Author: World Without Hate

Before learning about World Without Hate’s Empathy Ambassador Leadership Training, I found myself getting frustrated. I knew I had a drive, a passion, and an idea, but I didn’t know how to get started or find others who might want to dive in with me. I also knew I couldn’t be the only one feeling stuck with a goal in mind trying to make our corner of the world a little brighter.

I jumped at the opportunity to participate in this training. I had been straining to tangibly create a project in service to a population I hold close to my heart: individuals in transition from incarceration.

Jessica, WWH Executive Director,and I had developed a quick friendship a few months after I had moved to Seattle last winter. As she started telling me about the Empathy Ambassador Leadership Training, I felt relief and confirmation that I might be able to collaborate with other action-oriented minds and mobilize.

In the two and a half day training, I met many open hearts, curious learners, and people who believe we can be doing better for our communities. Most importantly, I felt these people were prepared to actually do something about it. On the final day, we were tasked with building actionable plans for our Empathy Projects.

I stood up and explained my idea of creating Reentry Resource Backpacks: bags full of basic human needs, community resources, clothing, a transportation card, etc. These backpacks would be given to individuals immediately upon release from incarceration to make those first few days back in the community a little easier. Each backpack would carry a handwritten letter from a fellow community member offering welcome and support in their time of transition. The idea quickly grew into a team of Empathy Ambassadors and evolved into “The Welcome Backpack Project.”

A month after the training, our Empathy Ambassador team has raised over $2,000 and has collected personal and corporate donations for hygiene products, backpacks, reusable water bottles, and community resource booklets. We have teamed up with two local nonprofits also dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated individuals: Living with Conviction and Interaction Transition. Our next phase is to assemble 30 Welcome Backpacks, each backpack valued at $63.

I believe many people are thirsty to encourage change by supporting the causes they are passionate about, but like me, they may not know how to do that in a meaningful way. World Without Hate Empathy Projects are becoming that missing piece: empowering people to join or create tangible service projects working to brighten our corners of the world.

Stay tuned for Part II for outcomes of The Welcome Backpack Project!

~ Kelsey Engstrom, Participant & WWH Advisory Board Member

On the 17^th Anniversary of 9/11: A Survivor’s Call for Unity

Like most Americans, each September 11th, I reflect on how much our country lost that day; the thousands of lives shockingly, and suddenly taken; and how quickly fellow comrades rushed to aid victims. That fateful day, seventeen years ago, brought out the best in our fellow citizens, but tragically, also revealed the worst.

On this September 11^th, ironically perhaps, I will be lying in the hospital as my doctors perform sinus surgery, my second in two years. Although not in Manhattan, or Washington D.C. on September 11^th, I am a victim, and a survivor, of the terror that reigned down upon our country in 2001. 

I watched, as so many had, the terror that unfolded that sunny September day. I too was fixated on the news as jets came barreling toward the twin towers and pentagon. As I watched the towers fall and speculation begin about the perpetrators, I couldn’t help but begin to worry. As the days unfolded, I began to have nightmares – for three nights in a row – waking in panic, having witnessed myself being shot in the convenience store where I worked. It had already begun happening. For many of us, the horror, fear, and violence, just began once the twin towers fell. Customers began harassing, taunting, and threatening me. Four days after September 11^th, a shop owner was shot to death at a nearby store.  I was so alarmed I begged my boss to activate the decoy security cameras and keep two clerks on shift. Unfortunately, he did neither.

On September 21^st, ten days after 9/11, as rescuers searched debris for signs of life, our country deep in mourning, a newfound fear and uncertainty over us, I began what would be my last day of work as a clerk in South Dallas. Around noon on this stormy Friday, while I remained behind the check-out counter, a man wearing a baseball cap, bandana, and sunglasses, carrying a double-barrel shot gun slung along his side, walked in. As he pointed the gun directly at my face, he asked, “Where are you from?” Before I could utter anything but “Excuse me?” he pulled the trigger. From point blank range.

As I reflect upon 9/11 again this year, this time while in the hospital, I remain grateful for my second chance at life. As I approach my ‘ReBirthday’, I celebrate the purposeful life my God afforded me that afternoon while I lie in my own blood, alone, on a convenience store floor. On my deathbed I vowed that should I survive, I would live each day helping others, and as a human rights advocate, peace activist, non-profit leader, and motivational speaker, I have the opportunity to try and combat the hate and violence that has plagued our country for far too long. I founded the nonprofit, World Without Hate, with the hope we might all build bridges among one another, as opposed to walls; that through our own powerful human attributes of forgiveness, compassion, empathy, understanding, and acceptance, we can begin to see how much more we have in common than that which seems to divide us.  I see 9/11 not only as a tragic day in American history, but also a time of unity, solidarity, and coming together, despite our differences. Did anyone hesitate because of skin color before running into the burning towers to help others escape? Did anyone pause to ask another about their religion before scooping them into their arms and carrying them further to safety?

While in surgery, my doctors will try to remove some of the bullet fragments I still carry. Constant reminders of my attack, nearly three dozen pepper the right side of my face and skull. The shooting also left me blind in my right eye. The physical disabilities, perhaps, pale in comparison to the mental and emotional toll my hate crime has taken. For a survivor like me, great comfort comes when I have the opportunity to speak to or work with my fellow citizens as they come together, taking initiative to understand and accept each other, finding ways to help make strides for a peaceful, safe, and united nation for all.

It is high time for us to pause and reflect, to truly see where we are heading. The terrorist attacks took thousands of lives, destroying countless others, including mine. As a nation, we come together each year, rightfully so, to remember and show support for the victims and survivors. However, innocent victims of post 9/11 hate crimes remain unnoticed and unsupported. From 2001 to 2016, half a million people lost their lives from gun violence in this country. Hate crimes are once again on the rise, increasing by 12% in 2016-17 alone. Enemies of our freedom and democracy are sowing seeds of radical, racial conflict, dividing us through our own social media, revolting rhetoric and intolerant behavior, where blaming the “other” has become the norm. This is not who we are; this is NOT our America.

As we come together to pay our respects on this seventeenth anniversary, I urge us all to remember the thousands upon thousands of people who protected, saved, and comforted one another. Recall, in the midst of your mourning, the strength in unity and patriotism shared during such chaos and unknown. We can indeed come back together. The lessons I’ve learned from my traumatic experience, and the journey I’ve taken, moved me from a place of pain on the deepest level, to a place of hope for a kinder, just, and more accepting world.

Join me, in honoring all those lost and affected on this tragic anniversary, pledging to proactively denounce ignorance, intolerance, and hate, treating all people equally, as humans first, regardless of our visible or invisible diversity. Let’s show the rest of the world that we are indeed stronger, and united as one nation, just as we demonstrated seventeen years ago.

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Rais Bhuiyan, a post 9/11 hate crime survivor is the founder of World Without Hate, an international speaker, & the subject of The True American, Murder & Mercy in Texas.

Allow me to share a story about this very special person. He’s 12. We’re in our last season of commuting to school together after seven awesome years.

On Monday morning, I was feeling groggy & slow. When he asked why, I explained that for much of his dad’s & my life together, outside of the time when we did 4:30/5am turn-taking wake-ups with little people, his dad, got up each morning, brewed coffee, & brought it to me in bed. Yes, I know I’m spoiled. I explained that his dad isn’t one for big grand gestures, we aren’t great at the grown-up birthday or Christmas gifts, but I prefer these everyday kindnesses over any one-time big thing. Well, this week his dad’s longtime early workout class had changed its start time (grrrrrrr) & it got him home too late for brewing coffee before we needed to leave the house. Yeah, I’m capable of brewing coffee, I’m just not particularly good at it & just haven’t had the practice. We went along with our day.

That evening while sitting in our front room, I heard this guy ask his dad to show him how to make coffee. On his own. His idea. He then set his morning alarm 15 minutes earlier than he normally gets up. The following morning, he went downstairs, ground the beans, brewed coffee, & frothed milk. And then he walked it upstairs in my favorite mug. It was without a doubt, the best mug of coffee I’ve ever had. I have felt its warmth in my chest throughout these past days. Oh, how I love him so.

~Sara Armstrong about her son Finn, New Haven, CT

A 9/11 hate crime survivor meets Rohingya refugees.

In December, I visited the largest and densest refugee camp in the world. In Cox’s Bazar, hundreds of thousands of oppressed Rohingya men, women, and children, the “lucky” ones who narrowly escaped Myanmar with their lives, are now suffering in this camp.

Visiting this camp was a life altering experience. Thousands of sickly, terrified, traumatized, and destitute Rohingya people populate an absurdly small area in southeast Bangladesh. I bore witness to their plight.

As a relief worker, I sat down with refugee families in their tiny, tarp shacks and listened to their heart-breaking and courageous stories. I saw thousands of children under the age of 10, many playing in dirt with makeshift toys made of trash. No food. No medicine. No home. No school. No future. The mercy of others is their only chance at survival. 

The unlucky ones

Imagine if they were your own children or loved ones. How would you feel? These children have done nothing to deserve this life. The reason for their fate is the accident of their birth: They happened to be born into a Rohingya family in Myanmar.

They survived genocide, only to walk hundreds of miles, day and night, through hills, paddy fields, and streams, the threat of violence looming with each fragile step toward another uncertain day of existence.

Mohammed Sahel is just six and his sister, Asma bibi, only five. They, along with three other younger children, sat to play with me on the dirt floor of their family’s small tent.

How could these innocent, young children, along with many thousands like them, walk day and night, hundreds of miles on their tiny feet, falling asleep anywhere on their painstaking journey whenever their little bodies couldn’t walk another step?

But, this pain was far better than the alternative — being burned alive, beaten or shot in the head by one of the most ruthless militaries in the world, led by some of the world’s most morally corrupt civil and military leaders.

Here I am, visiting with refugee toddlers who have witnessed their loved ones being brutally murdered, their homes and land decimated, and in many cases, family members fighting to survive after severe wounds and infections from being tortured and beaten

I asked them what they ate in the camp and they told me a meagre portion of rice and lentils, and if lucky, maybe they’d get a bit of curry with green beans and tomatoes.

As I continued to walk through the camp, I saw thousands more children, many naked and severely malnourished.

These children, many only two or three years old, went through the same kinds of trauma that Sahel and Asma bibi did. No playdates or soccer practices or birthday parties for these youngsters, just the punishingly brutal reality of being a poor refugee.

A few years ago, I was invited to speak to an elementary school class in the US and was asked to avoid using such words as “gun,” “kill,” or “blood.” And now here I am, visiting with refugee toddlers who have witnessed their loved ones being brutally murdered, their homes and land decimated, and in many cases, family members fighting to survive after severe wounds and infections from being tortured and beaten.

Accounts of sorrow

I asked Sahel’s mother how she and her husband managed to escape with their five children and two elderly parents. She broke down, exclaiming: “Only God knows how we walked 13 days through the mud, jungle, up hills, and through streams.”

Where did you sleep and what did you eat, I asked? “Whenever we felt we couldn’t walk anymore, we lied down with the kids, and it was extremely terrible at night because of the fear of getting attacked or shot.

It was a horrible experience, the kids cried all the time for food and from lack of rest, but we had to keep walking to get to the border,” she explained.

I touched the forehead of her one-year-old son, who was sitting on her lap, suffering from an intensely high fever. 

I asked her how life was back home, in Myanmar. She said it was OK, despite the long- term, systematic suppression by their government. At least they had a house, a small boat to catch fish, and land to cultivate. But now, everything was gone, except their lives.

And arriving at this refugee camp meant that they could at least sleep at night, without the fear of getting killed or burned alive in their own home. While she spoke, I could see the immense horror and sadness on her face for all she had lost, for all she had endured.

But, at the same time, there was a small spark of joy: She and her family could sleep at night, even on the unforgivingly hard dirt floor, without a mattress or blankets, but without the fear of being killed in the middle of the night.

* * *

There were thousands of tents near Sahel’s, with a minuscule distance of a couple of feet separating one from the next, and a few make-shift toilets nearby, servicing hundreds of families. Livings conditions were unhealthy, unsanitary, and unstable at the camp.

Most of the shacks sit on the slope of hills once full of trees. Bangladesh has a subtropical monsoon climate, making it inevitable for disastrous, heavy rains, leading to mudslides — to plague the region. In such a dense refugee camp, such a storm would be catastrophic.

On top of this, powerful cyclones and other natural disasters are common. These refugees have faced more than enough severe trauma, and a cyclone or catastrophic mudslides would inevitably only make their plight worse.

Perhaps the irony, as cruel and shocking as it is, is that Myanmar’s leader is a Noble Peace Laureate. Aung Sun Suu Kyi is calling for anything but peace and life. Instead, it seems, she is cynically perpetuating the destruction and devastation being faced by the Rohingya.

A UN resolution called on the Myanmar government to allow refugee access for aid workers, ensuring the safe return of all refugees, while granting full Myanmar citizenship to the Rohingyas.

But sadly, this humane and peaceful resolution was vehemently rejected by China, Russia, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, and Vietnam, as well as Myanmar.

The same countries opposing safeguarding the Rohingya’s basic human rights are, at the same time, fighting for their own citizens’ freedom from discrimination and torture in other countries.

For example, Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte, warned that he may impose a permanent ban on workers to Kuwait, and withdraw his countrymen, if another Filipino domestic helper is attacked or dies.

Peaceful countries, like Japan, and the largest democracy of them all, India, remain silent. Neither voted for the resolution. Perhaps, as Dr Martin Luther King, Jr said, “the ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” 

Deafening silence and selfish acts never solve anything; rather, they create more hate, violence, intolerance, and open the path of extremism.

Polar opposites

Before I left Sahel and Asma bibi’s tent, I asked them, and their parents, what they most wanted. “All we want to do is go home and rebuild our lives,” they told me.

Overwhelmingly, this was the same massage refugees gave me when I asked this question.

Everyone I spoke to told me they were very grateful for the incredible hospitality of the Bangladeshi people, especially its military.

Both countries are led by women, one has blood on her hands despite being the Nobel Peace Laureate, while the other practices the same mercy, kindness, and compassion Aung Sung Suu Kyi once preached

Two military forces, from two neighbouring countries, Myanmar and Bangladesh; one is morally corrupted and guilty of genocide; and the other is praised worldwide for saving humanity, serving as the number one UN peacekeeping force in the world.

Both countries are led by women, one has blood on her hands despite being the Nobel Peace Laureate, while the other practices the same mercy, kindness, and compassion Aung Sung Suu Kyi once preached during her struggle to free the Myanmar people.

Despite the miserable conditions of the Rohingya’s daily life, I saw the unforgettable smiles on their faces while receiving the variety of relief goods from us. The refugees asked me to share their stories and plea to the international community to help end their plight.

I vowed to not only amplify their voices, but reach out to United Nations, world leaders, religious and secular institutions, and individuals of conscience to hold them morally accountable to work together to eradicate this senseless human suffering by implementing a five point solution:

1. All restrictions on humanitarian aid to the Rohingya should be lifted and access for journalists and human rights monitors should be permitted.
2. An independent investigation should bring all responsible parties to justice for crimes against humanity.
3. A safety zone for the Rohingya people should be declared, and UN peacekeeping forces must be deployed to protect them.
4. Rohingya refugees should be helped in their migration back from neighbouring countries with necessary support to rebuild their homes and lives.
5. The Rohingya should be recognized as a protected ethnic minority group, with guarantees of their basic human rights, including citizenship and voting rights. 

It’s our moral duty as enlightened citizens of the world to help these destitute men, women, and children to lead a dignified human life. We must remember that no one chose to be a refugee.

Whatever the Myanmar military, the perpetrator here, and the head of the state Aung San Suu Kyi want for themselves and their families are the same things the Rohingya want for themselves and their families: Peace, opportunity, happiness, and love.

We must redouble our effort to amplify the message that rings out from genocides and senseless oppressions throughout human history: “Never again.”

Rais Bhuiyan, a post 9/11 hate crime survivor is the founder of World Without Hate, is an international speaker and the subject of The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas.