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On average, 16 people die from snakebites every day in Bangladesh. Deep Ecology is a 24/7 on-standby, volunteer group that rescues these snakes. Not only is their rescue work saving lives (both humans and snakes) but they're also breaking the misconceptions causing snake extinction. Snake-related awareness and snake rescue ideas are not well known yet. Before Syeda Annanya Faria, there were no women involved in this rescue work. While Syeda grew up with a fear of snakes like many of us, today she isn’t afraid . In fact, when she first held one, she understood how fragile and harmless of a creature it is–especially when handled properly. Rescuers like Syeda explain that this work is about animal and human survival. There is nothing more rewarding to them than hearing that their work is the reason someone survived.
Dogs have been part of Bali’s native community for thousands of years. Today, there are over half a million strays who attack--and spread disease. Yayasan Seva Bhuana is an organization sterilizing dogs. They want to promote healthy animals, neighborhoods, and people in Bali. In the past eight years, the organization has sterilized an estimated 23,000 dogs and cats and offers free sterilization events for villages who don’t have pet clinics. Sterilization has health benefits, like increasing an animal’s life span, reducing risks of cancer, and more. The cost of medicine is $3000 each month for all the animals, but for Yayasun Seva Bhuana, it’s worth it. They believe healthy dogs will help Bali.
Being a lesbian in China was hard for Lexi Zhang. After she came out, Lexi’s family shamed her, and she fell into depression. Leaving behind a "toxic" environment, Lexi immigrated to Canada, where she began building a new life for herself, and literal homes for others–really tiny ones. Many Asians can relate to this: sacrificing the majority of your life trying to please your parents. After college, when Lexi realized she liked girls and came out to her family, she also learned that she would no longer be able to please them–because she was gay. Her long-term partner, Da Cheng, became a cornerstone in Lexi’s journey back to herself. They now live together in Calgary, where Lexi has joined a tiny home construction company. She is working towards becoming a Red Seal carpenter and has learned about her own strength through this journey. She also has learned that the LGBTQIA+ community is stronger when each member finds their individual power. And for ordinary girls like her, who may not have believed they can live out of the box that other people have placed them in, Lexi says you need to believe in yourself enough to try.
Fan Qinhui, records sounds of a quiet trail in Taiping Mountain, Taiwan to find warning signs of environmental change. Qinhui says listening can help you create a relationship with land--and listening in the quiet trail isn’t about hearing silence, it’s about hearing clearly. Taiwan’s dense population and narrow land doesn’t make it easy to hear nature without people, cars, or planes–so Qinhui records at 5 am before anyone arrives. She isn’t focused on the quietness of the quiet trail–she’s documenting sounds of a monsoon, forest birds chirping in the fog, and how sounds change in the four seasons. Though Qinhui didn’t study biology, she’s gradually created a unique sound map. She’s translated this sound map into a website where you can hear what species there are and see what they look like. She encourages everyone to take the 1km path quietly, and change our way of listening and reconnecting with the land.
In 1969, a bunch of Asian-Americans would get high, drink, and write til the wee hours of the morning. ‘Gidra’, the punchy and provocative voice that was formed, became the most influential periodical of its time. Ending when the Vietnam War did, Gidra was a unique lifeline in the 70’s because anybody could write about anything that they wanted, including the rise of anti-Asian sentiments. Randomly named after ‘Godzilla’ character, King Ghidorah, Gidra’s impact was so immense that it paved the way for many newspapers to follow naming themselves after monsters, and just as randomly. Today, a mother daughter duo have revived Gidra as a zine and community hub, where people can address their identities, feelings, and issues rising for Asian-Americans. But, as original members get older, Gidra needs contributions to keep the platform alive.
