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What's life like in Aleppo? This 7-year-old girl wants to show you.

Using Twitter, Bana al-Abed and her mother show us what life is like in Aleppo.

What's life like in Aleppo? This 7-year-old girl wants to show you.

Most 7-year-olds don't have to grow up in a war zone; Bana al-Abed does.

Back in September, Bana and her mother, Fatemah, opened a Twitter account and, like many Twitter users, began sharing details from their daily lives. Unlike most Twitter users, however, Bana and Fatemah live in Aleppo, Syria.

Like other kids her age, Bana likes to spend time reading, writing, and drawing. Unlike others, escaping into reading is a distraction from the war, and her drawings are meant to get the attention of world leaders like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and U.S. President Barack Obama.

For more than five years, civil war has ravaged Syria. Perhaps no city understands this quite as well as Aleppo.

As is often the case, the war in Syria is complicated beyond a simple "good guys vs. bad guys" narrative. Syrian forces, led by Assad's regime, along with Russia, have taken on rebel groups within the country — including ISIS. While Russia's involvement is for the stated purpose of fighting ISIS, the country's airstrikes have taken out hospitals, schools, and resulted in the deaths of many civilians.

250,000 Syrian citizens have been killed, and more than 11 million Syrians have been displaced because of the war. Many of those who've fled their homes have sought refugee status; others, like Bana and Fatemah, have stayed behind. This is their home, and it's being destroyed.

Syrian Civil Defence members search for victims in a destroyed building after reported air strikes in Aleppo in October 2016. Photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty Images.

Bana's tweets are a powerful reminder that as bombs fall, innocent lives are lost every day. She is a glimmer of humanity in a place that is often portrayed as faceless and lifeless.

Life seems pretty grim for the 7-year-old, who tweeted, "I am very afraid I will die tonight," on Oct. 2.

Death is inescapable and all around her. Bana has posted photos of dead children and dismembered limbs. (Warning: Those images are very graphic.) It's sad that anyone, let alone a child, should have to witness these kinds of horrors on a daily basis.

Even the little joys in her life, such as the garden where she used to play, have been taken from her by the cruelty of war.

Still, in all the sadness and worry, Bana holds out hope for a better world — one without bombs, killing, and destruction.

"A time will come when it's raining normal and not raining bombs in Syria," Fatemah tweeted on Nov. 2. "Good night dear friends."

In recent days, the bombings have gotten worse, and Bana's messages have become more direct.

On Nov. 24, Bana posted a video with a simple message: "Someone save me."

On Nov. 27, Fatemah shared a farewell message, certain that she and Bana would die in that night's bombings.

Luckily, they survived the attack. Their home was destroyed, and they witnessed their friends' deaths. But they're still here.

The very next day, Fatemah tweeted that they were under attack again.

It's easy to feel detached when something is happening half a world away. Bana's tweets are a reminder of just what is at stake if we ignore what's happening in Aleppo. Luckily, there are some great groups doing important work to help people like Bana and Fatemah on the ground in Aleppo.

There are steps you can take to help Bana, Fatemah, and others in Aleppo.

Groups like the Syrian American Medical Society and Doctors Without Borders have been crucial in providing first-line medical help to civilians affected by the war. With the city's hospitals destroyed, their work is more important than ever. Questscope has been instrumental in getting Syrians basic supplies for living, and Save the Children has launched its own humanitarian response in the city.

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#ScienceWillWin

We asked three people about how vaccines have impacted their lives. Here’s what they said.

Images courtesy of John Scully, Walden University, Ingrid Scully
True

Since March of 2020, over 29 million Americans have been diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the CDC. Over 540,000 have died in the United States as this unprecedented pandemic has swept the globe. And yet, by the end of 2020, it looked like science was winning: vaccines had been developed.

In celebration of the power of science we spoke to three people: an individual, a medical provider, and a vaccine scientist about how vaccines have impacted them throughout their lives. Here are their answers:

John Scully, 79, resident of Florida

Photo courtesy of John Scully

When John Scully was born, America was in the midst of an epidemic: tens of thousands of children in the United States were falling ill with paralytic poliomyelitis — otherwise known as polio, a disease that attacks the central nervous system and often leaves its victims partially or fully paralyzed.

"As kids, we were all afraid of getting polio," he says, "because if you got polio, you could end up in the dreaded iron lung and we were all terrified of those." Iron lungs were respirators that enclosed most of a person's body; people with severe cases often would end up in these respirators as they fought for their lives.

John remembers going to see matinee showings of cowboy movies on Saturdays and, before the movie, shorts would run. "Usually they showed the news," he says, "but I just remember seeing this one clip warning us about polio and it just showed all these kids in iron lungs." If kids survived the iron lung, they'd often come back to school on crutches, in leg braces, or in wheelchairs.

"We all tried to be really careful in the summer — or, as we called it back then, 'polio season,''" John says. This was because every year around Memorial Day, major outbreaks would begin to emerge and they'd spike sometime around August. People weren't really sure how the disease spread at the time, but many believed it traveled through the water. There was no cure — and every child was susceptible to getting sick with it.

"We couldn't swim in hot weather," he remembers, "and the municipal outdoor pool would close down in August."

Then, in 1954 clinical trials began for Dr. Jonas Salk's vaccine against polio and within a year, his vaccine was announced safe. "I got that vaccine at school," John says. Within two years, U.S. polio cases had dropped 85-95 percent — even before a second vaccine was developed by Dr. Albert Sabin in the 1960s. "I remember how much better things got after the vaccines came out. They changed everything," John says.

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Culture

Fearless 6-year-old skater impresses, dropping into a 12-foot bowl in her pink party dress

It's one thing to see a little kid skateboarding. It's another to see a stereotype-defying little girl skateboarding. And it's entirely another to see Paige Tobin.

Paige is a 6-year-old skateboarding wonder from Australia. A recent video of her dropping into a 12-foot bowl on her has gone viral, both for the feat itself and for the style with which she does it. Decked out in a pink party dress, a leopard-print helmet, and rainbow socks, she looks nothing like you'd expect a skater dropping into a 12-foot bowl to look. And yet, here she is, blowing people's minds all over the place.

For those who may not fully appreciate the impressiveness of this feat, here's some perspective. My adrenaline junkie brother, who has been skateboarding since childhood and who races down rugged mountain faces on a bike for fun, shared this video and commented, "If I dropped in to a bowl twice as deep as my age it would be my first and last time doing so...this fearless kid has a bright future!"

It's scarier than it looks, and it looks pretty darn scary.

Paige doesn't always dress like a princess when she skates, not that it matters. Her talent and skill with the board are what gets people's attention. (The rainbow socks are kind of her signature, however.)

Her Instagram feed is filled with photos and videos of her skateboarding and surfing, and the body coordination she's gained at such a young age is truly something.

Here she was at three years old:

And here she is at age four:


So, if she dropped into a 6-foot bowl at age three and a 12-foot bowl at age six—is there such a thing as an 18-foot bowl for her to tackle when she's nine?

Paige clearly enjoys skating and has high ambitions in the skating world. "I want to go to the Olympics, and I want to be a pro skater," she told Power of Positivity when she was five. She already seems to be well on her way toward that goal.

How did she get so good? Well, Paige's mom gave her a skateboard when she wasn't even preschool age yet, and she loved it. Her mom got her lessons, and she's spent the past three years skating almost daily. She practices at local skate parks and competes in local competitions.

She also naturally has her fair share of spills, some of which you can see on her Instagram channel. Falling is part of the sport—you can't learn if you don't fall. Conquering the fear of falling is the key, and the thing that's hardest for most people to get over.

Perhaps Paige started too young to let fear override her desire to skate. Perhaps she's been taught to manage her fears, or maybe she's just naturally less afraid than other people. Or maybe there's something magical about the rainbow socks. Whatever it is, it's clear that this girl doesn't let fear get in the way of her doing what she wants to do. An admirable quality in anyone, but particularly striking to see in someone so young.

Way to go, Paige. Your perseverance and courage are inspiring, as is your unique fashion sense. Can't wait to see what you do next.

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Badge
Pfizer
Pfizer
#ScienceWillWin

We asked three people about how vaccines have impacted their lives. Here’s what they said.

Images courtesy of John Scully, Walden University, Ingrid Scully
True

Since March of 2020, over 29 million Americans have been diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the CDC. Over 540,000 have died in the United States as this unprecedented pandemic has swept the globe. And yet, by the end of 2020, it looked like science was winning: vaccines had been developed.

In celebration of the power of science we spoke to three people: an individual, a medical provider, and a vaccine scientist about how vaccines have impacted them throughout their lives. Here are their answers:

John Scully, 79, resident of Florida

Photo courtesy of John Scully

When John Scully was born, America was in the midst of an epidemic: tens of thousands of children in the United States were falling ill with paralytic poliomyelitis — otherwise known as polio, a disease that attacks the central nervous system and often leaves its victims partially or fully paralyzed.

"As kids, we were all afraid of getting polio," he says, "because if you got polio, you could end up in the dreaded iron lung and we were all terrified of those." Iron lungs were respirators that enclosed most of a person's body; people with severe cases often would end up in these respirators as they fought for their lives.

John remembers going to see matinee showings of cowboy movies on Saturdays and, before the movie, shorts would run. "Usually they showed the news," he says, "but I just remember seeing this one clip warning us about polio and it just showed all these kids in iron lungs." If kids survived the iron lung, they'd often come back to school on crutches, in leg braces, or in wheelchairs.

"We all tried to be really careful in the summer — or, as we called it back then, 'polio season,''" John says. This was because every year around Memorial Day, major outbreaks would begin to emerge and they'd spike sometime around August. People weren't really sure how the disease spread at the time, but many believed it traveled through the water. There was no cure — and every child was susceptible to getting sick with it.

"We couldn't swim in hot weather," he remembers, "and the municipal outdoor pool would close down in August."

Then, in 1954 clinical trials began for Dr. Jonas Salk's vaccine against polio and within a year, his vaccine was announced safe. "I got that vaccine at school," John says. Within two years, U.S. polio cases had dropped 85-95 percent — even before a second vaccine was developed by Dr. Albert Sabin in the 1960s. "I remember how much better things got after the vaccines came out. They changed everything," John says.

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