To Write Love On Her Arms

Suicide is a very common problem in our society, but we usually do not pay enough attention to it. Suicide among teenagers is growing at an alarming rate; actually suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers, depression being the first one. Suicide and depression are issues that need a lot more attention than what they are given, society often tends to underestimate how depression and suicide affect our daily lives. Attention centers for this kind of problems are really needed. Economic status, social class, education, and familiar situation, are some factors that influence the existence of this type of issues, but depression isn’t exclusive of a certain group of people, anyone could suffer from depression.


To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) is a non-profit organization that brings help and support to people who struggle with depression, drug abuse, self injury and suicide. TWLOHA’s major objective is to bring hope to those who are going through hard times. This non-profit organization gives support to people in need and connects them with support groups, books, treatment centers, and websites. It also collects funds in order to help other organizations that support people with rehab. Their vision is to bring hope to all those struggling with these kinds of issues, to help people realize their lives can be better, to show people their lives are important and that they still have things worth living for. To Write Love On Her Arms started as a kind effort from a person to support his friend through the struggle of depression and addiction, and has now become an important organization who helps thousands of victims of depression, addiction, self injury and suicide. Biggest support for this organization comes from the musical scene; some bands are in charge of promoting the organization and supporting its cause. Their funding also comes from the sales of the TWLOHA’s merchandise, such as t-shirts, wristbands, bracelets, stickers, CDs, music tours, concerts, etc.

Education is one of the organization’s main objectives; this objective would not be achieved without a good communication strategy. TWLOHA’s main form of communication is through their website. The website is filled with information about how you can help and support the foundation, conferences, news and facts regarding their mission, concerts, etc. They have a Find Help tab on their webpage where you can see different organizations you can contact for help, or to contact To Write Love On Her Arms directly. Posters are also an important way of communication since it’s the way most supporters get to know the organization; posters are in several stores and venues. E-mail also works if you’re subscribed to their webpage or have contributed to their cause; daily updates are sent to those who are interested giving out information regarding their actions, conferences, workshops, or important events you can be involved in. Another very useful way of communication is their social network pages, such as facebook, myspace and twitter. Social networking brings a lot more recognition to To Write Love On Her Arms, since their pages are easily shared; on TWLOHA’s facebook page, different people are able to share their stories, contact for help, get information, and find out about important events you can attend.

To Write Love On Her Arms has helped over 80,000 people from forty different countries, and has spread their message of hope and help in universities, churches, different communities, festivals, schools, and concerts. TWLOHA provides needed people with workshops, conferences, treatment, and rehab. “We at TWLOHA believe that rescue is possible, and are committed to communicating hope to others who know the daily struggle of living in a broken world.” –To Write Love On Her Arms web page.

Education = Peace

Education means peace, I strongly agree on that. Tolerance is one of the strong values we get taught at school, and I truly believe is one of the things that will actually change the world for good.

                If everybody was able to have education, the world would be full of more prepared and tolerant people, who would have the ability to develop a strong set of beliefs, still respecting everybody else’s. Education should be one of the first priorities of all countries, prepared people means productive people, and productive people mean progress, and progress leads to peace. I instantly think of so many problems that could be fixed with education, for example poverty. Poverty comes from people not being able to make progress and not being able to support their family. Educations gives poor people the chance to progress, to have a respectful way of making a living, if less people have economical problems, then the world will probably be a better place. Education will keep kids away from criminal activities, like robbery, it will keep them busy doing something productive, rather than something that will get them in trouble, actually, education could keep kids away from drugs.

                We should all have a positive attitude towards education; education for everybody is possible and necessary, if we all work hard, we can become an educated and tolerant community, where living in peace is possible.

Friends or Enemies

   An enemy is a person whose story we have not heard – Gene Knudson Hoffman (Quaker peace activist) 
 We always think that an enemy is someone who wants to often hurt you, your family or someone you care about, but maybe it isn’t that way at all. We never give “enemies” the chance to share their part of their story, if we did, we could discover a whole new perspective that  changes the situation in a million ways.
     This thought immediately takes me to think about enemies in history, for example in México, an enemy we talk a lot about is Porfirio Díaz, we think that his ways of ruling the country were only about making rich people richer, and just affecting poor people by making them go through the worst; what we never think about are the good things he did for our country. 
      Human beings often like to come to conclusions without thinking about all the possibilities, we often just assume that a situation happened the way we believe it happened. This attitude leads us nowhere; we should always make decisions based on real information, facts. A very clear example is the attitude Americans immediately adopted after 9/11 against Iraq , they believed what the government wanted them to believe, they didn’t mind if the accusations were true or not.

                We should all remember that context does affect the situation; maybe if we only knew the background of who we call our “enemies” we would understand  and even respect them.