« Meet your Zoom Pal », este un proiect pentru adolescenți al Asociației Iele-Sânziene desfășurat în colaborare cu asociația franceză Chemins d’avenirs ( https://www.cheminsdavenirs.fr).
În cadrul proiectului, 20 de tinere liceene, 10 din România și 10 din Franța s-au întâlnit timp de câteva luni, la distanță, pe Zoom, pentru a discuta despre importanța solidarității și a prieteniei între femei, dincolo de frontiere. La finalul întâlnirilor, tinerele participante au redactat un portret în limba engleză al noilor prietene, pentru a împărtăși experiențele adolescentine în diferite contexte culturale.
Vă invităm să citiți mai jos portretele scrise de Mara și Isaline.
Portrait of Mara
In these troubled times, with the withdrawal of certain women’s rights, international female solidarity is all the more important.
It is in this perspective of feminism between countries that I met Mara, a 17-year-old Romanian woman, soon to be 18 in August, living in Bucharest. At our first exchange, she spoke a lot and I understood very quickly that it was her personality that was transmitted through her words. Her outgoing spirit and exuberance immediately put me at ease and her whole aura exudes warmth and sunshine, and her frequent communicative laughter also helps to relax the atmosphere. Indeed, Mara is very warm and social, with her group of friends with whom she goes to clubs, where they meet in a secret part similar to an attic, and with whom she goes on vacation, especially by the sea.
That’s why discrimination towards minorities or simply towards any kind of person is very hard for her. We discussed feminism, but also the LGBTQIA+ community or racism and she explained that people in her country were not very open minded and she regretted the lack of social progress. Her open-mindedness is also felt by her curiosity of the world, as she is interested in esotericism and the tarot but also in lithotherapy and her collection of stones and crystals of which she is very proud, which she uses in particular during her exams. She is also very interested in arts in general, as she enjoys drawing, going to music festivals, and fashion, which she would like to study later in Paris, but also literature, cinematography…
The sun is also one of the key elements of her existence, with her garden- where she regrets the lack of sun, but also her astrological sign, the lion or her tattoo “soare”.
Her tattoos are also the translation of Mara’s creative spirit, with that of a cat showing her closeness to animals. We can also see it through her animals, goldfish with which she has many stories, including the one where one of them, having caught a contagious disease, had to be taken out of the aquarium by her, wearing a mask and gloves.
Her creativity is also expressed through her Instagram feed. She uses the means given to our generation to express her freedom of spirit, taking pictures of all the beautiful things in life that she meets along the way, but also to immortalize the good memories.
She studies languages and can speak English very well, but also French. Her thirst for knowledge is also very important, as she watches French movies but also reads a lot of French books and has asked me for recommendations. One of her favorite authors is Sally Roony because, even though the plot is not the most exciting, Mara is able to understand the characters and see some of her personality traits in them. Her spirit is that of the new generation, Generation Z, who, despite the carefree nature of youth, fights for the causes they hold dear and tries to determine their future as best they can in an increasingly closed minded world. Mara does not hesitate to confront her ideals with her father, who is a bit strict by nature and likes to live her freedom, with parties, even if she does not drink much, but also through her tattoos or more recently a piercing.
She is also part of the generation Z with her will to discover the world- like Paris- or to travel to meet new cultures. This is also seen with a borderless mindset, where she has no defined role model but a spectrum of people she admires. Her similarity with people from generation Z is also striking, especially Emma Chamberlain, as they both have the same way of speaking, of expressing themselves, in a relaxed, spontaneous and fluid way.
So, we understand that feminism goes beyond borders, languages and cultures and brings together people who want to support a cause they care about. Generation Z, of which Mara is a part, is able to join forces to support and defend minorities. Also, female friendship can be created between two people from different countries. Mara was one of the most beautiful encounters I have ever had, allowing me to understand that open-mindedness is not just a concept specific to each country.
Portrait of Isaline
If you were to ask me “what is it like to have a friend that is always ready to listen and give you great advice?”, I would say: just talk to Isaline!
She is a beautiful girl who lives in a small city in France, along with her parents, her little sister, and her dog, Milka. The town she grew up in holds a great significance to her because she has a small memory attached to every place: her house, the gymnastic stadium – where she won her first competition, and her favorite of all, her school, where she met her now best friends.
Ever since she was little, she enjoyed experimenting by doing different sports, but none of them stuck like gymnastics did, so she ended up doing it for 2 years. I remember her telling me a funny story about when she was 5 and had just entered her first competition. Because she was excited and nervous at the same time, she ended up peeing her pants. Of course, at that time she was embarrassed by that small accident, but now she laughs every time she tells that story.
Isaline enjoys spending quality time with her friends chatting about homework, recent crushes, and future plans. Her little moment of peace is when she goes on a daily walk with Milka. Then, she finds it is easier to put her thoughts in order and escape from her problems for a while.
Isaline has a very artistic personality and one day aspires to become a graphic designer. In her room, you can see paintings everywhere and you can tell by the way she dresses or does her makeup, that she is very interested in arts and that she is very creative. In her free time, she paints, draws, reads, and listens to music. Her favorite genre is poetry, Rimbaud being her go-to poet, especially when she’s had a bad day.
As a gen z-er, she is very informed when it comes to important matters, such as the current state of the world and her political views. She loves talking about feminism and the importance of female solidarity in reshaping a world that seems to be against women. Her role model is Frida Khalo because of her courage to break social conventions and her defiance against needing to fit in. Despite the times she lived in, she was honest about being a woman and refused to alter her features in her self-portraits, features like her unibrow and her mustache, which were labeled “masculine”. Her paintings touched on female issues, such as abortion, miscarriage, birth, breastfeeding, and much more. These were things considered to be strictly taboo and never spoken of at all in public back then.
Similar to Frida, Isaline isn’t afraid to discuss the injustice that the LGBTQ+ community faces in France, call out the racist people in her country, and participate in spreading the word about the dangers of sexism by signing petitions and sharing important information on her Instagram page.
I look up to Isaline a lot because she is funny, always ready to help when you’re in need, sociable, and has a very wide range of hobbies. She taught me to be more mature, listen carefully, and try to be empathic to everyone’s needs, not just my own. She also inspired me to follow my true passion and never be afraid of failure, because in art “there is no such thing as a mistake, but a tiny accident”, a quote by one of her favorites, Bob Ross.
