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Civic Imagination

Juggling against all odds

Nelli Kujansivu is a Finnish foot juggler based in Stockholm. When she was ten, she fell from a human pyramid to the concrete floor and broke her both feet so badly that the doctors said she'd never be able to walk normally again. Bones in her feet were shattered and her feet swollen. At one point, she was taking 15 pain medication pills a day.

However, she decided to beat all the odds and started to learn foot juggling.

Now, at the age of 22, she is still living in almost daily pain. But she doesn't let that to define her. She has learned to accept pain as part of her life. This June she graduated from the University of Dance and Circus (DOCH) in Stockholm and continues to follow her dream career by performing internationally.

(link to her website: http://nellikujansivu.com/index.html)

(link to the Finnish story on YLE http://yle.fi/uutiset/nelli_kujansivu_putosi_kymmenvuotiaana_sirkuspyramidin_huipulta_betonille__en_suostunut_uskomaan_etta_en_enaa_kavele_normaalisti/8909428)

I read about the story from a news website. I don’t usually read stories about sports but something made me click the article open. I found Nelli’s story very inspiring – she has endured a lot from a very young age. It’s hard to imagine what it would feel like to live in constant pain, which sometimes resonates through her whole body. What’s more, she continued to train her feet despite the shattered bones – it takes a lot of gut. Foot juggling requires perfect control of feet and leg muscles, and she has mastered that despite her injuries. Her work is hypnotic to watch.

This story was shared by the national broadcaster so I think it received a lot of coverage. Interestingly, Nelli’s bio on her website doesn’t mention the accident – perhaps she wants to go forward on her own merit. Based on the interview I read she seems like a happy and bubbly person, who would rather not let herself be dragged down her difficult past.

The story resonates with me still because as a woman, it’s great to see other women succeed. Also, whatever problems or fears I might have about my future career are small compared to her struggles as a child after the accident.
I shared the story on my personal Facebook wall because even though I’m not a sports person, I found that there were elements in her story that were very universal.

If anything, this is a story of perseverance and hope. Even though the impact of Nelli’s resilience is mainly to her own life, her story can help others to persevere at times of difficulty. Her talent and success are hard-earned. She refused to listen to those who said she would never be able to walk normally again, and overcame all expectations by becoming a professional foot juggler.
Nelli’s story could easily be turned into a film or a book. Her adamant belief in herself and trust in her own abilities could easily inspire other young girls with physical problems or defects to take up sports. In many ways, she is like a real-life superhero.

"Nelli Kujansivu - Foot Juggling" by Aaron Hakala https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv5SbN59-HM

#circus #juggling #inspirational #femalesports #foot juggling #chronic pain

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Contents of this tag:
4. Maus: A Survivor's Tale
11. How the tortoise got cracks in his shell
14. The Lion King
15. Sailor Moon Sailor Moon is a young teenage girl that learns that she has magical powers that allows her to fight against the evils of the extraterrestrial world. She finds the Sailor Scouts, Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter. Each of them have powers that relate to the symbolism of their planet and a specific superhero outfit that they wear. Based in Neo-futuristic Tokyo the story was released in the 1990’s as a manga and then a television anime came out. It became very popular among teens especially young Asian-American girls because of where it was based although the characters were many depicted as white skin tone.
17. Chef "Chef is a film released in 2014 that was written and directed by Jon Favreau who was inspired by his own career in film and love of the culinary arts to create a movie about a popular chef who needs to find his creative spark and fall in love with cooking once more. The film begins in California where Chef Carl Casper lives and works. After receiving a brutally negative review from a well regarded food critic, Carl reevaluates his job at a fancy restaurant in California. He realized that sticking to a strict menu has taken away a lot of joy from the profession he used to love. After he quits his job, Carl heads to Miami, Florida with his family because his ex-wife, Inez, needs him to watch their son, Percy, while she works.
25. The colonial city
26. My Dad
27. Sanjay's Super Team This is an animated short film from Pixar directed and written by Sanjay Patel who based it off his experiences as a child. The story revolves around a young boy, Sanjay, and his father, an Indian-American migrant. Sanjay is watching his favourite superheroes on TV while his father is praying by the shrine in the same room. His father urges him to join in the ritual but Sanjay refuses so he switches off the TV and takes his toy in order to force him into it.
31. Freedom Writers: Bridging Racial Divides Through Writing Freedom Writers (the movie) is based on a true story of a school in Long Beach, California. The main character, Erin Gruwell, is a new teacher at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School and placed with the students who are considered at-risk and unteachable. These students were almost entirely comprised of minorities, with the exception of one student. With such a diverse class and a group of students who had no apparent desire to learn, the film explores the real-world challenges that Gruwell faced trying to get her students to come to class wanting to learn, if they would even want to come to their classes at all. The class divides itself based on race, and fights and arguments breakout regularly. The class later finds common ground on their feelings and discussions around The Holocaust. Her students become inspired to break free from the things that originally divided them, most notably with one character speaking out against someone who she was being forced to lie for during a trial. She tasked her students with writing in a diary and then compiled those journals and writings into a collection of them all in “The Freedom Writers Diary.”
33. Roaring Lion
36. Emmeline the Suffragist
39. Fox's Creek On a hot summer night a community of animals were chased out of their home by a growing wildfire which started to burn down their forest. Mother Deer grabbed her young ones while the other animals rushed to cross the great river. Everyone showed their human instincts, pushing, kicking, and growling desperately on their way to safety. Mother Deer made it to the other side with Fawn but Mother Rabbit forgot one of her many young ones so she asked her for he
41. Train of Hope
42. Michelle S
45. Simba and the Maasai Warriors
52. A Leader
54. The Myth of the Mansfield Hanging Tree
60. Rafael DCB
69. We are all Martín Fierro
71. Nick C
72. The Help
85. Ghada G.
91. How I "Eat, Pray, and Love"
95. Equilibrium Equilibrium is set in 2072 in Libria, a city state established by the survivors of World War III. “Equilibrium” is an action/thriller movie following John Preston (Bale), an enforcement officer in a futuristic world where a regime has decided to eliminate war by suppressing emotions using a certain type of drug. Books, art and music are strictly forbidden and "feeling" is a crime punishable by death.
98. Nina N.
99. Sandokan: A Post-Colonial Coldwar Hero The plot of the novel revolves around the adventures of Sandokan - a Bornean man who lost his status, home and family to British colonialists. Embittered by his experience, Sandokan sets up camp at the island of Mompracem. From there he leads a gang of pirates under the flag of the Tiger. Together they destabilize the colonialists’ authority through robbery and violence. Steeped in the colonial period in which it was written, Salgari’s novel pitted indigenous populations against the colonial powers in ways that highlighted the evils of imperialism and celebrated resistance. As Maria Bianca Gerlich (1998, 34) observes, “Sandokan, Mompracem, and the flag of the tiger are allegories in the fight for freedom.”
100. Nour H
102. Out of Balance
105. Nora S
109. The doctors' team of the Aegean sea
119. Dana G.
120. Stephanie Q
128. A Tale of Traveler's Past A 28-30 year-old man boards a train and sits in an empty compartment. He is a weary traveller who has spent countless days trying to find transportation to reach his destination. While en route, he falls asleep and is visited from travelers from past and present journeys of who had boarded this particular train. The first visitor is Alexander Hamilton; a migrant from the Caribbean who traveled to the United States in the 1800's. He recounts his experience of traveling to a new country and achieving his dream of creating something that would outlive him. The second visitors are Art and Vladek Spiegelman; a father and son who share their story of how they migrated to a new country after the Holocaust events of World War II and their struggles of adapting into the culture of a new nation. The last visitor is a woman who comes from the Middle East who arrived in Vienna a year ago. She tells her story about the journey she experienced to reach her new home as well as the issues she's experiences now as an outcast from a land that she's still not fully settled into yet.
130. An American Chef in the Aegean: Teaching solidarity through food
132. Em/Power Love As Liz finishes her spiritual trip around the world she heads to Brazil for her final stop. She stops into a local bar where this man Sebastiao spills a glass of wine on her. From there the love story began and the couple traveled around Brazil to take photos of social injustice. One night they were out in the middle of a field where they were taking photos of an approaching comet and Sebastiao noticed something strange in the image. They went to the comet collision and found an luminescent girl standing there. She introduces herself as Em, an inter-terrestrial who warns them about the consequences of gender inequality. She says there is an outer universal counsel that judges planets according to social understandings. Em tells them that she has magic powers to empower women and helps them reach self-discover. Liz and Sebastiao take on the mission to travel around the world with Em to show the strong women all over the world. Together they take photos of social injustices while illustrating stories of women struggling to find themselves within their societies. After taking the photos with Em using her magic power given by the moon they feel they can become their own hero. Em takes the photos back to the counsel to prove that Earth is becoming a more equal society. But Liz and Sebastiao’s work of empowering women and showing social injustices will still continue.
133. Tiajna A
140. Julia B. I am a third year student at the University of Maryland in the U.S. studying Journalism with a minor in French. Writing is a passion of mine, and journalism is one of the many real world applications of writing. I hope to be able to use writing to make an impact on the world through the news and help others get the information that they need in order to be informed citizens. In my free time I like to do triathlons and write poetry.
142. The Outlet It is the civil war in Venezuela. Xena and her little brother, Gabriel, live in the city where Gabriel practices his art. Xena, wants to see her brothers art and asks him to go to his studio and bring it back. Just as he reaches the car, a bomb hits the car, killing Gabriel. Xena, being extremely close to her brother, blames herself for sending him to get his art. She later finds out that the bomb was planted by the Latin Kings gang. Out of revenge, she then joins the rival gang with her friend, Shepard. In an act of revenge, her gang plants a bomb. She later learns, that the bomb she planted blew up Shepard's parents house. Feeling guilty, and knowing that Gabriel would be disappointed in these actions, she decided to make a change. In honor of Gabriel, she picks up his art, and paints the entire country of Venezuela with beautiful street art. Through this art she finds peace. The art was so beautiful and happy, that it ended the civil war, and transformed into a happy, peaceful place to live.
Contents of this tag:
2. Maus: A Survivor's Tale
4. How the tortoise got cracks in his shell
11. My Dad
12. Sanjay's Super Team This is an animated short film from Pixar directed and written by Sanjay Patel who based it off his experiences as a child. The story revolves around a young boy, Sanjay, and his father, an Indian-American migrant. Sanjay is watching his favourite superheroes on TV while his father is praying by the shrine in the same room. His father urges him to join in the ritual but Sanjay refuses so he switches off the TV and takes his toy in order to force him into it.
13. Freedom Writers: Bridging Racial Divides Through Writing Freedom Writers (the movie) is based on a true story of a school in Long Beach, California. The main character, Erin Gruwell, is a new teacher at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School and placed with the students who are considered at-risk and unteachable. These students were almost entirely comprised of minorities, with the exception of one student. With such a diverse class and a group of students who had no apparent desire to learn, the film explores the real-world challenges that Gruwell faced trying to get her students to come to class wanting to learn, if they would even want to come to their classes at all. The class divides itself based on race, and fights and arguments breakout regularly. The class later finds common ground on their feelings and discussions around The Holocaust. Her students become inspired to break free from the things that originally divided them, most notably with one character speaking out against someone who she was being forced to lie for during a trial. She tasked her students with writing in a diary and then compiled those journals and writings into a collection of them all in “The Freedom Writers Diary.”
16. Train of Hope
18. The Light at the end of a Dark Tunnel
20. Emmeline the Suffragist
21. The Diary of Anne Frank
25. A Leader
30. The Help
33. How I "Eat, Pray, and Love"
34. The doctors' team of the Aegean sea
39. We are all Martín Fierro
Contents of this tag: