Greetings,
I just signed the following petition addressed to: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of every country in the world.
This petition was created by Chip Huyen. She is probably one of very few Vietnamese backpackers you'll ever
meet. She started her round the world trip in May 2010, and hasn't
stopped since then. To finance her trip, she finds odd jobs on the road
and hosts a column for a Vietnamese newspaper. Her biggest problem is
not how to make money, but how to get visas.
----------------
To make traveling as an equal opportunity
When
I was in Israel, everybody told me not to go to Palestine.
“Palestinians are bad people. They will mug you, they will kill you.”
And when I was in Palestine, I heard the same thing about Israel. “Why
would you want to go back to Israel. People there are horrible.” The
truth is that I met amazing people in both places and had great
experiences. But I had a hard time explaining to people I met there that
those on the other side of the wall are also humans who are just trying
to hold on to life. They also need to work to make a living, they also
have a family to love, they want the same things we want and they are
scared of the same things we are scared of.
I took me a lot of
nerves to decide to travel in Africa. All I had ever heard of this
continent before setting my foot here was famines, droughts, AIDS,
rapes, human trafficking, tsetse and all kind of weird traditional
practices. Only when I’m here that I realize that Africa is also a place
to LIVE with its own charm and its own pace. Nobody can beat the
Sudanese and the Malawian for their friendliness. No country can beat
Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa for their vast wilderness. Ethiopia is
second to none when it comes to traditional dance and music. Addis
Ababa, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Lagos are among the fastest growing
cities in the world. I stop judging circumcision or body scarification,
but simply accept them as different facets of cultures.
There was
one country I decided to skip out of fear: Somalia, a country whose
name has been synonymized with crimes, rapes, war and piracy. But just
few days ago, I met a 27 y/o girl who hitchhiked through Somali and
Somaliland all by herself. She’s hardly any bigger than me, and her
backpack is twice as big as she is. “This is absolutely an amazing
country, people are very warm and friendly. I had no problem at all
traveling there alone,” she told me. I couldn’t help but laughing at
myself. I thought that I knew something, yet I still let myself fall
into the classic trap of media’s brainwash. Forget what you’ve been
taught, forget what you’ve been made to read. You can never understand a
place and its people until you are there.
I believe that mutual
understanding is the key to world peace, and traveling gives you the
first hand experience to really understand the world around us. As we
understand more, we judge less. As we judge less, we are more willing to
accept, rather than to hate or to be afraid of, the differences. We
will not hate somebody just because they are of different color,
different religion, or different culture. We will not let the bombings
done by few people turn us against the whole nation. We will see people
as what they really are, rather than what the media or the government
wants us to believe.
I’ve realized that traveling is a powerful
educational tool. I’ve learned more in the last 18 months of traveling
than in 12 years of schools: about history, geography, politics,
cultures, business and almost everything else. I’ve used super
innovative web and services in India, as well as advanced technologies
in Israel. I’ve learned about filming by couchsurfing with an ultra
talented director in Pune (India), following an aspiring actress to a
bunch of film sets in Mumbai (India), hanging around with a
globe-trotting guerrilla filmmaking group in Mombasa (Kenya). I’ve
learned about gambling by watching my friends playing poker for a living
in Kathmandu (Nepal), by working at a casino here in Dar es Salaam
(Tanzania). I’ve learned about Tibetan Buddhism by staying with a
Tibetan family in Sikkim (India), by meeting Dalai Lama. I’ve learned to
sail, I’ve learned to rock-climb, I’ve learned to cook dishes from
different countries, I’ve learned to make my own jewelry from recycling
materials. As I travel, I’m introduced to many amazing ideas that I had
never heard of, or thought that they would be possible.
My
decision to start traveling is the best decision I’ve ever made so far,
as traveling really helps me grow up. Traveling exposes me to different
situations that help me understand my true self. Traveling teaches me to
be independent, to be easy-going, to be adaptable, and to be tolerant.
As I travel, I have a chance to meet amazing people: those who teach me,
those who inspire me, those who become my best friends and those whom
I’ve fallen in love with.
I know, I’m just damn lucky to be among
the 0.001% of youths from developing countries who have a chance to
travel. Traveling is still a privilege of people from developed
countries where they have better finance and better passports. It hurts
me that many people my age will never make enough money to get out of
their countries to see what the world is really like. Even if we do,
most of the times we are put back by the mission impossible to get the
necessary visa. Those who were born with American, European or
Australian passports will never understand how painful it is to always
have to apply for visas way in advance for every single country with
little hope that your visas will be granted. You can’t be spontaneous.
You have to spend a lot of money. You have to gather a lot of resources.
It’s like we are being punished for what we have no control over: for
being born in the wrong country, for being born to parents with the
wrong citizenship.
I have a dream, ridiculous it might sound,
that every youth from developing country who has the guts to travel will
be able to do it. I propose the establishment of a foundation, called
Traveling as an Equal Opportunity Foundation (TEOF), that will help
youths to achieve their dreams.
Eligibility to become a TEOF youth:
- Youths between 18 and 25.
- Fluent in English.
- Wish to travel.
TEOF will do:
-
Advocate for “traveling as an equal opportunity”: Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of every country should make it possible for TEOF youths to
obtain the necessary visa to travel in the country.
- Sponsor visas.
- Provide information and consultancy.
- Provide financial support (limited).
TEOF
will be run by youths and for youths with local chapters all over the
world. The local chapters will make sure that traveling youths in their
locality are not doing anything illegal. TEOF will provide support and
consultancy, but TEOF youths are expected to be responsible for their
own safety and finance.
---------------
So if you're a keen traveler, do sign the petition. As Mark Twain always say,
“
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
Sincerely,
