Identity

Joao Daniel Pereira · 2020-09-05T00:00:00Z

London, UK. 5th September, 2020. A young female activist hides her identity while attending an Extinction Rebellion protest. The activist had bail conditions and was hiding her identity from police body cameras and street cameras, London is one of the most surveilled cities in the world with cameras in every corner. Credit: João Daniel Pereira Wiktoria, 25. 𝐀𝐬 𝐚 𝐤𝐢𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐮𝐩 ? I wanted to be an acrobat and work in a circus travelling around the world. I spent a lot of time in nature and started dreaming of becoming a vet, finding animals that needed help and asking vets around the town to help for free as I had no money. Systematic education cut my edges, guiding me to wanting to be a language or history teacher then painter or biologist. I remember phases of wanting to be a belly dancer or a breakdancer but classes contained more drama than dance so then I fixated on what Jolie did for UN and felt inspired to follow her steps. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐨 ? I'm a key worker supporting people who have 'complex ' needs. I like to make this role as much hands-on as it can be, I go out with my patients to do things they like and through which they can express themselves as well as support them in any way they need to become more independent. The charity I work for is called Single Homeless Project we work with Prêt Charity and the Felix Project. What I like about the charity is that front line staff have opportunities to make decisions and discuss how to make the charity better in terms of equality or service it provides and how.   𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 ? I spend my after-work hours devoted to activism, especially environmental issues as, after psych degree and field experience, I realised that is the primary thing we should focus on worldwide to recalibrate the harmony and become more balanced within ourselves and our environment. I understood that environment plays a huge part in balanced mental health and managed to support many people through understanding and exploring the grief of ending, pain behind nature lost and the current values of world leaders and where does that leave and lead society to be 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥 ?⁣ I hope the future will be freer. I believe nobody should be obliged to follow anybody else's ideas unless they want to. I want to see improvement in protecting our Mother Lord space ship from greedy modern humans and for us to become wiser.