"This I Believe Speeches" SUSI Summer 2022 Participants
What do you believe in?
During their stay in Seattle with FIUTS, the SUSI on Education and the Future of Work participants worked to answer this very question and create their own “This I Believe” speeches.
This I Believe was originally a radio program hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow. The show brought listeners together during the uncertain times of the 1950s. This inspiring phenomenon later became a wide-known practice of creating essays titled “I Believe in…” - personal testimonials of no more than 500-600 words to continue sharing impactful stories and beliefs.
Below is the text of three SUSI participants’ “This I Believe” speeches, which they delivered to an audience of peers, staff, and FIUTS Ambassadors in July. Continue reading to learn from Emmanuel Ezekiel (Nigeria), Larissa Neves Da Paz (Brazil), and Asmiati (Indonesia) about the power of little acts of kindness, sand dunes, and hard work leading to success.
Emmanuel Ezekiel
Emmanuel posing with his final project poster during the FIUTS Final Dinner Celebration
I believe in little acts of kindness!
My face might look nothing like it and I might not say it out loud, but inside of me is a deep river of compassion that craves to spring out in little acts of kindness. Kindness sounds mundane and banal but it is a highly priced value that I hold in the highest esteem. This world is filled with millions of people carrying problems of different shapes, sizes and textures, so I make it a point of duty to be the reason why a person would smile. Each time I help someone, tutor someone, compliment someone, check on a sick friend, my heart is warmed by the smiles on their faces and even though they don't smile I know I have planted a seed of kindness that will grow into a tree and replicate itself. I sincerely believe and have discovered from personal experience that a very powerful way of gaining and keeping relationships is by doing little simple acts of kidness. These small acts of kindness are simple everyday things we do like; giving a genuine compliment, saying " thank you", checking in with a sick person just to say "get well soon", making a card for someone, singing a song for a someone. These little things could strike a chord in a person's heart that will eventually transcend into a strong bond and a strong team. However, it has not always been so easy to show kindness to people, some people just see it as being stupid and others would rather keep their mouths shut and take advantage of that. Nonetheless, this has not deterred me from doing these acts of kndness, because in the end it's my choice. The amazing thing about little acts of kindness is that there are no boundries, limits or blueprint that must be followed. It all depends on who it is, in what situation, and so on. For me, I strongly believe that these little acts of kindness are the hidden chords that bind families, friends, people, groups and teams together, and without these chords every relationship or group will gradually fall apart. In the words of John Wesly, "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can." THIS I BELIEVE!
Larissa Neves Da Paz
Larissa posing with her final project poster during the FIUTS Final Dinner Celebration
I believe in sand dunes.
I believe in the movement of sand, and in all the ways it can be molded, being here and there. I believe in the shine that the sand reflects, when it is kissed by the sunlight and I believe in its willingness to always go and at the same time, always stay. In the Mohai museum, I was in front of a black and white Ansel Adams' Picture, taken at Death Valley National Monument, about 1948. It was some Sand Dunes, with their light and shadows. And in that second, I learned with him, and with his look at things. For a long time in my life, perhaps all of it, I have always resisted change. Remaining in the security of the things I already know about, while hard to admit, has always interested me more. I was standing there, and like so many other times, inwardly, I was resisting yet another change. Why does the exchange need to end? When would I see people again? How could time have been so unfair and allowed itself to pass so quickly? For sand dunes to form, basically wind, soil sediments, and an obstacle are needed. Oh, and hundreds or thousands years. The wind that degrades the rocks and transports their sediments is the same wind that forms a new structure: the dunes. But for that, there has to be an obstacle in the way. The transformation of simple sediments carried by the wind to large structures, such as dunes, occurs in difficult situations and requires creativity from the wind; not only to circumvent the obstacle, but to go beyond, and transform it into something majestic. The wind does not fear change, nor obstacles, nor time. And how many grains of sand does it take to build a sand dune? Certainly countless. Wisely, the wind recognizes that just one grain would not be enough to build its work. Then, it invites several grains on a trip without a certain destination. They accept and leave, and once they rest in their new home, they stick together, and live harmoniously for years. Until then, it's time to leave again. Maybe life is the wind. Inviting us, like good grains of sand that we are, to constant change. Polishing our edges and embarking us on journeys through days and time. Time is no longer the enemy, after all. It is the space in which everything takes place, or has already taken place or will take place. The wind, or life, also shows us that it is possible to grow in face of obstacles or difficulties. Not just bypassing it, but transforming it. Yes you can. You're. And you rock. But for that, it is necessary to have so many other grains of sand, which encourage each other, extend their hands mutually and work together harmoniously. If one of the parts is not present, then it’s not possible to have the whole. You can. You're. You rock. Go ahead. Keep walking, allowing yourself to have polished edges. In this process, let the sunlight kiss your face; and then allow your light to expand, shine and warm everyone around you. Going further, changing the way the sand grains are laid out on the dunes, you can change everything, if you want. Remember to work with and for the other. A dune will never be a dune with just one grain. And when the time to leave arrives, just trust in the process and move on. I believe in sand dunes, and also, I believe in you, little grain of sand.
Asmiati
Asmiati posing with her final project poster during the FIUTS Final Dinner Celebration
I believe hard work could bring you to successful.
At the beginning of SUSI program, people around me who knows that I was accepted by SUSI program said that I was lucky to get this program, but I believe behind the luckiness there is a lot of hard work I must do to achieve them. Why it must be a hard work? In my view hard work is a part of success, because when you do nothing and just accept what you have been getting without any hard work, sometimes you will not respect the process, you cannot feel how the joy was like from the progress that you made. Hard work tell us how to respect the process not only the result, even though sometime you regret about the failure. Back then the past, I almost cannot go to the college, because my parents financial problem, my mom said that I cannot go to college in the future when I was a junior high school student, so I could only finish my study until senior high school, and she said you can go to college if you can afford by yourself, it motivated me to do the hard work to go to college. I knew my hurdle to get into the college, so I planned to search information in the internet, because I do really need additional information after asked my teacher. At that time I have no internet access it because it was too expensive to afford internet data. I was thinking about how to earn money to afford it, so some day I know how to earn money, I sell some stuffs and service such as stationary, help them to print their task, and teach how to read the basic al- qur`an, I was getting around 1 dollar per month for it, and I always thinking how to earn money to help myself to get into college. I found a fully funded scholarship in the internet, but I have no idea which major I have to choose so I just check the requirement and people who done that scholarship. When I was in high school I have more access to the internet and I could ask my teacher. I put my information in agency scholarship as well, and I chase the scholarship that I was found in junior high school, because that scholarship was in the other country so it could cost some money for document translation, at that time also my parents have had financial problem so I thought I need to help them to pay a half of my school fee. I was starting to sell some foods and stuffs from Shopee at school. Because of that I can take a role to finish my high school with my hard work and pay the document translation needed, I prepared them carefully but unfortunately I was getting failure. I stopped to do hard work and didn`t believe that hard work can help, a month after I drowned in my stressful, I was rethinking about it, and I try to get the other scholarship in my home city, I nail it. But until 1 semester and a half I was college without any sense to achieve anything, but I was realize all of my hard work that I was done in the past happened by the reason. I do really believe hard work can bring you into succeed even your hard work result a failure, you can realize how priceless that experience to change your life, it takes time to see how hard work works and to make you do really grateful for it.
The Study of the U.S. Institute is a program of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, with funding provided by the U.S. Government, administered by Meridian International Center and FIUTS.