Hello! I’m Jihad Mambuay from Metro Manila Pride. What is my magic moment? Recently, our group had an online community visit with one of our partner organisations. We met a few people from the community, shared stories with them, cried a bit, felt a whole lot of emotions, shared a lot of sentiment. And you know that moment when suddenly things started to make sense in your brain. It’s like when the cogs in your head suddenly find their right places to be in. That’s it. Hearing them talk about their experiences, using their voices to bring to light their plights, I felt like the theories and lessons that we’ve been having for the past few weeks are more understandable, are more tangible. That they aren’t just lessons, they aren’t just theories and that for some other people that these things are the everyday life that they are having. My magic moment – to be more specific – it made me realise that progress isn’t progressing if it only caters to a certain group of people, and in fighting for our needs, for our rights. We need to be more grounded, we need to be better listeners, and we need to be more present. That is my magical journey so far.
