A Journey Filled with Sweat and Tears

One cold and windy evening in February 2013, we received a call from Dr. Leszek Sibilski, our professor of contemporary social problems at the University of Maryland. He told us about a unique opportunity to make a short video documentary at a World Bank event organized by Connect4 Climate (C4C) entitled “Right Here, Right Now.”

Immediately, we sensed it would be an interesting endeavor and we spontaneously said: “Let’s do it!”

We are two young Chinese women studying in the U.S. Yaqi Liu is an undergraduate broadcast journalism student. In her sophomore year, she decided to take Sibilski’s contemporary social problems class, which ultimately changed her life in an incredible way. She talked about the class to her friend, Marianne Ma, who was doing first-year graduate studies in Supply Chain Management at the same university. Yaqi was enthusiastic about all the social changes and movements that professor Sibilski mentioned in class and Marianne was inspired by her enthusiasm.

We decided to talk with professor Sibilski, asking him for opportunities to witness or even participate in current social movements. The trip to the World Bank headquarters was exactly the opportunity we were hoping for.

Although we did not have professional equipment or sophisticated video production skills, we were passionate, feeling that this project would be challenging and interesting. But we never thought it would raise our social consciousness, and perhaps even change the path of our lives as well.