Independent Skies Magazine Second Issue

June 1st 2012 | Independent Skies Magazine | 1

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OMSecond Issue

2 | Independent Skies Magazine | June 1st 2012

Follow usthrough our online space http://www.earthinbrackets.org/, through Facebook http://www.facebook.com/earthinbrackets, or Twitter.

Earth in Brackets is a student led organization that focuses on environmental and sustainable devel-opment politics to convey an alternative view on the pressing issues at stake in the international community arena. We are environmentalist stu-dents whose fight is directed towards justice and equity, always taking into account that a social approach is key when it comes to explaining and understanding our relationship as humans with nature.

At College of the Atlantic, university located in Maine, USA, we study Human Ecology, an interdisciplinary approach which permits us to dive into the cur-rent environmental world problems, understanding their history, context and intrinsic struggles. Primarily our engagement takes place at the UN—in NYC, Nairobi, Curitiba, Bangkok, Copenhagen, Cancun, Montreal, Durban, Mar-seilles, Bonn, Hyderabad, and Qatar, and soon in Rio de Janeiro. A group of us has been preparing to attend the Earth Summit - the Rio+20 conference which will be negotiating around two main topics: “Green Economy” and “In-stitutional Framework for Sustainable Development.” We will be analyzing the politics straight from the halls of power as well as the alternatives given by the People. What is the Future We Really Want? What will it take to get it?

One of our objectives is to talk to the population of the Northern Hemisphere who receive incomplete and distorted information about these negotiations from the mainstream media. We are an alternative source of information that aims to clarify the power differences between nations and the exploitative dynamics that are perpetuated by these nations’ interests; we do what the mainstream media does not. Likewise, we inspire those who do not have knowledge or accessible information about these political discussions, so that they, by themselves, develop and adopt and an active role within their inter-national or national framework.

Anjali Appadurai from [EARTH] giving an intervention in COP17, Durban, South Africa

The delegation of students going to Rio+20 this coming june.


We want to share our message with the youth involved in this sce-nario, and inspire them to raise their voices even higher than what they have done already and claim the rights we all deserve as the fu-ture generation. We want the youth to transform their soft discourse and weak petitions and fight for those more needed in the world. We have the privilege to express our opinions in this political space, thus we are obliged to speak for the silenced and the oppressed.

We are aware that the UN has multiple flaws as a system which pro-mote the prevailing structures that feed the unfairness and inequity in our planet. Furthermore, we understand that the UN is a frame-work which excludes the participation and the voice of great part of the civil society, in particular those who are most vulnerable and have more at stake in these discussions.

We know that the UN is a space where few and privileged speak, and we are part of that group. But we also know that, currently, the UN is the only concrete platform where countries can discuss about find-ing answers to the present social, economic and environmental prob-lems.

We are taking our message to Rio+20 to call youth, civil society and the mainstream discourse to move towards justice and rights, in or-der to reach a harmonic relationship with nature. We belong to na-ture and owe it our respect.

We know we are not going to change the course of the negotiations at this point, but we engage writing blogs, making official interven-

tions and speeches and performing actions to challenge and question the mainstream discourse. We do this in an intent of driving the voice of the people to the rooms of power.

Earth is for the benefit of all, not for the profit of a few. Earth cannot stay in brackets anymore!

Anjali Appadurai from [EARTH] giving an intervention in COP17, Durban, South Africa

The delegation of students going to Rio+20 this coming june.


By Karolina Durdova

When I was asked to write an article for the Independent skies - a place to share inspirational stories of the youth to make a change-, I thought what a better place than this to share a short story that changed my life and served as one of the main sources of my motiva-tion and persistence to go on in the past few years. A story from which not only the youth could learn something, and whose message could be summarized in a few words: Be yourself.

It is a story of a girl from a small city. Since a child, she has had a big smile, bright mind and a non-stylish hairstyle. She grew up playing football and shooting a bow meanwhile her sibling was prac-ticing ballet and reading books about how to become a second Naomi Campbell.

She used to be told that she had more of a boy than of a girl in her personality, but she did not seem to care. She was a bright student, one of the smartest in her class. After a few years, when studying in a school in a bigger city, everyone still admired her smile, now improved with braces, and she still preferred to play football over spending her time in front of a mirror trying to do some-thing with her still not very stylish hairstyle.

After changing to another school, again to a bigger city, things changed. She found herself in an environment that did not seem to understand her. She started to get criticized and under pres-sure for things like treating the school and extracurricular activities seriously, something that never happened to her before. She did not seem to be successful in getting along with the people in her class, she felt like lacking any connection with the outside universe. Everything suddenly seemed to work without any logic and any of her attempts in getting out of this situation failed. She collapsed. She turned into herself and concluded the problem was her. Nonetheless, she was not willing to give up on studying or extracurricular activities, but she tried to attract the attention and recogni-tion of others in a different way. She was 13 and thought that changing herself physically would be a great starting point for finding friends in an environment that was not tolerating the way she was. She promised herself to become more a girl, more of a prototype of a skinny supermodel from the magazines, which seemed to get the admiration from her schoolmates she was looking for.

Such promise nearly killed her. She concentrated all the attention on her body trying to become one of the girls that she had never been in any point of her life. In the next couple of months, her academic performance did not worsen; her behavior stayed quite the same, so her parents and closest friends did not realize what was happening to her. The only thing that seemed to be un-dergoing drastic changes was her body. It was during those months when she partially succeeded in attracting the attention and recognition from her peers that she was lacking before. However, the rate at which her drastic diet and exhausting trainings were affected her weight was no longer

Be yourself


harmless. It took her one year to dam-age to significant extents the digestive and endocrinal systems, lose half of her hair, worsen a genetic disease inherited after her grandmother and by depriv-ing her young body from so needed nutrients, increase the probability of suffering from the problems with joints and bones in the future.

It was the day when she fainted three times in a row that she realized some-thing was wrong with her. After rough-ly twelve months she looked into the mirror and got freaked out because of what she saw there. The period which followed was one of the most difficult times of her life, particularly because her stubbornness did not allow her to ask anyone for help and because she was fighting an enemy inside her own body. She had to change completely her lifestyle, priorities and most impor-tantly realize that being distinctly dif-ferent from the others was not neces-sarily bad, but actually desirable.

Perhaps it would have had been easier to overcome her problems with the help of an expert. On the other hand, by relying only on herself when overcoming anorexia, she felt she would never suffer from such problems again, since then she has been fully aware of all the consequences of her behavior.

Consequently, she decided to maintain all the positive things making her different and to de-velop them as much as she possibly could. Instead of controlling her body weight, she dedi-cated her time and energy to master foreign languages, play the piano, visit flamenco and salsa lessons or photography and painting courses. Most importantly, she found a place where her distinctiveness would be appreciated when she joined a United World College, a spectacular place full of talented people celebrating the differences among them.

She is doing well now. She managed to get good education, discover more about herself and define a new set of goals which she would like to achieve in the future. I feel proud of her, I feel proud of the girl that managed to overcome herself, and I remember her story every morning when I see her in the mirror trying to do something with her still not very stylish hairstyle. It has been six years now. It has been six years since I found myself destroying my body and the moment of painful realization will never be forgotten. The little thirteen year old girl is still somewhere in my mind reminding me not just of the importance of staying healthy physically, but most importantly about the fact that people should never force themselves to blend in with the crowd. And never give up on being themselves.


MATERIALISMHiba Arshad

Hiba is one of the young people that I found very promising; she wants to change the world, and we are all about dreaming big and doing our best to achieve it. I have found a lot of youth move-ments simply being against rich peo-ple without any legitimate solid rea-son. I personally think the problem is not having a lot of money; it is more of an awareness problem.Without reminders people tend to forget that there are others who are living way worse than they are.When I met Hiba and she told me all about ‘I AM CHALLENGE – Kuwait’ I was very impressed with the idea, because all she wants to do is remind consumers to share their wealth with people in bad need, she does not really want to say “rich is bad” she wants to say “Share” even if it is mini-mum.I asked her to write an article for independent skies and here it is. Please support her and her great initiative on facebook “I am challenge – Ku-wait”. The movement is in a lot of places around the world right now, and at the moment we are working in a collaboration between independent skies and I am challenge to start the movement in Malaysia.Have a good read,Mustafa M. Khalid.

Materialism and excessive brand consciousness have become embed-ded in today’s society, particularly amongst the youngsters. Our desire to have the newest, the latest and the most expensive of everything has taken precedence over all else, and is slowly resulting in chronic self ob-session.


Each year, we easily spend $1000- $1500 on solely ourselves for luxury items. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s noth-ing wrong with spending money on yourself and giving yourself a little treat. However, taking into consideration the countless conflicts going on around the world and the unprecedented poverty that gnaws away at more than half the world, I can’t help but feel this over indulgence is a bit wrong. Keeping in mind that youngsters my same age, in countries not very far away, don’t have enough money to buy their next meal, I can’t help but feel this over indul-gence might even be a bit immoral.As the youth of today, I believe it is our responsibility to break away from this insidious cycle of materialism, and instead of simply thinking about ourselves, start thinking about issues larger than ourselves.

The ‘I AM’ Challenge is an international youth movement which embodies just these principles. Having originated in New Zealand, the ‘I AM’ Challenge dares youngsters to wear a t-shirt that says ‘I AM (their name)’ for one whole year, ev-erywhere they go. This way, youngsters are encouraged to not fuss over what they wear or their appearance, but in-stead think of more important issues. This movement also encourages the youth who take up this challenge, to come together and raise awareness or fundraisers about issues that they are passionate about. Currently this move-ment has branches in New Zealand, Ku-wait, India, Germany, Thailand, Belgium and the network keeps growing!


Mary is a Great athlete that Independent Skies team all thought of interview-ing her…… read what she wrote and what we asked her and you’ll know why.

Please visit her Blog: http://mymovements.wordpress.com/

I am a runner, and I want to be the best runner I can possibly be.

I’ve always been self-motivated, always itching to push myself harder. The desire to test my limits - to see if I can go just a bit further - propels me forwards. This mindset has always been there, I think. But a life-changing event seven winters ago helped to ingrain this philosophy permanently into my mind, giving the abstract concept a realistic, down-to-earth foundation.

It was Boxing Day, December 2004. My family and I were on vacation in Thailand. After breakfast I had decided to head back to my room to fetch my beachwear. The route was straightforward enough: down a flight of stairs, then a right turn to the seaside, where our room was. I had walked this route multiple times before – no problem. And yet for reasons which I do not think I will ever know, I subconsciously and unknowingly made a wrong turn. Instead of turning right, I turned left: away from my room, away from the sea.

Minutes later, while I wandered around hopelessly lost, the devastating waves of a tsunami came crashing down on the resort – waves which would have engulfed me, knocked me out and killed me with ruthless force. Miraculously, though, I was safe. I was safe because I had turned left, away from the beach. I was safe because I had made a wrong turn.

This is the philosophy that spurs me now. I know that there can be no failures - only opportunities in disguise. I had made a wrong turn, technically a failure, and yet it had saved my life. If anything, the only failure is the failure to recognize op-portunities. So I never hesitate to push myself, to go beyond my comfort zone, to push those physical and mental bound-aries. I know that nothing can go wrong. The worst that can happen is failure: opportunity in disguise.

Right now, my immediate goal is to become the best runner I can be. I will be taking a gap year, during which I will work in the day and train in the evenings. It will be a rejuvenating change of pace - no more academic pressure, just a chance to breath, to do something completely different, to develop myself as a learner and as a runner.

My hope is that as I progress towards my goal, I will become increasingly motivated and fall increasingly in love with what I do. For now, I will be competing against myself, trying to be my own champion. But as for the future - national record,

Tip!Interview with Mary Hui


Asian Games, maybe

even the Olympics. Who knows? All I can say is that I will never let the prospect of failure deter me. The rest I will leave to hard work,

determination, perseverance and most importantly, passion.

ISM: great article Mary….. what do you think could be the motivator for young people who have not experienced that “wrong turn”?

We have all got to find our own motivational force. It’s only a mo-tivator if you own it, if it is yours and yours alone. The ‘wrong turn’ could have been totally meaningless for me, but I thought about it and made it my own motivator. We all have stories, we all have unique experiences - that’s what we should draw motivation from.

ISM: Mary, if you don’t mind us asking what the long term plans are?

My long term plans! I really don’t know...for now I am focusing on my running. I want to be the best runner I can be. At the same time, I also want to gain work experience - social media, journalism and sports in particular. I fancy seeing myself as a journal-ist or a photographer, or better still, a photojournalist. Something sports related would also be very cool. Asian Games? Olympic Games, even? I really don’t have any concrete plans.

ISM: last question, would you like to collaborate with independent skies one day to organize events to motivate and help the youth in various ways?

I would love to.

Thank you Mary

Interview with Mary Hui


ISM: You might be all be from the same family, but you have different profiles. One is an education major with a passion for cosmetics, the other in a communications graduate. And now, you’re both now leading a major cosmetics company at the young age of 32 and 26. How did it all come together? Personally, it all started when I was in the States with my sis-ter because she and her family was assigned there. I was there to help her out because she just gave birth to her 2nd child. When I was there, I was also do-ing some bridal makeup artist gigs and one of the brides that I serviced gave me a package of natural cosmetics. It was my first time seeing such cosmetics that are 100% natural. Prior to that, I didn’t think it was possible. It got me very interested and I showed it to my sister. I know that my sis-ter and her husband has made a conscious effort to be more en-vironmental which started with the food they ate and their deci-sion to use washable diapers vs disposable ones because they know that one of the biggest % in the world’s landfills. Since then, we started research-

ing everyday in the library about the toxic chemi-cals to our health and to the en-vironment. As our knowledge expanded, it made us de-cide to change all our conven-tional personal care products to natural ones. From there, we thought of how we will be able to sustain such a lifestyle that we’ve grown ac-customed to in terms of the food we eat and the products that we use (because we were in America then and on our way back to the Philippines). We know that nat-ural products are expensive in the Philippines so I guess that’s where the dream started. Natu-ral products in the Philippines, since all the leading natural products are imported, they cost an arm and a leg and we found it immoral that 3-week’s supply of shampoo would cost more than the average daily minimum wage of a Filipino. As we were doing further re-search and as we tried to check out the attributes of natural prod-ucts in America, we soon noticed

that most of the ingredients in these products are grown or can be grown in the Philippines, and this is what caught Dylan’s (An-na’s husband) attention. At that time, my sister and Dylan were full-time volunteers for Gawad Kalinga and when Dylan heard this, he got inspired that this will be the next phase of GK which is generating livelihood for the communities because the GK communities can be the ones to grow and farm these ingredients such as lemongrass, citronella, coconut oil, mango, aloe vera, sunflower, etc. ISM: Starting a company is no easy task. However, you not only did that, but also developed your company into a dominant player in the Filipino market, with over 2 million sold prod-ucts, 16000 distributors, and soon in the US. All of this in a

”Camille Meloto, along with her sister, Anna Meloto-Wilk, founded Human Nature in Novem-ber 2008. Now 26 years old, Camille Meloto is at the head of a multinational company that can be called a social business. Indeed, just like her father before them, Anna and Camille have been named Ernst&Young’s Social Entrepreneurs of the Year 2011. How did she get there? This is her story.”


short time and at a young age. Did you encounter any difficul-ties? What was the key to your success? There were a lot of difficulties, sleepless nights, and buckets of tears. Difficult because we did everything when we started from answering the phones, populat-ing the computer system, bottling the products, delivering them, stocking the warehouse shelves, etc. However, there’s no regret in doing that. We understood every aspect there is in starting the busi-ness and it was excellent training for me and my sister learning it all. It’s a collaborative effort among the three of us. Dylan is such an in-spiration because he’s very gifted in entrepreneurship and in busi-ness. I can say a lot of the things that I’ve learned and the training and discipline that I have in the enterprise are mostly taught by him together with the values that our parents, especially my dad has instilled in us.

ISM: The values that drive your company are “Pro-Philippines, Pro-poor, pro-environment”. We can see it in the all natural products you sell, in the way both of you live your day to day lives. I even noticed the slogan in the email you sent me! How would you describe these values, and how important do you think they are for your company? I can say they’re extreme-ly important because it’s what keeps me ground-ed and it’s what reminds

me everyday why I’m doing what I’m doing. it prevents me from giving up whenever I experience difficulties and struggles which we do everyday. It reminds me of the purpose and how I should still keep on pushing myself because I’m not working for myself but for a whole nation together with the goal of creating a positive impact in the environment on a global-scale. ISM: You have been named Social Entrepreneurs of the Year 2011 by Ernst&Young, just like your fa-ther had been before you. Social business is obviously part of the family legacy. To what degree has your father inspired and influenced you? And, in what way do you think you are different? He’s an inspiration because we grew up with the values that he’s instilled in us eversince we were born. Our usual conversations over lunch or dinners would be the progress of the communities

in Gawad Kalinga or how the En-chanted Farm is shaping up. Say-ing this, I guess it’s only natural for us to integrate Gawad Kalinga communities in our goals and dreams for the company. Its an el-emental part of the business be-cause at one point in our life, all 3 of us (my sis and Dylan) were all volunteers for Gawad Kalinga. In terms of how different we are, I guess every single person is dif-ferent, even among me, my sister and Dylan, we’re also different in our own unique way but what is important that it all blends to-gether harmoniously in this en-terprise. ISM: With the expansion of your activities to the US, we, at ISM, are sure you will continue suc-ceeding and inspiring us, the youth, to accomplish similar achievements. Do you have a message or any advice for our, mostly young and ambitious, readers? Follow your dreams and your pas-sions. It’s the only way that you’ll have the willpower to continue what you’re doing through all the expected and unexpected diffi-culties you’ll be facing. Be true to yourself and stick to your values because those are the things that will set you apart from other busi-nesses around. Another thing is to experience everything for yourself. Experience all possible aspects of the business as it will help you understand where your people are coming from when conflicts and difficulties arise. I think I’ve said too much.


Me, myself and timeby Kevin LalI like to travel but not to Paris or Rio. Yet I claim I totally crave traveling be-

cause to travel, for me, is just as much to get from point A to point B in space as to do the same in time. I often hear people talk about how much they want to meet Bill Gates or Stephen Hawking or any other famous personality. But at the very top of my wish list is me. Yes, me! I want to meet me. This will definitely seem paradoxical to most people. But this makes all the sense in the world to me because here the “I” is my present self while the “me” is my future self. After all who exactly can stop me in my imagination from grab-bing a time machine and racing through the years to visit my old buddy who lives in the 2080s? Were this fantasy of mine to come true, I cannot imagine how intense, and perhaps emotional too, the moment would be when my eyes first look straight at his and his back at mine. I can almost feel it now -- the connection be-tween the two of us would transcend any that man has ever known. We wouldn’t be two best friends meeting after a long gap. We wouldn’t be mere brothers reunited after some 50 years. We would in fact be two physi-cal forms, although one older than the other, taken by one soul and only one. My relationship with him would be so pure and so deep that language has no word for it.

People often claim to have been so close to a place. My friend was boasting the other day that he was only meters from Napoleon’s corpse at Les Invalides when he visited Paris. But I boast about being so close not to any place in space but to an era in time. Born in 1993, I cannot believe I was once only four years away from the 80s, which I think was the most exciting decade in recent times. When in 1996 I began pre-school, I was less than a decade away from a time when Bon Jovi and Def Leppard marched straight to the top of the charts with “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Pour Some Sugar on Me”. By the time the 90s ended, I was less than 15 years away from a world that went crazy for the “Material Girl” and the “Terminator”. But now I feel sad that with each passing second I am drifting away from the era I most want to live in.

I can also bet that I am the only one in class to bury a time capsule in his front yard. I did it last year. Inside the capsule are my personal note book, my class photograph, my old iPod with full battery and all songs in-tact, and most importantly, a letter from me to my future self. The contents of the box will unveil themselves before me only on December 31, 2024, exactly fifteen years after their burial. My experience when I read that letter in 2024 will be nothing short of magical. People often become enthused by a personal letter from a close relation. But “enthused” will be an understatement for me because with the letter’s sender, my rela-tion will be higher and purer than that with any close relation. The letter will be from my “younger self”, from someone with whom I parted ways 15 years ago after sharing with him for 17 years, every second of my life.

I guess passions such as these arise from a fundamental aspect of my personality, not from a mere interest in sci-fi topics like time travel. I am a person to whom the sense of flow of time has an extremely important place in his life. I do not take for granted the facts that yesterday’s “today” is today’s “yesterday” and that to-day’s “tomorrow” will be tomorrow’s “today”. “Yesterday”, “Today” and “Tomorrow” appear, at least to my eyes, to blissfully mingle and intermingle with one another so much so that I do not see any reason in aggrandizing the present with a status higher than that of the past or the future, that is, the non-present. In fact, the old chap from the 2080s that I want to meet means more to me today than I myself do and the letter I read on New Year’s Eve 2025 will have a far profounder impact on me than the letter I wrote on New Year’s Eve 2010, although the two letters are one. In a word, I am completely enamored with the non-present and my love for time travel merely stems from this truth.


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