The Writing Life

During our first session, we said that writing, like sewing, took one thing and made it into another; and that writing, like sewing, was always for someone, even if that someone was yourself in the future. Writing was a way of sending your voice to someone you might never meet.

Then I told them that I was going to write a piece about the camp because UNESCO was starting a worldwide literacy program for women. Somebody's Daughter, I said, could be seen as part of a movement that would improve the lives of women all over the world, so that they could help their families. Some women in UNESCO's program might not even be able to write their own names, I added. I wanted the women of Somebody's Daughter to send a message of encouragement to these other women.

Focusing on their instinct to help worked. Every single woman wrote a message. Every message was positive. Every message was for someone the writer herself would never meet.

Writing messages of encouragement was encouraging. The big tent became a place of safety and comfort and healing for the women in it, and their writing also became such a place.

Each of the women, helped by her elder or teacher, completed the sewing project she had chosen. Each continued to write -- to expand the mastery of the written word through journals, letters and poems. On the final day, the women wrote a communal poem, each of them contributing. The last line of this poem shows how the sewing, writing and healing all came together:

"After I finished sewing the hard part of the kamik I feel like an eagle, so free and fly wherever I may go."

The next time someone asks me what writing is for, I'll request a re-phrasing of the question: "Do you mean, 'Who's it for?' "

It's for the eagle. It's for giving the eagle wings. It's also for us, who watch it fly. ·

To learn more about Somebody's Daughter and UNESCO's Initiative for Empowerment, contact Namtip Aksornkool at n.aksornkool@unesco.org.