AS Your Voice

  The Silent Struggle of Our Unhoused Neighbors | AS Your Voice | It’s easy to walk past a tent city or avert our eyes from someone sleeping on a park bench. We might offer a fleeting thought, perhaps even a dollar, but how often do we truly pause to consider the intricate web of circumstances that leads someone to that point? I remember a particularly cold winter morning last year. As I hurried to grab my coffee, bundled in layers, I saw a woman trying to start a small, sputtering fire in a discarded barrel.  Her face was etched with exhaustion, her hands blue with cold. I t hit me then, with a sharp, undeniable pang, how easily we become desensitized to suffering. We rationalize, we categorize, but beneath it all, there's a human story. The narrative of homelessness often falls into tired tropes : mental illness , addiction , personal failure.  While these factors can certainly play a role, they paint an incomplete and often unfair picture.  The truth is far more...

The Echo of Unseen Tears  |AS Your Voice| Have you ever felt it? The quiet ache in the world? It is a sound that is not a sound. It is the echo of unseen tears. Today, I want to tell you about three of those echoes. They are not grand stories on the news. They are small stories, whispered in the dark, and they are asking for one thing: justice . Story 1: The Hands That Built Our Home  |AS Your Voice| This is the face of the man who cleans our streets. Look past the dirt and see the person. See the dignity. See the pain. Kareem Bhai ’s hands are a map of pain. Each line is a road he has travelled, each callus is a brick he has laid for someone else’s house.  He is 65 years old, and his body is a machine that has run out of fuel.  His knees creak with the sound of gravel, and his back aches with a weight that no one can see. Every morning, before the sun is awake, he is on the street, sweeping away the dust of our city. People rush past him.  They see the clean s...

  Unheard Voices: The Struggle of Transgender People for Their Rights  |AS Your Voice| These days, it feels like no one truly cares about anyone anymore.  Even our own people don’t stand with us.  When boys and girls are still struggling to get their basic rights,  when everyone is taking away the rights of others,  how can we expect justice to exist at all? In a world where even men and women are denied their full rights, there is yet another gender  the transgender community whom our society refuses to accept.  People mock them, laugh at them, and strip them of their dignity. But why? Why do we treat them this way? I feel deeply sad and disappointed. That’s why today I am writing about them. Yesterday, on my way home, I saw a transgender person lying injured on the road.  People were gathered around, yet no one stepped forward to help.  Why? Are they untouchable? Will someone die if they touch them?  No, they are human too. The ...