What is your superpower?
Yes, you have a superpower.
Read this conversation between Miles Merrill, Creative Director / Founder of Word Travels and his daughter, to find out how your donation to Word Travels can save the world.
Walking to the local bakery with my nine-year-old daughter. She asks me what my superpower would be.
“What do you think would be a good one?”, I ask her.
“Well, there’s flight, strength, invisibility…” she begins.
Her answers made me think. What good are those when…
“I’d like to be able to feed everybody that needs food.” I say.
“What about fresh water?” she asks.
“Yes, and I’d want to clean the air.”
“What comes after that?”
I say, “Safety and shelter - like health care, protection from war; housing.”
“What about education? Does that come next dad?”
“Mmm…hmm and then the arts.”
“So your super power would be to feed people, clean the water and air, health care, shelter from like snow and rain but also from fighting, then it’s like helping with education and creativity.”
“Yes”
“You know those aren’t super powers dad. People are already doing that. Doesn’t Word Travels already do education and arts things?”
“We are doing that but…”
“Can Word Travels also do the food, water, shelter stuff?”
“We can’t. We are trying to be there when basic needs are taken care of. We do help people recover from wars…”
“Refugees?
“Yeah, we do things that remind us that we are human. Once we get the basic survival stuff sorted. That’s why The Arts is also called The Humanities.”
“So, are you saying you’ve already got a super-power because you work at Word Travels?”
“I’m trying. I guess the best super-power is one humans can actually do.”
“So why doesn’t Marvel do a movie about that?”
“Good question.”
Every year Word Travels works with people from diverse and marginalised communities from around the world.
Hani Abdile spent 11 months in detention on Christmas Island after fleeing the civil war in Somalia alone at age 16. When she was released in 2014, she took a workshop with Word Travels. We have booked her for gigs ever since. Hani published her first book in 2016, and has now appeared at Sydney Festival, Sydney Opera House, on ABC TV's Q+A and is at university studying journalism.
Hani Abdile is one of thousands of people Word Travels’ donors have supported to find their own superpowers.
Word Travels is looking to partner with Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, the UNHCR and other organisations working with people coming out of survival situations into empowerment through education and the opportunity to tell their own stories. Your tax-deductible donations keep Hani’s stories flowing - read more about our impact here.