This Is My City: Annual festival celebrating diverse cultures and black mental health returns to Birmingham
Birmingham is the UK s second largest city that will host the highly anticipated cultural event (Photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)
A PROGRAMME which brings together people in Birmingham and celebrates the rich cultures of the UK’s second city is set to return this summer.
Now in its third year,
This Is My City is a two-day online event which will explore the cultures of Europe, Asia, Caribbean and Africa, through the universal components of world food, music, arts, culture and sport.
May 10th, 2021 in Podcast. Closed
This is one in a series of profiles showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates. “I really believe that public service can be therapeutic, that you can learn just as much from a volunteer opportunity as you can learn from a classroom or a section discussion,” said Yoseph Boku, who was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and immigrated with his family to Alexandria, Va., when he was 6 years old. (The Harvard Gazette)
The Harvard Gazette
Yoseph Boku constantly asks himself: How can I have an impact?
The question-slash-mindset helped define his experience at Harvard College through his research on rare genetic diseases and in his volunteer work with the homeless. It will undoubtedly continue to frame his next steps as he starts Harvard Medical School this fall.
Yoseph Boku constantly asks himself: How can I have an impact?
The question-slash-mindset helped define his experience at Harvard College through his research on rare genetic diseases and in his volunteer work with the homeless. It will undoubtedly continue to frame his next steps as he starts Harvard Medical School this fall.
“I hope to dedicate my future to fighting for justice from a biomedical perspective,” he said.
Boku’s drive to make a difference started his first year, when he realized he could do something to help local disadvantaged teenagers and young adults.
“I saw that a lot of youth my age were sleeping outside,” said Boku, who concentrated in molecular and cellular biology and is living in Kirkland House. “I really saw great inequity where on one side of Mass. Ave., you have one of the wealthiest schools and right on the other side, you have youth who didn’t have any homes.”
It was August of 2013, and 33-year-old Nefa-Tari Moore had been having a pretty good year. She was working as a licensed practical nurse (LPN) in Brooklyn, NY, and had just gotten married in July. When she started experiencing heavy vaginal bleeding and lower back pain, Moore didn’t think much of it at first until one day in November when her pain really escalated. “That morning, I was too weak to get out of bed,” she recalls. “That’s when I decided to [hop in a cab and] go to the emergency room.”
But even at the hospital, she knew the answers she was getting didn’t tell the full story. “I was told by the doctors that the bleeding may just be a change of menstrual cycles, me being stressed, or that it was all in my head,” Moore says. “They wanted to give me ibuprofen and recommended that I go home and rest.” But she insisted on staying for further observation. Thanks to her persistence, the ER staff set her up with an OB/GYN referral, which ultimately led to t