic status or positions of power, the minute we all stepped on the field, we shared one voice. We all spoke the common language of simply loving to play. In this unified voice of sport, we created a field of laughter where all were welcomed.The goal was to help everyone around you learn, and we were all on the same team. Five to 50-year-old players were equal in the game plan to learn and grow. Communities came together to support one another. Schools embraced the opportunity to use sport for personal growth. For a brief moment in time, all differences disappeared, and self-empowerment was embodied through the opportunity to play lacrosse.

After returning home and finding that preseason quickly morphed into the loss of the 2020 season, I hope that every coach and every athlete who loves our amazing sport can pause for just a moment and remember the reason you fell in love with lacrosse. When you started playing, it wasnt for recruiting, creating and breaking records, or getting on TV, or even winning. Initially, we all fell in love with the sport for the purity of play. For the one voice we all share on the field of being athletes striving to have fun while being our best selves. As we face the challenges that have arisen as a result of COVID-19, both on and off the field, I encourage everyone to remain hopeful that we will eventually come back to the one voice we all share in loving the purity of play embedded within sport.

Live Empowered and Enjoy Lax for Life!

Brighde Dougherty was an All-American lacrosse player at William Smith College and coached collegiately for thirteen years. During this time, she also earned her MA in Leadership, completed a NOLS course and worked with Outward Bound inner-city programs. Doughertyis now the founder and coach for FLOW Self Empowerment through which she uses movement, adventure and sport to foster individual self-confidence and self-leadership for enhanced team performance.

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Behind the Whistle: One Voice, The Purity of Sport - US Lacrosse Magazine

Each of the Too Hot To Handle contestants experienced personal growth in their own way, but some of them matured more than others on the retreat.

(Some cast members are omitted for lack of presence.)

Related:Too Hot to Handle: Chloe Shares Creepy Messages She Got After Show

Harry came onto the show and immediately fell into a romance with bombshell Francesca Farago. But many have questioned the legitimacy of this romance. To start, Harry and Francesca both displayed no respect for Lana's rules. Both contestants pounced on each other at will. Additionally, Harry displayed chicken-like behavior by throwing his romantic interest under the bus after HE initiated a kiss with her. Despite reports that 'Hancesca' seemed to be going steady post-show, now it appears Harry has resumed his playboy behavior. Reports surfaced that he had a secret girlfriend while he and Francesca had split, and there has been a link to Harry to Madison Wyborny. Accordingly, that romance has also ended amid rumors that Harry couldn't stop flirting with other girls. Needless to say, Harry has yet to learn the art of Lana.

Haley was the first contestant to be kicked offToo Hot Too Handle. That should speak volumes towards her personal development in itself. While on the show, Haley was belligerent to all of the other contestants. Well, everyone aside from friend and sidekick Francesca Farago. Her season tipping point occurred when Haley and Francesca hatched a plan to screw the other contestants over by sharing a steamy kiss. Throughout the show, Haley frankly seemed like she didn't want to be there. But it's understandable considering that she is a recent college graduate. In retrospect, Lana should check in on Haley, maybe in 10 years.

Madison entered the show late in the season and never really grasped what the show was all about. She appeared disinterested during the show's female empowerment classes and frankly scoffed at the show's attempt at rehabilitating the contestants. This culminated in her eventual removal from the show. Since then, she appears to have dated Harry briefly. But who could blame her? The casting of Madison was an unbelievably unorganized effort by the show and to expect her to immediately assimilate was downright asinine. Despite this, in hindsight, Madison is a good candidate for a rehabilitation attempt in season two.

Like Madison, Kori was another newcomer late in the show that didn't seem to assimilate. Originally, he began a romantic fling with Chloe Veitch. But fans soon learned Kori's true nature. While leading Chloe on, Kori's real interest proved to be stealing Francesca Farago from supposed friend Harry Jowsey. After this attempt proved unsuccessful, Chloe ended their relationship emotionally. This culminated in Kori being kicked off the show along with fellow castmate Madison. But much like Madison being cast so late in the show, there was little hope for Kori. Although conversely, he may not be the type of personality that can be rehabilitated.

Francesca was the biggest rule-breaker on the show. She committed multiple infractions between contestants Harry and Haley. Additionally, she also had a close call in the shower with contestant Kelz Dyke. After a spat with Harry, she instead pursued contestant Kelz in an obvious attempt to make Harry jealous. She then screwed the group over intentionally by kissing Haley and manipulated the group by blaming the unknown rule break on Sharron and Rhonda. To make matters worse, she also entertained a dinner date with Kori while supposedly in a meaningful romance with Harry. Despite these facts, Francesca did exhibit some instances of self-control as the show progressed. For example, on her dinner date she made the hard choice to reject Kori flat out. She also helped win cash back for the group in an exclusive challenge that tested Harry and Francesca's ability to not touch each other for one night. Needless to say, despite Francesca's mistakes her progress was evident towards the end.

Related: Too Hot To Handle: Francesca Farago Interview

Chloe Veitch came on the show to not have short term romantic flings and ended up having short term romantic flings. Originally, she engaged in a romance with David Birtwistle, but this ended quickly after Chloe realized what she described as "no spark." Next, Chloe fell for newcomer Bryce Hirschberg. Yet again this relationship ended when Chloe wasn't feeling it. Finally, Chloe met her attractive match, show bad boy Kori Sampson. Unfortunately, this relationship ended harshly with Kori attempting to sidestep Chloe to make a run at Francesca. To make matters worse, Chloe appeared to stop liking each of her romantic interests whenever they began showing interest in her. This is what eventually made her so attracted to Kori. He obviously couldn't care less about her. Evidently, Chloe has some other issues that Lana may be not able to address.

Bryce Hirschberg came onto the show and immediately hit on all of the female contestants. He was then subjected to disbelief when he learned that he couldn't hook up with them. But eventually this didn't seem to bother Bryce much. He fell head over heels for contestant Chloe Veitch and seemed to legitimately want to make something more with her. Sadly, his feelings were not reciprocated. Bryce ended the show as a popular contestant but unfortunately with no romances.

Like Bryce, David was also a victim of Chloe's. Originally, the buff Tom Holland doppelganger entered the show and made a pass at Rhonda Paul. Unfortunately he was outfoxed by stud and good friend Sharron Townsend. He then proceeded to settle in for Chloe and seemed to legitimately have feelings for her. But much like Bryce he was immediately rejected soon afterward. For a little while, David seemed to be floundering mid-season. After Sharron and Rhonda seemed to split, David attempted to make a pass at her again. But shortly after he was confronted by Sharron. Seeing that he was overstepping his bounds David made a mature decision to allow his friend's relationship to flourish. He later ended the show with romantic interest Lydia Clyma. Throughout the show, David proved to fans that he is a genuine guy. Most importantly, David showed he is a loyal friend.

Kelz Dyke happily embraced the moniker of the show's accountant. This meant that Kelz refused to give in to any inhibitions that would end up at the group's expense. This was truly tested during his time spent with Francesca. He refused to kiss Francesca when baited and did not indulge in clear motivations during a naked shower session. Unfortunately, Kelz ended the show with no romantic connection after Francesca played him to make Harry jealous. But it is worth noting that many of the cast members looked upon Kelz as a wise big brother. Being a nice guy that genuinely tried to adhere to the rules despite massive temptation is commendable.

Sharron Townsend entered the show with a protective persona. Sharron tried to play off the role of a womanizer, but fans and contestants eventually figured out this is an emotional shield. During the season, Sharron reveals that his past girlfriend had cheated on him with his best friend. Understandably, this experience emotionally scarred him and consequently, he is hesitant to allow his future romances to grow too deep. Initially having shacked up with Rhonda Paul, Sharron was unable to open up with her. This caused a rift in their relationship. But eventually, Sharron is able to make his way through it. After seeing his friend David pursue Rhonda, he realizes he doesn't want to lose her. This epiphany facilitates him to build a deeper relationship with her. In fact, throughout the season Rhonda and Sharron both displayed the most meaningful relationship on the show. Despite committing some severe infractions that ended up costing the group Sharron also vastly progressed emotionally. But most importantly, Sharron's transformation espoused exactly the type of rehabilitation expected by Lana.

Rhonda Paul entered the show arguably the most mature contestant. In her initial interview, unlike other contestants who had made raunchy, cringe-worthy statements, Rhonda instead talked about her personal female empowerment. Throughout the show, she legitimately seemed to work on building a meaningful romantic bond. Rhonda acted as a rock for love interest Sharron. She listened to him and never once reacted emotionally. Rhonda handled every issue in their relationship with reason, poise and maturity. These factors enabled Rhonda to progress the most during the show. She frankly had the most maturity to do so. And at certain points, Lana was rewarding.

Next:Too Hot To Handle: Aussie Harry Jowsey Won A Dating Show In 2018

Jay Cutler Was Reportedly 'Rude' & 'Distant' During Marriage to Kristin Cavallari

Walter Aye is a freelancer based in Bangkok, Thailand where he currently studies Financial Mathematics and holds a TEFL English teaching certification. He is an avid film buff touting directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese. Additionally, Walter has experience as a Taekwondo black belt and instructor in Tampa, Florida under Master Garry Wayne Dyals.

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Too Hot to Handle: Contestants Who Showed the Most Personal Growth, Ranked - Screen Rant

Awoman wants to be the agent of her own life. She doesnt want to be a victim. She wants to believe she has made choices of her own free will, even when shown evidence that shes been coerced. She prefers to maintain that she was not seduced, manipulated or threatened, that she was an equal player. She is annoyed when her individual circumstances are taken as proof of structural inequality. She may think of herself as an outsider to a certain kind of feminism, to the marketing of self-care, to the relentless insistence on empowerment, transformation, healing and sharing. The thought of posting online with a hashtag repels her. She may have had friendships or relationships with questionable men, but she would take no satisfaction in seeing those men destroyed. (Its hard to muster the ideological purity.) She may stay in touch with the worst people in her life. She may feel embarrassed. She resents being forced to consider her life as if its protagonists were on trial, to offer testimony in the form of an accusation.

My Dark Vanessa begins in late 2017, as a wave of allegations of sexual harassment against men in power is starting to swell. Vanessa Wye is a 32-year-old concierge at a hotel in Portland, Maine, leading a solitary life of squandered potential and heavy drinking. When the book opens she is compulsively monitoring a Facebook post by a woman called Taylor Birch, who has revived an accusation of sexual assault against a former high school teacher. Taylor first made her allegation more than a decade earlier, when she was 14, but this time people are listening. The accused is Jacob Strane, a man with whom Vanessa has had a relationship since she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl and he was her 42-year-old English teacher. Their sexual relationship ended years before, but Strane remains Vanessas most intimate confidant, their relationship the defining one of her life. She phones him to see how hes weathering the allegation and to reassure him that she wont tell her own story. Hes worried that this time its not the first hell lose his job. Paid any attention to the news lately? he asks her. Were living in a different time. I want to tell him hes being overdramatic, that itll be OK so long as hes innocent, but I know hes right, Vanessa thinks.

Taylor Birch has written to Vanessa, encouraging her to speak out, but Vanessa refuses. She thinks of herself not as a victim of abuse but as the protagonist of an illicit romance. She has never talked about Strane with her therapist; she trusts that nobody else will understand. It wasnt about how young I was, not for him, she explains in a summary introduction that primes the reader for a lengthy statement of denial.

Above everything else, he loved my mind. He said I had genius-level emotional intelligence and that I wrote like a prodigy, that he could talk to me, confide in me. Lurking deep within me, he said, was a dark romanticism, the same kind he saw within himself. No one had ever understood that dark part of him until I came along.

Its just my luck, he said, that when I finally find my soulmate, shes 15 years old.

The narrative tacks back and forth between 2017, as the allegations against Strane progress, and 2000, as Vanessa enters her second year at Browick, an expensive boarding school in a small coastal town. She is a loner, from a working-class background in rural Maine, newly estranged from her best friend. An ironic detail: she is given a rape whistle for safety when she moves into her dorm.

An academic adviser encourages her to take up an extracurricular activity, so she joins the creative writing club. Its supervised by Strane, who begins showering her with attention and compliments. He compares her red hair to a maple leaf. He reads her poems. He gives her copies of Sylvia Plaths Ariel (Shes a bit overdone but young women love her) and Emily Dickinsons poems and, eventually, Lolita, which Vanessa all but memorises, reading it as a romance novel. Theres now a whole new context to what were doing, Vanessa writes. What conclusion is there to draw besides the obvious? He is Humbert and I am Dolores.

Vanessa is seduced by Stranes half-baked charisma. He grew up in Butte, Montana, then went to Harvard before becoming a teacher. He lives an apparently friendless and solitary existence, which Vanessa interprets as proof of their shared alienation. He doesnt like dogs; Vanessa loves them but forgives him. He lectures on Walt Whitman and the idea that people contain multitudes and contradictions, and on Robert Frost The Road Not Taken, according to Strane, isnt meant to be a celebration of going against the grain but rather an ironic performance about the futility of choice. They read Edgar Allan Poe, who (Vanessa knows) married his 13-year-old cousin. Strane teaches her the etymology of her name, invented by Jonathan Swift for a pupil 22 years younger than him. Swift once knew a woman named Esther Vanhomrigh, nickname Essa, Strane tells her. He broke her name apart and put it back together as something new Van-Essa became Vanessa. Became you.

The first time Vanessa sneaks out of her dorm to spend the night with him, she takes along a black satin nightie she has stolen from her mothers drawer, but Strane has bought her a pyjama set with strawberries on, which she wears to please him. He lives in a clean and spartan house that he stocks with crisps, ice cream and Cherry Coke. Kate Elizabeth Russell flags up all the warning signs to which Vanessa remains oblivious. Strane goes through a performance of initially asking for her consent the abuser wants to believe that his victim is his knowing co-conspirator only to dispense with all formality. I hope youre not too overwhelmed, he says after raping her. I know he wants the truth, Vanessa reflects,

that I wasnt ready to have sex this way. That it felt forced. But Im not brave enough to say any of this not even that I feel sick to my stomach when I think about him guiding my hand to his penis and dont understand why he didnt stop when I started to cry. That the thought I want to go home ran through my head the entire time we first did it.

I feel fine, I say.

Strane is a crude villain, without the simpering cunning of Humbert Humbert (try to discern the doe in me, trembling in the forest of my own iniquity). Nobody in this book dares crack a joke, and Vanessa has none of Lolitas arch disdain for her captor. My Dark Vanessa is an earnest novel, dedicated to the real-life Dolores Hazes and Vanessa Wyes whose stories have not yet been heard, believed or understood.

Vanessas classmates begin to notice their furtive assignations in Stranes office. One student compiles evidence and a complaint is filed against him. Vanessa takes the fall on his behalf, telling the faculty she was lying when she confided in a couple of classmates about their relationship. The students who filed the complaint are rounded up and Vanessa reads out a statement to a disbelieving audience: I spread lies about him, which he did not deserve. Im sorry for being deceitful. Strane keeps his job and in the years that follow goes on to groom other teenagers. Vanessa gets kicked out of school, but maintains her relationship with him, and never quite finds her footing in the adult world. Meanwhile, in 2017, people close to Vanessa pressure her to address the abuse she has suffered. She keeps telling them theyre mistaken. Russell contrasts the love story Vanessa describes with the abjection of her daily existence: squalid apartments, loveless sexual liaisons, alcohol-soaked inertia. Vanessas awakening to her past subjugation is drawn out to the bitter end. It eventually arrives in therapy, as such things do.

I just really need it to be a love story, she tells her therapist, Ruby. Because if it isnt a love story, then what is it? It is, in the end, a textbook account of an abusive relationship, with symptoms of trauma that range from dissociation to depression. This is a pedagogical novel in more than one sense, a work of fiction that also wants to be a work of reference: here is how an abusive relationship develops between an insecure teenager and a sexual predator; here is why it sometimes takes years for a victim to tell her story; here is how institutions have failed to protect victims of sexual abuse; here is how buried trauma can affect a life. The book is comprehensive and thoroughly researched. Vanessas prolonged insistence that Strane isnt a paedophile paedophile, or that if she agreed to spend the night at his house then it wasnt rape rape, speaks to a wider culture of equivocation. Her eventual acceptance of what really took place banishes ambiguity and affirms the #MeToo movements simple politics of right and wrong. I read it with the sense of duty I reserve for learning about terrible things in the world.

Russell began sketching out the characters in My Dark Vanessa 18 years ago, when she was herself a teenager. She finished the book at the height of the zeitgeist and sold it in 2018 for more than a million dollars. The blurbs from people like Gillian Flynn and Stephen King (stunning, gripping, brilliant) led me to believe I was sitting down to a thriller, but there are no unexpected plot twists here. In a disclaimer, Russell says any similarities with her own upbringing she grew up in Maine and withdrew from a private school for personal reasons should not lead readers to the erroneous conclusion that I am telling the secret history of those events. The book is a work of fiction, she writes, and is informed by critical trauma theory, the pop culture and postfeminism of the early aughts, and my own complicated feelings towards Lolita.

In January, two months before the books release, Wendy C. Ortiz, the Latinx author of a memoir called Excavation (2014), about a sexual relationship with an English teacher that began when she was 13, wrote online that a white woman has written a book that fictionalises a story many people have survived and the book is receiving tremendous backing and promotion. Ortiz described eerie story similarities between My Dark Vanessa and Excavation, but stopped short of accusing Russell of plagiarism, since she refused, on principle, to actually read the book. My Dark Vanessa was quickly dropped as an Oprahs Book Club pick. Perhaps Oprah was exercising caution on account of the controversy surrounding her previous selection, American Dirt (another novel criticised for appropriating trauma for commercial gain). Oprah, who has spoken publicly about the sexual and physical abuse she endured as a child, has probably done more than any other public figure to educate the American public about the power dynamics of such abuse, yet she has recently faced criticism not only for promoting American Dirt but for withdrawing as a producer of a documentary exploring allegations of sexual assault against the entertainment mogul Russell Simmons.

Ortiz wrote that Excavation, which was published by a small press, had been rejected by mainstream publishers, and implied that its reception would have been different if she had been white. I wonder about an industry that wants to pay seven figures for a fictional book about abuse, she wrote. I still see the potential for my book to reach readers it has never been able to reach, but because Ive been kept outside the gates, I dont imagine that reach will ever happen. The American publishing industry does seem to have found a politically correct equivalent of the 19th-century captivity narrative in books about white women escaping sexual trauma, cults and kidnappings, replacing the old racist tropes with a new kind of villain, the sexual predator. Ortizs accusation forced Russell to talk openly about her personal experiences, which earned Ortiz no small amount of criticism for forcing a survivor to out herself in order to prove her right to tell a story. Russell has since told the press that what happens to Vanessa draws in part on her own encounters with older men as a teenager, but has insisted that the actual characters are entirely fictional. I do not believe that we should compel victims to share the details of their personal trauma with the public, she wrote on her website. I have been afraid that opening up about my past would invite inquiry that could be retraumatising, and my publisher tried to protect my boundaries by including a reminder to readers that the novel is fiction.

But the characters arent fictional so much as composites, even archetypes. I suspect many readers will find eerie story similarities between My Dark Vanessa and other works of fiction and non-fiction, or anecdotes of people they know, or their own experiences. As I read the book I thought of the character of Maggie, who tries to hold an abusive high school teacher to account in Three Women, Lisa Taddeos non-fiction book from last year. I thought of the stories recounted in Jon Krakauers Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town. I thought of Oprahs long interview with the men who described being abused by Michael Jackson in Leaving Neverland. (I had no understanding of it being abuse, Wade Robson said. I loved Michael.) I recalled, for the first time in years, an English teacher at my high school who was quietly dismissed amid rumours similar to those that follow Strane.

Russell wrote her novel as the thesis for a doctorate in creative writing at the University of Kansas. Her website lists dozens of books, movies and essays that she referenced, from Kathryn Harrisons 1997 incest memoir The Kiss, to Last Tango in Paris, to the academic study Rape and Resistance by Linda Martn Alcoff. Her novel, bolstered by this bibliography, articulates the contemporary consensus about a subject position: how a survivor like Vanessa must think and feel, the nature of her somatic memories, the pathologies that can accompany trauma. Since this consensus is still fragile and embattled, a work of advocacy cant allow for an exception, and maybe there are no exceptions #BelieveWomen except when they are lying to themselves. But I admit to being disappointed with the way Russell concludes Vanessas narrative. She responds to her delayed enlightenment with a new grace: she makes a peaceful overture to Taylor Birch; she breaks years of silence on the Strane topic with her mother; she opens up to her therapist. But, like Vanessa, I also wanted some recognition that the sort of abuse she suffered doesnt have to define a life completely. I kept returning to an optimistic aside by Jacqueline Rose in her essay on trans narratives in this paper (5 May 2016): Trauma is not pathology but history. If Vanessa had emerged from her experience with her loyalty to Strane intact, it would fly in the face of the accepted evidence; it would have disqualified this book from being the devastating and unsettling novel of the #MeToo era. Instead, Vanessa accepts her status as victim and continues her process of recovery with pet therapy, adopting a pit bull-Weimaraner from a rescue shelter. She calls her Jolene.

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Emily Witt He's Humbert, I'm Dolores LRB 21 May 2020 - London Review of Books

IRVINE, Calif., May 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Through its Flourish Arbonne Foundation, Arbonne International LLC (Arbonne) is providing youth organizations across the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom with monetary support and essential resources to underserved youth experiencing homelessness.

The Foundation has raised $196,500 in donations from the Arbonne community, which Arbonne matched to provide $393,000 in monetary grant funding through the Flourish Arbonne Foundation to organizations serving homeless youth. The funds will help provide shelter, food, care and personal supplies to youth who depend on these organizations for a sense of safety and connection to community not just today, but every day.

In addition to the monetary donation, Arbonne has also donated 40,000 product donation packs made up of Arbonne personal care and nutrition products to these organizations. The product donation packs include items such as hand wash, hand lotion, protein bars, and in the U.S., newly manufactured hand sanitizer produced solely for the purpose of being donated. Each youth organization receiving monetary funding from the Foundation is also receiving these product donation packs, as are additional organizations in New Zealand and Poland.

The Flourish Arbonne Foundation is committed to building resilience in the minds of future generations, achieved through its mission to support the mental well-being of youth in the countries in which it operates. Arbonne is compelled to rally to action behind the Foundation in support of the organizations doing extensive work every day to support homeless youth.

"The Arbonne community identified the need to give back in a meaningful way and rallied together to aid homeless youths," said Fabienne Smolinski, SVP Chief People Officer, Sustainability & Social Impact of Arbonne. "As a B Corporation, Arbonne is dedicated to using its business as a force for good in the communities where we live and work."

"We know there are unmet needs developing daily," said Smolinski. "Our goal is to help provide crucial support for as many young people as we can."

The organizations receiving this support include:

About Arbonne International Since 1980, Arbonne International, LLC, has created personal care, beauty and wellness products crafted with plant-based ingredients, and grounded in science and clinical research. Arbonne's philosophy of healthy living to improve Mind. Body. Skin. combined with the entrepreneurial business opportunity fosters a holistic approach, focusing on the whole person to flourish inside and out. The brand core values are empowerment, transparency, and sustainability, with the vision that everyone can flourish by being good to themselves, their community, and the planet. Arbonne is a certified B Corporation, balancing people, planet and profit. Products are available at arbonne.com or through an extensive network of Arbonne Independent Consultants across the world. Arbonne is a privately held company and is headquartered in Irvine, California. For more information, please visit http://www.arbonne.com.

About Flourish Arbonne Foundation The mission of the Flourish Arbonne Foundation is to build resilience in the minds of future generations. Through strategic non-profit partnerships, product donations and volunteer efforts, the Foundation has helped more than 366,000 youth flourish through programs the Foundation supports. The Flourish Arbonne Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit corporation organized under the laws of the State of California. Our Tax ID is 45-5136989. International: The Foundation has charitable status in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

Arbonne is a proud member of the Direct Selling Association. View the Code of Ethics by which Arbonne abides or contact the DSA directly.

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SOURCE Arbonne International, LLC

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Arbonne Community Donates $393000 In Funding To Youth Organizations - Stockhouse

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Tara Lee, a nurse at Providence Sacred Heart, recounts a time when "I didn't feel safe going to work."

When nurse Tara Lee went to work on March 14, she felt like there was an enemy coming that she wasn't prepared to fight.

Lee, diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and depression, could feel her anxiety building up. It wasn't just that Spokane confirmed its first cases of coronavirus that day. It wasn't just that the week had been a whirlwind of news about school closures, canceled events and deaths adding up in Seattle.

What overwhelmed her was logging into a patient's chart and seeing a banner that said her patient might have symptoms of the coronavirus. There weren't enough resources to test for it. And having recently recovered from pneumonia, Lee felt vulnerable.

"I didn't feel safe going to work," Lee says.

She hasn't been back to work at Providence Sacred Heart hospital since. She had to call in sick for her next shift because, as she puts it, "I woke up with the worst depression I've ever had." For weeks she took medication every night just to be able to sleep. She repeatedly called a suicide hotline. It took weeks for her to feel like herself again.

Since the pandemic hit Washington, most front-line workers in health care, mental health and public safety have been expected to keep working despite the risks to their own health. Yet, as the public looks to those workers to protect them during the pandemic, many don't feel protected themselves. And local experts say it's taking a toll on their mental health.

While Spokane hasn't seen the mass deaths and overrun hospitals that have traumatized health care workers elsewhere, there could be "between 2 million to 3 million" Washingtonians whose behavioral health will be adversely affected by the pandemic in the coming months, projects Kira Mauseth, a clinical psychologist and instructor at Seattle University. And front-line workers, she says, remain "uniquely exposed" to situations causing anxiety, stress, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"There are higher risks any time we're talking about a situation where personal safety might be threatened," Mauseth tells the Inlander.

THE UNKNOWN

In 2011, two years after Lee became a nurse, she'd begun to lose weight and have trouble sleeping. When her friends pulled her aside and urged her to get help, she did. But she didn't tell her co-workers.

"There was so much shame and guilt surrounding my depression because I had such a good life," Lee says. "I didn't feel like I deserved to be depressed."

Then she started developing anxiety. She was diagnosed with a panic disorder, a type of anxiety disorder that causes panic attacks. As a nurse, she'd watch patients die. She'd talk to parents who just lost their child. Yet, through the years she realized she could manage her anxiety with therapy and the right medication. Usually, however, her anxiety is the worst when it's tied to her own physical safety driving in cars, heights, wind storms.

And that's what was different about COVID-19, she says. Weeks before that day on March 14, she had pneumonia. So when coronavirus came to Spokane, she didn't know if she could protect herself.

"Now I'm back at work with compromised lungs, and I'm working with co-workers who were also compromised," she says.

As she tried to recover from her depression, she would see the signs around town thanking health care workers and calling them heroes. And that made her feel guilty.

"A huge part of my depression was my guilt for not being on the frontlines," she says. "Every time I saw things that they were doing for health care workers I would start crying. I was like, 'I should be there for my team.' I felt so guilty."

Ryan Pursley, an emergency medicine physician in Spokane, says he relates to what Lee might have felt in mid-March. He's used to compartmentalizing the disturbing things he sees in the emergency room and working under intense stress. But the coronavirus felt different.

"That fear of the unknown was a big factor for everybody," Pursley says. "If you know what it is and what you're dealing with, you go into normal work mode and deal with it. Not knowing how contagious it was, how much it was going to accelerate, all those unknowns were very stressful."

After a while, Pursley says, he came to accept that this is the new normal at work. But he still worries about spreading it to his family. As a precaution every day, he changes his clothes in the garage multiple times and showers before seeing his family. Some health care workers and firefighters have isolated themselves completely from their family.

"As far as the fear of catching something, I've never felt that level as with the coronavirus," Pursley says.

On top of that, front-line workers have lost coping mechanisms to manage their stress, just like the rest of the population. Similarly, the restriction on elective surgeries cost many local health care workers their jobs.

"Not only has their ability to manage stress been compromised," says Dan Barth, director of business development for Inland Northwest Behavioral Health, "but they've been enduring financial duress just like everybody else is."

THEY HAVE EACH OTHER

Patients may not come in seeking medical care for coronavirus at the Inland Northwest Behavioral Health (INBH) intake department. But the workers there are on the frontlines of the crisis nonetheless, says Julie Hall, director of intake for INBH.

In isolation at home, people may be too paranoid to leave the house and get their medication. That can lead them to INBH, where employees wearing cloth masks screen patients at the door. Lately, the psychiatric treatment center has seen a surge in acute psychosis, with a 12 percent increase in patients involuntarily committed there in the last six weeks, Hall says.

"We're not designed like a medical hospital to treat patients," she says. "But the exposure is still there."

And experts expect behavioral health issues in Washington to increase over the next year. It's similar to any natural disaster, says Mauseth, the clinical psychologist in Seattle. Except the pandemic keeps happening.

Mauseth projects it to follow a pattern over the course of the year. In March, it was common for people to feel anxiety or panic about the unknown. Now, it's common for people to act out becoming aggressive, using drugs or breaking the law or act "in" with increased feelings of hopelessness. She expects rates of depression to increase over the next three to six months, and suicide rates and domestic violence to subsequently increase as well. By March 2021, we might see behavioral health impacts get back to normal, if the coronavirus cooperates, of course.

That makes behavioral health providers as important as ever. And while some moved to phone appointments only, that was never an option for Compassionate Addiction Treatment, a nonprofit in downtown Spokane.

"If we closed, our clients would not have access to us," says co-founder and recovery program manager Hallie Burchinal.

Much of their clientele are people who are homeless, she says, and other services for the homeless have shut down. Yet working every day around people has brought up feelings of anxiety that Burchinal says she hasn't experienced in years.

Co-founder Trudy Frantz says they have enough trouble finding time to treat all their clients, let alone think of their own mental health.

"We talk to each other," she says. "We might step outside and have a rough time."

HELPING THE HELPERS

Maintaining mental health for front-line workers isn't just important on an individual level, says Keri Waterland, division director of behavioral health and recovery for the Washington Health Care Authority. It's also important to ensure medical and behavioral health systems respond properly to the coronavirus crisis overall. And there's a simple reason for that, she says.

"Folks who are not able to feel supported are not going to be able to do a great job of supporting another individual," Waterland says.

RESOURCES

24/7 Regional Crisis Line: 1-877-266-1818

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Trevor Lifeline (LGBTQ): 1-866-488-7386

Crisis Text Line: 741741

Mauseth says things like reasonable work shifts, adequate rest and access to mental health providers can all help front line workers. But what may help the most as they battle this virus might be accurate information. That means knowing what to expect, knowing what's happening with personal protective equipment and having the proper training.

"It helps with providing a sense of power and empowerment when you know what you should be doing and what you need to be doing," Mauseth says.

After that day on March 14, when everything hit her at once, it took Lee a few weeks to feel better. The first time she fell into depression years ago she tried to deny it and hide it from others. This time, she says, she did the opposite.

"What helped me so fast this time was admitting it, acknowledging it, and being able to talk to people I trusted about it," Lee says.

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How the pandemic impacts the mental health of local front-line workers - Pacific Northwest Inlander

As millions across the U.S. prepare to return to work and maybe, a level of normalcy the phrase, Were all in this together, heard constantly in the media, turns out to be both true and untrue. Yes, the pandemic is a global experience. But its also very much an individual enterprise.

Your race, age, socioeconomic status, where you live and whether or not children are in the house all have a dramatic impact on how youre responding to the pandemic. For many, aside from the isolation, life has changed little. But others have lost family, friends, a paycheck or a business. For some of them, any sense of security has vanished.

Much has been written about the need for personal protective equipment, or PPE. But now, as we face reentry, its time to develop our EPE emotional protective equipment. And theres no better time than May when the National Alliance on Mental Illness observes Mental Health Awareness Month to begin the conversation.

As health and medical educators at Michigan State University, we research, counsel and teach about wellness, resiliency and support, particularly for vulnerable populations. After a tragedy, whether natural or man-made, we know that an increase in stress, anxiety, depression, substance use or post-traumatic stress disorder often follows. But there are things individuals can do to help themselves, and things organizations can do to help others. Lets look at a few of them.

We can practice skills rooted in stress management, mindfulness and self-compassion. First, we must recognize the current circumstances are legitimately stressful. Exercising, eating right, regulating sleep and keeping a routine as best you can will strengthen your body and mind to manage these very real stressors.

Next, we must practice self-kindness. If youre an adult, youve already dealt with uncertainty and survived. Perhaps youve even thrived. Thinking I cant cope and This is too much for me not only makes you feel worse; the thoughts are usually incorrect. Instead, research suggests that talking to yourself the way a friend would talk to you, with accurate and helpful phrases reduces anxiety. Say to yourself: Ive been through scary and uncertain things in the past and made it through. Or These past few weeks and months have been filled with uncertainty, but Im still surviving.

Another strategy that works: Find distance between yourself and your thoughts, the essence of mindfulness. For example: When experiencing an anxious thought, notice it, name it, then release it. You dont need to buy in to the thought; instead, stay focused on the present moment.

Granted, its easy to get pulled into worrying about the future, or for that matter, dwelling on the past, particularly while bombarded by anxious thoughts or negative news. Truth is, no one knows whats going to happen over the next few months. Staying in the present helps you detach from depressing or anxiety-provoking thoughts. In turn, youll feel a greater sense of control over the here and now.

Finally, be mindful of the quality and quantity of information you take in. In uncertain times, we try to calm our fears by gathering as much information as we can. But research has found the more media we consume, the higher the toll on our mental health. Be aware of whats going on, of course but dont let yourself lose hours every day to news or social media.

Organizations can use well-known principles to help employees and clients heal. First, they have to be physically safe. If youre an employer, follow guidelines to protect them from COVID-19 as they return to work. And tell them what precautions youre taking.

Make sure employees are psychologically safe. Listen to the people who work for you. Dont dismiss their thoughts, concerns, feelings or experiences; ask them what they need. You may not be able to do everything they ask, but do what you can. Be trustworthy, transparent and do what you say youre going to do.

Foster collaboration, mutuality, empowerment, voice and choice. Some decisions, like following safety procedures, are not optional. But provide choices whenever possible and give a voice to everyone. Recognize, particularly during reentry, that not everyone will be back to normal at the same time. By sharing decision-making with your employees, an organization can empower its workforce and promote a safe and collaborative environment, even during a pandemic.

Finally, acknowledge cultural, historical and gender issues. Crises such as this are typically hardest on groups already marginalized. Real voice, influence, power and equity for minorities and women are especially critical right now.

The collective trauma of the pandemic is not yet behind us. The messy prospect of reopening and processing is ahead. We cant predict precisely whats next, but we can fortify our collective resilience and mental health. As individuals, we can develop our emotional protective equipment. As institutions, we can support our people. As a society, we can reflect on the gross inequities highlighted by the crisis and rally around the worthy cause of addressing them.

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversations newsletter.]

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As reopening begins in uncertain coronavirus times, you need emotional protective equipment, too - The Conversation US

MAY 14, 2020

THREE MUSLIM GIRLS two sisters and their cousin stood in the sunshine on the grounds of the Diggi Palace Hotel in Jaipur, where the worlds largest literary festival took place over five days in late January. All around them, young people streamed into the sprawling compound, before a pandemic changed the world, girls in skinny jeans and sunglasses, college boys with a casual swagger. Friends huddled together for selfies, then swept across terraces and lawns in the tens of thousands to join Delhis literary establishment, Mumbai socialites, provincial Rajasthani gentry, readers, writers, academics, and international visitors to listen to some of the best minds in India and the West deliberate the issues of our times. Who are we? What has become of our world? Do we have any recourse? These anxieties prevailed against an array of programming about war, culture, casteism, Gandhism, climate change, big tech, poverty, history, fiction, poetry, and politics.

Shazia Khan, the elder of the two sisters, a radiant young woman with a passionate manner of speaking, was a B.Tech student at a local engineering college many of the students I spoke to planned a future in technology, pursuing the same B.Tech, or Bachelor of Technology, degree. Shazia had come to attend a talk by a fashion designer to the Bollywood stars, Manish Malhotra, whose couture draws on traditional Indian craftsmanship. Shazia herself wore a leopard-print hijab of multi-colored hues. Her cousin, a student of Urdu literature, let her thick, wavy hair cascade down her shoulders. I wondered at the difference between them. The decision to wear hijab was a personal one in their family, Shazia explained. I asked why she had chosen to wear one, wanting to understand her attachment to the traditional head covering since it was paired with modern attire a quilted jacket and leggings.

These are fraught times in the secular republic of India. Just a month before this years Jaipur Literature Festival, the ruling Hindu nationalist party passed a controversial amendment to the nations citizenship law, fast tracking Indian citizenship to undocumented immigrants from three neighboring countries as long as they are not Muslim. The amendment has been condemned by opposition parties as a violation of Indias constitutionally-defined secular identity. Indias Muslim minority 200 million people fears the amendment is part of a larger government initiative to deprive them of their rights. Deadly violence erupted in New Delhi in February, instigated by supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A proud Hindu nationalist, schooled in right-wing ideology since boyhood, Modi conveys his anti-Muslim sentiments in blatant code. You can tell who troublemakers are by the clothes they wear, he has said, in a clear attempt to other Muslims.

When I asked Shazia about what her hijab meant to her, she looked at me with luminous brown eyes and said in the most heartfelt manner, It is my identity. I understood. I understood in an immediate, emotional way that is perhaps the most powerful way to apprehend anything. Her answer prompted me to reflect on my own sense of self. Why was I wearing a bindi on my forehead? It wasnt really a part of my identity. I had left India as a child and grown up in Connecticut, where my familys cultural traditions withered like neglected plants in the suburban landscape. Returning to India, to a quiet provincial city like Jaipur, I felt closer to the languorous atmosphere of my childhood than I did in a teeming city like Mumbai. Here in Jaipur, through my scarlet bindi, I imagined I could reclaim the self I had left behind.

In a world marred by upheaval, identity becomes a central dilemma. The collapsed colonial empires of the 20th century created large populations of rootless immigrants and refugees who transformed the Western world. In its early years of independence, India struggled to remake itself, as two centuries of British tyranny had left the nation impoverished, illiterate, and barely industrialized. When the country was torn apart in 1947 to create Pakistan, over three million Hindus and Muslims were killed or went missing, and at least 18 million more were displaced in the largest forced migration in human history, according to new research by Harvard South Asia Institutes Partition Project, which revises previous estimates significantly upward. This was the bloody birth of modern India. Some 70 years later, the country has sunk to Modi, who is sowing religious discord to amass political power.

Since its inception in 2006, the Jaipur Literature Festival has become an unexpected occasion for national self-examination. Were making sense of our changing times, making sense of our fractured society, the writer Namita Gokhale told me over tea in the inner courtyard of the noblemans palace that serves as the festivals home. An accomplished novelist and independent publisher, Gokhale co-directs the festival with the Scottish historian William Dalrymple, a longtime resident of India. Collaboration has been the key to their success, she said, also mentioning the festivals producer Sanjoy Roy. Last year, crowd size swelled to half a million people, surpassing Woodstock. Young people, ravenous for knowledge and new ideas, accounted for more than half the visitors. Indeed, India is a young country half of the nations 1.3 billion people fall under the age of 25.

For provincial youth, I imagined, entry to the festival might feel like slipping through the looking glass into a space where worlds collided India and the West, past and present. The palace compound was festooned with dazzling Rajasthani decorations. Traditionally dressed vendors dispensed snacks and tea, evoking rural India, the artistry of the environment recalling an old-fashioned fair or wedding. Meanwhile, speakers brought in a breadth of knowledge and brilliance, opening up a multitude of new horizons.

Although Indian authors, journalists, and intellectuals dominated the programs, almost every major contemporary writer in the world has appeared under Jaipurs colorful tents: Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, J. M. Coetzee, Colson Whitehead, Patrick French, Ben Okri, Orhan Pamuk, Jhumpa Lahiri, Mohsin Hamid, and Michael Ondaatje, among others. In 2015, V. S. Naipaul publicly reconciled with his protg Paul Theroux at the festival after a bitter 19-year feud. Salman Rushdie was kept away from a visit in 2012 by threats of assassination from the Muslim underworld.

Gokhale recognizes that cross-cultural dialogue can pollinate exciting ideas and connections. But, for her, the festivals significance lies in the interrogation of India by Indian writers and thinkers. I didnt want this to be a Club Med for Western writers to come in and tell us about ourselves, Gokhale said. Were looking for ourselves in our own mirror.

At the festivals opening ceremony, held under an enormous tent on the front lawn, Gokhale began by welcoming an audience of a couple of thousand people in Hindi. I was surprised, accustomed to Indians speaking English in the presence of foreigners and the elite. Gokhales welcome in her native tongue was a natural way of asserting her identity, signaling to Western visitors they were being given seats at Indias table. Her commitment to Indian languages and literatures is reflected in a thread of popular vernacular-language programs at the Festival showcasing regional writers. After a brief address in Hindi, Gokhale switched to English.

The Festival has become an incredibly influential platform in India, a local TV journalist told me as we listened to Gokhale. We were perched above the tent on the Press Terrace, the palaces expansive rooftop, where journalists hunched over their laptops. Dalrymple had told me that the festival was originally an offshoot of a local heritage event, and in its first year, it attracted only a handful of tourists. But it quickly developed a reputation as a showcase for the best Indian and Indian-American writers, flourishing alongside a sophisticated new publishing industry, which emerged during Indias economic boom at the turn of the millennium. This year, 35 literary festival directors from around the world converged on Jaipur to study the workings of the literary juggernaut. Everyone wanted to speak here, the journalist said, knowing their words might be transmitted around the country.

The chief minister of Rajasthan state, Ashok Gehlot, who lit the ceremonial lamp to inaugurate the festival, told reporters he hoped authors and intellectuals would use this platform for free speech to discuss the burning issues [] and send their message across to Modi. Their collective voice of sanity might inspire a new beginning for the country, he said. Then the American ambassador, arguably the most important foreign official in India, stepped onstage for a moment to declare that literature is one of the most effective forms of cultural diplomacy, before introducing the popular writer Elizabeth Gilbert. (Gilbert proceeded to win over the women in the crowd with her stirring paean to female sexuality and cutting rebuke of marriage.)

The next afternoon, a massive crowd assembled under that same tent and spilled across the lawn, anticipating political fireworks. Shashi Tharoor a member of Parliament, prolific author, and one of Indias most outspoken intellectuals was onstage. Should religion be the determinant of nationhood? he exhorted in the clipped tones of an English aristocrat. Muslims who believed that created Pakistan. The vast majority on the Indian side said, No! Religion does not determine our identity, our nationhood!

Tharoors Congress Party, crippled by losses in the 2019 election, offers feeble opposition to Modis Hindu nationalist party. But the politician carried on exuberantly before the crowd, pointing out a fascinating semantic distinction: the Indian Constitution defines India as a territory and the Constitution as a document applying to all the people of that territory. But Hindutva the political ideology of Hindu nationalism posits that a nation is a people and the people of India are Hindus. So, is the nation of India a people or a territory? The founder of Hindu nationalism, V. D. Savarkar, had once called for the Indian Constitution to be torn up. In the 1920s, Savarkar formulated the Hindutva ideology while he languished in a draconian British prison during the dark days of colonial rule. Hindutva imagines a prelapsarian India, before the waves of Islamic invasion, where Hindus reigned supreme. Tharoor lamented that Indias current rulers Modi and his cronies were steeped in this warped worldview. This is the first time Im starting to worry about the disintegration of the country, he confessed, his bravado slipping for a moment.

At the festival, many journalists raised the alarm about Modi. Nobel Laureate and MIT economist Abhijit Banerjee steered clear of politics but still offered a brilliant lesson on good governance that was in direct contradiction to Modis heavy-handed approach: bend your ideas to people to their needs and proclivities instead of trying to bend people to your fixed ideas. Banerjee, co-winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics with his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, spoke of his and Duflos experimental approach to improving development programs undertaken by various Indian state governments. The reason poor children werent learning in school, they discovered in one such project, was the hallowed syllabus to which educationists unswervingly adhered. Their simple solution was to ask teachers to take a few hours each day to teach children what they most needed: those who couldnt add, should be taught to add; those who couldnt read, should be taught to read. Learning outcomes increased dramatically.

Another long-term project revealed that microfinance failed in alleviating poverty, because the abject poor used small loans to pay off debts. Banerjee and Duflo found that a better approach was to provide a poor man or woman a simple asset like a cow or a few goats along with some encouragement they took psychological needs into account which resulted in many more successful income-generating activities. India is many countries in one, Banerjee said. The key to development was devolving power to the states. Authority is an illusion, he continued. I hoped those words would reach Modis ears.

Among literature festivals of international stature, the Jaipur Literature Festival stands out for the intellectual heft of its programming. Dalrymple has compared the festival to a university pitching its tents for five days; his network of international contacts draws in many of the European and American literary prize winners. Gokhale personally designs a large number of the 250-odd programs on offer, a creative act in which she is perpetually engaged. When I met her, she was already jotting down ideas for next years panels. The Indian-American writer Akash Kapur, whose 2012 book on Indias economic transformation, India Becoming, has taken him to renowned literary conferences around the world found the quality of discussion at Jaipur exceptional. Its a festival of ideas, he said.

Programs that might read as academic, such as Intersections: Caste, Colour and Gender, could be startlingly revelatory about areas of darkness within Indian society. The journalist Yashica Dutt spoke about the shame of being born in the lowest of low castes, in the scavenger subgroup among Dalits. Being Dalit meant being Untouchable and talentless, she confessed. It is a deeply ingrained sense of inferiority. Though affirmative action programs had lifted her family out of poverty, they remained secretive about their caste identity for fear of being shunned. Dutts groundbreaking memoir, Coming Out as Dalit, grew out of conversations about equality she had as a graduate student in the United States. Stigmatized groups in India were poised for toppling hierarchies in the quest for equality, suggested feminist activist Ruchira Gupta, and the first step toward that might be publicly proclaiming ones identity.

A young woman in a maroon blazer stood to ask Dutt why she had written her book in English, to which Dutt replied that it was empowering to use a language previously monopolized by the elite. English was now being democratized across India. Later, I spoke to that young woman, a PhD student in English literature, who was writing a thesis on Dalit activism. She herself was a Dalit The inferiority is there, she conceded. I glimpsed her ruled notebook covered in neat, squared Devanagari script, and, in that moment, the gap between her lived reality as a Hindi speaker of the lowest caste and her aspiration to transcend the fissures of her disadvantage became poignantly clear.

There is a new India! journalist Rajdeep Sardesai proclaimed during a talk titled The Democracy Index. It is the most aspirational society in the history of the world more aspirational than the United States! I listened from afar, milling around in the garden. You cannot be part of the privileged elite in India and talk down to people anymore. That was true, I thought. This India, the India represented by the several hundred thousand students who poured into the festival grounds, bore little resemblance to the India my parents left behind. Many of the youth here would have once been referred to as the masses members of the lower middle class or even the poor; or low-caste, tribal, or other disadvantaged groups for whom affirmative action programs reserved 50 percent of all university seats. Entrance to the festival was free to those who registered online, so many came to lay their claim to knowledge and beauty, congregating where their parents might have once been afraid to enter.

The festivals essential power, the power of its words, lay in its influence on the youth of India. What other book festival in the world attracts over a quarter million students? India is in the midst of an intellectual boom. In the 12 years since the Jaipur Literature Festival began, 300 literary festivals have sprung up across the country and in the surrounding nations of South Asia. The desire for self-examination now appears limitless. The new festivals have knit together a vast community of writers across India, Gokhale told me, where none had existed before. I wondered how many young people the other festivals attracted. Did youth in every part of India now have access to some kind of marketplace of ideas? Those ideas might offer a defense or alternative to the impoverished, narrow-minded Hindutva ideology that the prime minister was peddling to the nation.

If Modi idealizes an antediluvian, hegemonic Hindu culture, then the youth of India aspire to capture something new new ways of seeing, thinking, articulating. One boy I spoke to marveled at the extraordinary variety of books available at the festival bookstore; he had wandered through the aisles, admiring all the books by so many foreign writers. No bookstore like it existed in all of India, he said. A college girl who volunteered with a Teach For India program that helps underprivileged students prepare for the job market had picked up ideas she could share about effective communication in English by observing festival speakers. The lesson one 18-year-old engineering student took away from the seminars hed attended was how to represent yourself.

Identity politics is the new template for India, bellowed one journalist during a talk. People now defined themselves as Hindu, Muslim, or Dalit first, he insisted. I wondered, was it true that Indians identified themselves primarily by their religion? I asked a pair of young men standing in the front lawn, behind a row of seated policemen in khaki uniform. (Security at the festival was a heavy yet unobtrusive presence.) From the boys halting English and humble appearance, I gathered they were from modest homes and wondered if they might be drawn to Modis message of Hindu empowerment. Modi is trying to make us think like that, one of them said. Hed been a supporter of Modis political party until Modi began using anti-Muslim rhetoric. He said he was driven away when Modi declared that you could identify a Muslim by his topee, using the word hat as a kind of mocking slur for skullcap. I turned to his friend. A shy boy with a smattering of beard around his jaw, he shook his head and looked down, embarrassed by my question. Were educated people, Maam.

There was a compassion and hopefulness among the youth I met that was lacking in the sharp, impassioned, and sometimes explosive onstage critiques of Modi and his inner circle. Anger and fear dominated those discussions, just as they do many conversations about Donald Trump in the United States pummeling, exhausting emotions. The young seemed to assess the situation with both a sense of justice and an air of grace. I asked Shazia Khan if she felt discriminated against in the current climate. No, she said. It was Modi who wanted to create a Hindu rashtra a Hindu nation but shed experienced no bigotry from her fellow students at college. We are united first by our humanity, she said with a brilliant smile. She and her bashful younger sister and her cousin formed a line, and I leaned in, because she had asked, Do you want to take a selfie with us, Maam? Her cousin extended her arm and tilted my phone at just the right angle to take a good picture, capturing the four of us in a single frame.

Parul Kapur Hinzen is a fiction writer, journalist, and literary critic living in Atlanta. Her writing has appeared in a number of publications including Guernica, Slate, Esquire, and The Wall Street Journal Europe.

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Can Words Help Heal a Fractured Nation?: A Visit to the Jaipur Literature Festival - lareviewofbooks

Last week, the Isle of Wight a small island on the south coast of the UK, known for its music festivals and dinosaur fossils began testing and tracing Covid-19 exposure amongst its citizens with a controversial new NHSX Coronavirus Contact Tracing App (NHS App).

Most contact tracing apps run on decentralised systems, and there are concerns about the use of centralised systems such as the one trialled on the Isle of Wight. With centralised apps, peoples health data is held in a government database that is more vulnerable to cyber-attacks and potential misuse such as state surveillance.

But would this second contact tracing app really be more secure? Are these our only two options? As the government cautiously begins to ease the lockdown in the UK, we need a clear route forward and a contact tracing app that truly preserves our privacy. Only this will ensure there is sufficient take up amongst the population to make the technology effective.

Only 40% of the Isle of Wights 141,000 residents downloaded the app.

The Isle of Wight trial didnt go smoothly. Only 40% of the islands 141,000 residents downloaded the app, and many of them reported technical issues. That might mean its curtains for the NHS App; it is increasingly likely that the UK government will switch to another app already rumoured to be in development. The most likely alternative is a less privacy-invasive model endorsed by Google and Apple, along with other governments across Europe including Germany, Italy, Ireland, Austria and Switzerland.

That means the NHS is tasked with building an application that it can get on to smartphone home screens. As weve seen in the past week, this is a very difficult challenge. There may be 8m people in the UK who dont have a smartphone at all, which means 75-95% of people who do have smartphones need to download it to get to a critical mass overall.

75-95% of people would have to download the app for the system to work.

The main challenge facing the NHS and governments around the world is that unless tracing applications are downloaded and used by the majority of a countrys population they simply wont work. And because no one is (yet) proposing that European citizens be forced to download one of these apps, people need to want to use it.

The discussion around app functionality and security typically follows that you can have richer, and more useful features, or privacy, but you cant have both. This is a myth.

That comes with its own challenges: it means the user has to always have the device turned on, and it means information cant be synced between multiple devices. On-device information cant survive wipes to the phones memory either, so they cant survive being dropped in the sink. And any features that need to be able to access lots of users data repeatedly such as algorithms that identify or predict coronavirus hotspots simply cant operate on-device. Lets take a look at the Google and Apple solution for a moment. It keeps all the information required to run contact tracing applications private to the user by storing it on the mobile device thats running the app.

The idea that you cant have both rich features and privacy is a myth.

The Google and Apple architecture will strictly control exactly what information is made accessible to any contact tracing apps developers, including NHSX. If NHSX were to build its app on this framework, it may, in future, be blocked when it wishes to release a new feature, as access to some of the information it needs to build it is subject to the approval of the tech giants. Thats why NHSX avoided this path in the first place. Remember, Apple and Google see healthcare as the next frontier and will be looking to protect the in-roads they have already made in this market.

That means that the app would gain privacy from decentralisation at the cost of the freedom to develop seemingly, too steep a price to pay.

The UK has been a pioneer in technology designs that dont compromise privacy for functionality, and its time we embraced them. Leading universities in the UK, like the Centre of Digital Economy in Surrey, alongside US partners Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, champion a solution for privacy and functionality in contact tracing applications that keeps data private by having it owned by the app users, instead of the NHS, GCHQ, Apple or Google.

A better solution is having the data owned by the app users rather than the NHS, GCHQ, Apple or Google.

Users download the app and create a personal data account that only they control. This account holds all the information the app needs the history of contact with other app users, any symptoms theyve had, their locations all information that the user would consider to be invasive were it to be exposed. The user has full control over this data, and can grant access to it to the apps developers Sharetrace in this instance to power the application. Anyone who wants it (including the government, Sharetrace and the operating systems of the devices providing signal data) needs to explicitly ask the user for the legal right to do so, and this right can be revoked.

The data in this type of architecture is made accessible to contact tracing applications and can be revoked as needed, allowing a full-featured application without compromising privacy. Sharetrace, a contact application jointly developed by these researchers with the support of the Cleveland Clinic and public health experts on both sides of the Atlantic, uses these personal data accounts to make information used by the app both private to the individual and accessible to the app.

Systems like this are built on trust and citizen empowerment, but they do not significantly limit functionality. They cant, if they are going to succeed the worlds technology is never going to get less intimate just because we ask it to.

We need to innovate our way into a more private, less invasive society, and moves from government bodies like the NHS and GCHQ are a huge part of making that happen.

Lets demand more of our trusted institutions.

Professor Irene Ng is chief executive of Dataswift, a sponsor of the open-source technology Sharetrace.

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Contact tracing apps: What's the least worst option? - Sifted

Triona Carters birth of her first son, in a county jail in Alabama, was one of the most hurtful things to ever go through. The pain was both physical and emotional. She was handcuffed to the bed, aware that she would soon be separated from her child. [I was] holding him, knowing that I dont know when Ill be able to hold him again, Carter said. But the birth of her second son during her 20-year stay in Julia Tutwiler Prison was even more devastating because I didnt have much time to hold him: You had your child that day, the next day youre going back to the prison you dont have time to heal at the hospital.

Giving birth to her two sons while in the carceral system left Triona emotionally broken. Triona was one of approximately 1,300 women who give birth while incarcerated every year in the United States.

The number of incarcerated women has increased exponentially in the last four decades, with a rate over eight times higher than it was throughout most of the 20th century, according to a 2019 study by the Prison Policy Initiative. In prisons in particular, incarceration rates for women have more than doubled since 1978, compared to the rate for men. There has also been remarkable growth of incarcerated women at the state leveland as the incarceration rate of women continues to rise, so will the incidence of pregnancy behind bars.

Mothers define the carceral landscape of women in the U.S. Yet health standards for pregnancy care in prison remain inconsistent at best.

Dr. Diane Morse, an internal medicine physician and associate professor in psychiatry and medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told me, Most prisons and jails do not give people birth control, even though the rate of unintended pregnancies is much higher among women who have been incarcerated. The rate of unintended pregnancy is as high as 83 percent among recently incarcerated women, in contrast to the national rate of 45 percent.

According to an American Public Health Association study, Pregnancy Outcomes in US Prisons, 20162017, which studied 22 state prison systems and all federal prisons, [t]hree quarters of incarcerated women are of childbearing age (between 18 and 44 years) and [t]wo thirds [of incarcerated women] are mothers and the primary caregivers to young children. In other words, mothers define the carceral landscape of women in the U.S. Yet health standards for pregnancy care in prison remain inconsistent at best.

While prisons are constitutionally obliged to provide health care to those in their custody, no mandatory standards to guarantee health care provision exist. As a result, there is tremendous variability in pregnancy care in prisons, writes the American Public Health Association. When I asked Triona if she had any support after giving birth to her eldest son in prison, or received any prenatal care, she was quick to reply, We had none of that. A 2004 Bureau of Justice Statistics study found that 54 percent of pregnant women received some type of pregnancy care, but does not articulate the scope of such care.

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Yet over the course of Trionas 20 years in prison, a number of nonprofit pregnancy support organizations have been filling the gaps in the system. When Triona was in Tutwiler, Aid to Inmate Mothers facilitated the strengthening of her bond with her sons through visitations and recording bedtime stories, and encouraged personal development through book clubs and parenting classes.

More recently, over the last decade, nonprofits that specifically connect women who are incarcerated and pregnant with doulas have emerged. The Alabama Prison Birth Project (APBP) began providing support to pregnant women in Tutwiler in 2016. The organization offers weekly visits to the prison, during which they provide support and information about childbirth and the postpartum experience, and provide a healthy meal for expectant mothers. They also match pregnant women with a doula who provides informational, physical, and emotional support throughout pregnancy, labor, and the immediate postpartum period. This allows for continuity of care.

APBP was also instrumental in the establishment of a lactation room in Tutwiler. In 2018, a room that previously served as an isolation cell was turned into the Serene Expressions room, where women can pump breast milk that will be delivered to their newborns. Once a week, Chauntel Norris, one of APBPs doulas, retrieves the stored bottles of milk and delivers them to the respective caregivers.

In creating a space for breastfeeding, and in serving as a constant presence from pregnancy to the postpartum experience, the doula supports mental health, well-being, and maternal empowerment among women in prison.

Maternal health outcomes in the carceral system map onto maternal health disparities writ large in the U.S.

Similar organizations have emerged in other states, such as the Minnesota Prison Doula Project, founded in 2008; Motherhood Beyond Bars, founded in 2013 in Georgia; and the Michigan Prison Doula Initiative, which was founded in 2017 and officially launched its program to support pregnant women in Womens Huron Valley Correctional Facilityalso the states only womens prisonin February 2019. The mission of the organization is to provide compassionate birth and parenting support to incarcerated people, Kate Stroud, the doula program director for the Michigan Doula Prison Initiative, told me. Since launching, they have provided support to about 30 women.

Maternal health outcomes in the carceral system map onto maternal health disparities writ large in the U.S. According to the American Public Health Association study, black women are incarcerated at twice the rate of white women. The interaction of poverty, substance abuse, and limited access to health care prior to incarceration means that when women enter the carceral system, they bring with them pre-existing health vulnerabilities that can only compound in the prison environment. And what passes for health care within prison is often the provision of over-the-counter medication rather than serious attempts at diagnosis and adequate treatment.

When people are released from prison, poor health trails them. A 2007 study by The New England Journal of Medicine looked at formerly incarcerated people who were released from 1999 to 2003 from the Washington State Department of Corrections, and found that the mortality rate among this population was 3.5 times that among state residents of the same age, sex, and race.

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Research shows that the pairing of pregnant women with doulas results in positive health outcomes, from shorter labor with fewer complications. In the setting of prison, doulas also help new mothers navigate the grief that comes with the inevitable separation from their newborn.

While these different doula initiatives operate in their respective state-specific contexts, we do work together, and bounce ideas off each other I am in touch with Amy Ard [of Motherhood Beyond Bars] down in Georgia, and Rae Baker [of the Minnesota Prison Doula Project] up in Minnesota in the 20 years that Ive done doula work, its always been a collaborative effort, Stroud told me.

As women typically take on child-rearing responsibilities, when the mother is removed, it upturns the whole system of the family, Stroud told me. This upturning, which in many prisons occurs only 24 hours after birth, has tremendous implications for the long-term mental health and well-being of women behind bars.

In working within the maternal care gap, the doula initiatives and parenting support organizations operating in states across the U.S. are trying to bring both health and humanity to women in prison. Triona credits Aid to Inmate Mothers Storybook Project for the strong bond she has with her sons today. She recorded storiesoriginally through cassette, then videoup until her last day in prison in February 2018. When she was released and reunited with her sons, she told me, it was like I never left home.

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Filling the Maternal-Care Gap in Prison - The American Prospect