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The Power of Storytelling in NGO Fundraising Fundraising is an essential part of any NGO’s work towards a social cause, for that in this utilitarian world money is what pays for the efforts and materials needed to get work done. A fundraising campaign will not gain traction unless people are made aware of its cause and impact. A narrative discourse is needed to be disseminated to not only make the masses aware about a movement but to also convince them to take part in it. Targetting the Right Audience One of the ways storytelling is utilised is by making a fictitious narrative that features a “call-to-action” towards a cause, a narrative which would resonate with an audience’s morals and emotions to compel them towards monetary donation. The animal welfare organisation PETA is famous for this creative and captivating campaigns that especially cater towards the morals of vegans and pacifists, and feature witty and persuasive metaphors in their media. Establishing a niche may help garner

The Eternal Torching of A Land Belonging

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A view on Israel-Palestine conflict. It is obvious that when one ethnic group aims to form a state of its own then it plans to remove all other ethnicities from the state to further the proliferation of its own ethnic demography. But what happens when this state is formed on a land where people have already been living? They are subjugated. The Israel-Palestine conflict is a schism of ownership of land caused by the mismanagement and ignorance of the Allied forces of WW2 who disregarded the right of home and livelihood of Palestinians and shifted the Jews of Europe to Jerusalem to form Israel. The history of Jerusalem is as old as that of Bethlehem, more than 1000 years old, but the history of this conflict is approximately 100 years old. It all begins from the spark of Theodor Herzl who way back in 1896 envisioned a singular Jewish state for the safe haven of all the Jews facing rising anti-Semitism in Europe and sought to create a homeland for Jews around the city of Jerusalem.  But

Birthdays.

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Today, on 24th, is my birthday. Here, have a slice of cake 🍰. Would you like some tea or caramel coffee to wash that down with? Choosing cakes is not really my forte. I usually pick the cake with the least amount of icing on it. Icing on the cake? I prefer icing IN the cake, usually chocolate. But I always prefer buttercream cake to fresh cream cake. Butter; it's quite a comforting and pleasant word. Almost all the of the words in the baker's lexicon are delectable. When I was 15, I despised birthdays. I felt celebrating birthdays was superficial and a symptom of narcissism. I'd wonder, after the cake has been eaten, and the people had exited, what had remained? With the person sitting alone after the party, did they enjoy solitude or suffer loneliness; why do people celebrate their birthdays with such grandiose, if they did not love their own self? I like meaning in everything, and to me birthday parties were meaningless; a cliché pretentious formality. I disliked my own

To be or not to be: Art?

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"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." - Thomas Merton What is art? I believe that art is something that evokes emotions, makes you feel, makes you believe in the beauty of this world that is often shown cruel and unjust. Makes you believe that there is hope in life; that our existence has a purpose; that a difference in perspective is something you need to understand better the aspects of our philosophical and psychological conundrums. Art moves you, from one state to another.  I love art. What is not art? Statements. Statements presented as an "art piece", such as a banana peel duct-taped to a wall, or an empty canvas submitted as an expensive joke, are not art. Such "art pieces" often need to protect themselves by bringing up the saying "art is subjective". Art is subjective, yes, but how does that translate? I rather think it means that the interpretation of art differs from person to person, that everyone cou

Why I don't like Greta Thunberg; and whom I like instead.

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"For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realise that, in order to survive, he must protect it." - Jacques-Yves Cousteau Thunberg Greta is a young climate activist who is internationally famous for headbutting world's politicians. She directly voices her demand for political leaders to enforce strict climate laws, reprimand polluting corporations, and to change the system. She wants to protect her future, like I, from a hot and scorching Earth, riddled with six months of intense droughts and six months of heavy rain, half of the landmass then submerged in water and all of the air polluted; where no art and no economy will thrive, and science will be constricted to only the job of ensuring the survival of humankind. But the reason I do not like (not the same as dislike) her is because she only complains: she exposes a problem but does not invent a solution. She started her activism by spending her school days to prote

(Doctor Strange? ]/Why is it among Marvel's best:!

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"I know that I know nothing." - Plato's account of Socrates saying so.  Us humans know better of the world being incredibly infinite, microscopically awesome, and vibrantly stranger than what we think of it in this mass we have between our two ears. Firstly because it has THREE OF MY FAVOURITE LOVED ACTORS: Benedict Cumberbatch, Mads Mikkelsen, and Tilda Swinton. Ben! Mads! [pronounced Mes (he's Danish)] Tilda! I LOVE THESE ACTORS! At the beginning of Doctor Strange, we see Kaecilius relieve a sorcerer of their head; that just shows that this movie isn't going to be beaten into softcore. The Ancient One confronts Kaecilius and his misguided followers and they begin to flee. To obstruct them, she puts everyone in a mirror dimension and manipulates the structures of buildings around to gain advantage. That is just a taste of the Nolanesque (associating to the properties of my personally favourite filmmaker Christopher Nolan's films) visuals you see in this film.