Empathy Challenge

Are we all in the same boat? I started my art project focusing on this question. "In the same boat" means in the same situation. So thinking on that, I wanted to make people reflect on how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected people worldwide. Let's not think only in our "personal world," only our house or country. I invite you to take a look at the world situation during the pandemic.

I have heard many people complaining about how they had to cancel their trips and how difficult it was not to go to restaurants and bars last year during the quarantine. They forgot what actual problems are. I feel that they ignore the fact that poverty exists globally and that some people cannot even buy food. The impact COVID had in poverty might last until 2030. Some countries will take longer to recover than others, most of them in Africa (Homi Kharas). These people do not have money to buy a mask, work from home or afford computers/internet for their kids to study from home. According to the BBC article "Home-schooling around the world: How have we coped?" Virginia Pérez, UNICEF's Bolivia chief, says, "A severe lack of digital infrastructure across the continent has had a catastrophic impact on children in the poorest households, with many having no way to access remote classes." The poor people have indeed felt the pandemic even more. Many students are behind for lack of access to technology. Kids who have no access to computers or the internet had to lose a whole year of school. On the other hand, we see wealthy families that can pay from $25 to 60 dollars an hour for private teachers to teach their kids at home (Taylor Nicole Rogers). Speding this amount of money with education is an impossible reality for many people worldwide.

According to the article "Working from Home During a Pandemic: It's Not for Everyone," Dallasfed, Yichen Su wrote, "For a large segment of the workforce, remote work is not an option. Restaurant wait staff can only provide their services to diners in restaurants. Dentists deliver their services at clinics. Retail salespeople interact with customers in stores. For those workers, the closure of their businesses due to COVID-19 means they could be sidelined and without income." In addition, workers who sold things/food on the streets and had no other way to make money; stayed home—all of those problems plus the fear of getting the virus and causing even more problems to their life. It is hard to live without the possibility of working. People are now afraid of the virus, but starving is a fear that they have always had.

My goal is to make people sensitize themselves to the current world's situation. In my art, I inspired myself in some photographs that shocked me during the year 2020. One of the pictures I saw is "Man wearing a plastic bag as a mask" by the photographer Themba Hadebe. The picture portrays an older man wearing a plastic bag as a mask. It represents what some people have to do to protect themselves from the virus when they do not have the conditions to buy an actual mask. When I first saw that picture, I confess I almost did not believe it. It is shocking to see how people live and what people had to do in the pandemic. That picture opened my eyes and mind, and that is the feeling I want to cause in people who see my artwork. I want to show people the reality and make them see more than themselves. See that canceling a trip to Europe or Hawaii or whatever is disappointing but is not worse than losing your job and seeing your kids out of school for a year. It is not worse than the thousands of people dying because of this virus.

Thus, answering my question: "Are we all in the same boat?" the answer is no. We are all in the same sea—some in big boats, others in small ones, and others swimming as hard as possible to survive.

Works Cited

Delay, Jerome. “AP PHOTOS: South Africa Faces Division Again, from Virus.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 22 May 2020, apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-ap-top-news-south-africa-international-news-photography-e178320b898ece18aafd502aaf2a8a38.

Haigh, Joshua. “Home-Schooling around the World: How Have We Coped?” BBC News, BBC, 27 Mar. 2021, www.bbc.com/news/education-56417834.

Kharas, Homi. “The Impact of COVID-19 on Global Extreme Poverty.” Brookings, Brookings, 29 Oct. 2020, www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/10/21/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-global-extreme-poverty/.

Rogers, Taylor Nicole. “Wealthy Parents Are Paying to Have Their Kids Homeschooled by Professionals for up to 5 Hours a Day, and It Shows How the Pandemic Is Widening the Gaps in America's Education System.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 27 May 2020, www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-school-shutdowns-wealthy-parents-hire-private-educators-2020-5.

“Working from Home During a Pandemic: It's Not for Everyone.” Dallasfed.org, www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2020/0407.