the girl in the picture

The Girl in the picture.



I want my experience to serve a purpose: I was burned because of war. Today, I want to encourage people to love and help one another. We need to learn how to become more tolerant, how to look at the individual, to listen, to come out of ourselves, to help others instead of letting ourselves get carried away by anger and hatred, which give rise to revenge and violence in the world and don't help anybody.

War causes nothing but suffering. That's why I show the little girl in the picture. Because she tells my story and the consequences that war has had on my life. No father or mother in the world wants what happened in that picture to happen again. I would like to transmit what I have learned to value: I experienced war; I know the value of peace.

I have lived with my pain; I know the value of love when you want to heal. I have lived with hatred, and now I know the power of forgiveness. Today, I am alive, I live without hatred, without the spirit of revenge, and I can tell all those who caused my suffering: I forgive you. That is the only way to save peace, to speak of tolerance and non-violence.