#but also. she's a significant presence in our social circle and her brother is too

[camellia-thea]

i'm still thinking about the conversation i witnessed last night :/

[mariacallous]

"To my brothers... I tried to survive and failed, forgive me. To my friends... the experience is harsh and I am too weak to fight, forgive me. To the world... you were cruel to a great extent, but I forgive."

That was the final message of Sarah Hegazi to the world before she took her life in Canada, where she sought asylum after being released from prison in Egypt on charges of promoting "homosexuality and sexual deviance”.

Sarah was a lesbian activist who identified as a communist and was a founding member of the Bread and Freedom Party. After leaving Egypt for Canada, she joined the Socialist Spring Network there. The Egyptian authorities arrested Sarah and Ahmed Alaa, a law student, in October 2017 after they waved the rainbow flag at a concert by the Lebanese band "Mashrou' Leila," which supports the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals, in September of the same year.

The Egyptian state had accused her in what was posthumously referred to as the "Rainbow Flag case" of joining a banned group promoting "deviant ideology." However, she denied these charges and said that she had waved the flag in solidarity with the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals. She was released on bail in January 2018 and travelled to Canada, where she announced news of her suicide on May 13, 2020.

The suicide of Sarah was not an ordinary incident in Arab circles, but despite its bitterness, it ignited a flame that spread across social media platforms in the Arab world, and Syria was no exception. Since the news of her suicide spread, many Syrians declared their solidarity, and have spoken out about the discrimination and persecution that LGBTQ+ individuals suffer in Syria. They saw a significant similarity and a shared experience between their own struggles in a society that rejects them and what Sarah endured in terms of significant persecution and bullying. Many Syrian LGBTQ+ individuals have been struck with the fear of meeting the same fate, especially those who have recently discovered their sexual orientation. They find themselves struggling with the internal conflict between their past selves and newly found identity on one hand, and between their families, society, and religion on the other.

The news of Sarah's suicide forced many to wrestle with the question of their destiny in societies that still criminalise sexual and gender differences. It should make us feel more concerned when we identify similarities in our social and political circumstances with what she experienced in her homeland, as well as the loneliness and feeling of alienation she endured in her country of asylum. It is not easy for a person to reach the point of suicide without having first exhausted all their resilience, lost their family and friends, and all sense of belonging and security.

The internet has played a significant role in connecting LGBTQ+ individuals inside and outside of Syria through social media platforms. This has also allowed them to organize meetings, parties, and shared trips under covert names to avoid surveillance.

The increasing presence of LGBTQ+ individuals in both physical and virtual spaces seems to have had no tangible effects on their social perception, however. Socially, homosexuality in Syria is still stigmatised as a "social phenomenon." Some classify LGBTQ+ individuals as criminals who must be punished with imprisonment and more, while others consider them as mentally ill individuals whose deviation needs to be treated by competent authorities. Some do not hesitate to assault them if caught in “suspicious” situations. Religious leaders always emphasize that Syrian society is Islamic and conservative, and there are no Quranic texts that call for tolerance towards LGBTQ+ individuals, suggesting that they deserve punishment.

In line with societal attitudes, the authorities do not protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the pressures and repeated humiliations they face. For example, it is not uncommon for police patrols to raid places where they hold private events and detain them. As they are one of the most vulnerable groups in society, members of the community are subjected to extortion by individuals affiliated with Syrian intelligence agencies. This can involve surveillance, threats of publishing private photos or disclosing secrets that could potentially threaten the lives of many LGBTQ+ individuals in Syria.

[lydiaabroad]

Blog #7C: Wednesday at CRHP

Wednesday March 27, 2019

Major Events: Walk through slum, preschool pickup, shadow preschool, lecture on factors of health, lecture on communicable and non-communicable diseases

        1. Preschool Pickup

        Today we did preschool pick-up with Meena, the CRHP preschool teacher! There is a slum right next to CRHP called Indiranagar which CRHP has no presence in. Indiranagar has never been able to organize or mobilize and reach out to CRHP for a partnership. The community has a large migrant population that spends half of the year working at a sugarcane factory. There are some sewage tanks that CRHP installed, but aside from that the NGO has no presence in the slum. Thus, they decided to build a preschool outside of the slum that families could send their children to. The primary reason is to provide food. The preschool provides two meals per day to children ages two and a half to six years old who attend. Students can begin to attend at any point in the school year, the only requirement is that their parents give them a bath in the morning before school.

        We walked around the slum to pick up students before school. Every day Meena Ji walks through the slum to collect children whose parents can’t take them or who are too small to come alone, but the deeper purpose behind her daily walks is to raise awareness and encourage families to send their children to school. When walking around, Meena is able to identify new families who have returned from the sugarcane factory. As we walked around she would call out to families and say “Send your kids to school.” Or “Tomorrow when I come by have your children washed and I will take them to school.” She said about 70% of children in the slum come to preschool. When children come to preschool it is more likely that they will continue onto primary school and stay in school for a significant time.

        The slum has various levels of development. Some homes are big and nice, some are shacks with open sewage ditches. There is a big problem with alcoholism in the slum. We walked past a few families that were drinking and gambling (it was nine am), and Meena said these families generally will not send their kids to school. We picked up a very cute brother and sister pair first. The little girl was so sweet she had a ponytail on the very top of her head so her hair popped up like a fountain. She immediately held our hands and pulled us on our way to the school. We stopped by another home where a little girl was crying because she couldn’t go to school. Her parents were afraid she had an infection and didn’t want her to leave the home. They had another child who had died from an infection. Meena immediately called the mobile health team and requested them to set up a time to take the little girl to the hospital to be checked. Even though the MHT does not regularly check on Indiranagar, the resources of CRHP are always available. Meena decided that the girl seemed well enough to come to school, so she came skipping and jumping the entire way. We picked up about seven more kids and then headed off to school.

        There are around forty kids who attend the preschool. We started the day in a big circle, singing songs and moving a bit, then we did the alphabet, and then was playtime. After play time the kids had a breakfast time. They all went into a separate room to eat. It was very sweet they all line up to wash their hands and then they serve each other! Meena scoops the food onto plates and then these tiny little people serve their classmates before they sit down and eat themselves. It was very sweet. The meal was a porridge, couscous like grain with onions and herbs in it. I really liked it. The kids also have water and can have as many helpings as they like. We only stayed through this meal, but I definitely think this visit was one of my highlights of the week.

        2. Communicable and Non-Communicable Disease Lecture

        The major communicable diseases that used to afflict the Jamkhed area are leprosy, tuberculosis, and Guinea worm. In the past, when someone began to see symptoms of leprosy they would go to a faith healer. As the person failed to get better, the community would call them a “bloody person” and eject them from the community. The person was completely outcast–no food, no socialization–and they were essentially left to die in a hut. Leprosy was considered a curse justified by reincarnation; if you did something bad in your past life you had leprosy in this life. When CRHP began to treat people with leprosy it was very difficult because of the cultural meanings surrounding the disease. People believed that a goddess had given the curse, so when doctors said, “No, this is a disease that can be treated with medicine,” people wouldn’t trust them. So, doctors had to make the treatment fit into the religious ideas of the goddess and the curse. I am not sure exactly how this was done, but Jayesh Ji said the health teams “sugarcoated” the information about the treatment to be somehow supportive of the religious ideas. Eventually people began to recognize the power and efficacy of medicine. Aside from treating the people who had leprosy, CRHP offered support and counseling. People were taught and encouraged to cover their hands and feet with cloth when they were doing work to protect their limbs, which were more sensitive. As CRHP initiated these missions, people suffering and recovering experienced more support from their communities and were no longer sent to institutions or sent away to die.

        Tuberculosis had a similar stigma in communities, and the community rejected people with confirmed TB or signs such as coughing blood. The Village Health Workers used to actively check villagers for TB, going door to door and administering tests. If someone was determined to test positive, they would be treated in secret to prevent the stigma. TB has a very high risk of relapse because the treatment is 18 months and generally people begin to feel better within the first month and stop taking medicine. It is for this reason that VHWs were highly responsible for visiting patients every day and administering medicine. The Village Health Workers we met with, Lullamby and Asha, said they had saved 21 and 18 people from TB, respectively. A few interesting facts––CRHP used to get TB medicine from friends’ connections in other countries because they couldn’t rely on the government. Now of course TB is essentially eradicated in this region and if someone were to be diagnosed the government would be responsible. Another interesting fact is that if someone had TB they would be told to put a cloth over their mouth if they were going to kiss anyone. This was a strange and funny fact. The best part about learning about TB was that the VHWs and Jayesh Ji sang us a tuberculosis song. The song is sung at women’s group meetings and essentially tells the signs and symptoms of TB.

4.     Non-Communicable Diseases Lecture

        The rates of communicable disease are very low now that proper sanitation, nutrition, and resources are generally available. Instead, India is beginning to face the crisis of non-communicable diseases of diabetes, cancer, and high blood pressure (cardio-vascular diseases) that arise as the population ages and changes in nutrition and lifestyle occur.

        Diabetes is becoming very common because of lifestyle and heredity. Especially if someone was malnourished as a child, their pancreas might not have developed enough, and thus as an adult they are unable to produce appropriate insulin. In the 1990s, sweets and junk food were introduced to India for the first time (India’s economic liberalization occurred in 1991) and companies actually made smaller packets so that people even in poverty could buy chips, candies, etc. It was during this time that liquor also began to be much more prevalent.

        The most common cancers found in the region are oral, skin, uterine, and breast cancer. The oral/mouth cancers are directly correlated to a high use of tobacco. The causes of uterine (and I think they meant cervical) cancer are very interesting because they lie in direct relationship to sanitation.  Apparently if a man is not adequately cleaning his foreskin, HPV can develop and then is transmitted to the woman. Another cause for cervical/uterine cancer surrounds sanitary practices during menstruation. Because there is such stigma about menstruation in rural India, many women will wash the cloths they use when menstruating in secret. This often implies a stressed environment so the cloths are not adequately cleaned, nor are they able to hang out to dry. Women end up using dirty or wet cloths, which can prompt infection. In areas with even more stigma around menstruation, women will use ash or even cow dung in the place of a sanitary napkin. We did not talk more about solutions to this aside from educating women and men about sanitation, I wish we had discussed in more detail.

Reflection: I enjoyed the preschool pick up most, the one little girl we picked up was so full of love with the chubbiest cheeks, I definitely needed some of that love. In terms of a more critical reflection, it is incredible the Meena walks through the slum every single morning to pick up kids and to try to get other families to send their kids to school. She said at one point that if she didn’t walk through each morning some families just wouldn’t send their kids, her presence is crucial. I found it surprising that there are still an estimated 30% of families who aren’t sending their kids. It is free childcare and food, six days a week. But still, the value of education is not always recognized. I also found it really cool to discuss communicable and non-communicable diseases in context as opposed to in a classroom. Technically we were in a classroom, drinking chai and discussing how men must be taught to clean their foreskin, which was an interesting moment, but the relevance of what we were learning was so tangibly close. With the closeness of the topics we were discussing too, I found myself slightly bothered that these issues still exist. Cholera has been wiped out, no more TB, no more leprosy, but men are not cleaning themselves and some women are using ash as sanitary napkins! Like I said, I wish we talked more about this and I wish in the moment it occurred to me to inquire more