The Spark

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The One World Festival will be held this weekend at Franklin and Marshall College.

The festival will be held on Sunday, Sept. 11 from 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Alumni Sports and Fitness Center.

Deepa Balepur, chair of the One World Festival Committee and president of the Indian Organization of Lancaster County; Dorothy Dulo, the vendor coordinator for the festival and the founder and director of Rafiki Africa; and Dr. Nick Serrano, a retired family physician, member of the Greek Orthodox Parish appeared on Smart Talk to discuss the festival.

The idea for one festival celebrating world cultures actually came about in 2018 when Balepur spoke with a woman at the Indian festival.

"She said, 'Well, today is a very special day for Lancaster County.' And my question was why? Why do you say that?," Balepur said. "And her response was, 'Well, you know, I love Indian food, so I'm starting my day here. And then from here I'm going to go to downtown Lancaster because Rafiki is having their African-American festival there, after which I'm going to go to Long's Park because the Latin American community is having their festival there. Wouldn't it be great if you guys all came together and did this in one spot? It would be so convenient and there would be such fun.'

"And, you know, that kind of just stuck with me. The next day I picked up the phone call the organizers of the other festivals and said, 'I have this crazy idea,'" Balepur said.

There will also be quite the variety of food on Sunday.

"We are going to have Indian food from Taj Mahal. We're going to have African food from Rafiki," said Doolan. "And then we're going to have great food from Gus's restaurant. And then we're going to have Italian food from Piccolo, Italy, and then we're going to have Latin food. A little bit of Mexican food. And then we're going to have African/Southern Soul Food from Exmouth.  It's really fun to see such a variety come together in one location."

The event is free and open to the community, and will be a big celebration of the diverse cultures from the region with food, dancing, shopping and more.

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During the pandemic, virtual learning was something that teachers, parents, and students complained about, as some said it presented barriers for learning.

However, some are saying that in person learning may not be the best fit for teenagers struggling to maintain their mental health.

According to the Office of Population Affairs, mental health conditions are on the rise among youth with almost 50% of teens struggling with a mental health disorder in their lifetime.

Allie Schleifer, Insight Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School Lead School Counselor, said virtual learning provides students struggling with their mental health the opportunity to learn in a safe place, have more flexibility, learn with more family support, improve their academics and overall functions as human beings, use chat boxes and turn off their camera for comfort, and relieve the pressure of making friends and dressing to fit into a school environment.

"I think that there's a lot that can come with moving to a virtual model for students, especially those struggling with mental health, because it allows them to focus on their academics and takes away some of those other factors that might be distracting them," Schleifer said.

She also said, she thinks there will be an increase in the number of virtual options that are available to students as the demand increases.

Schleifer's school has increased their focus on social and emotional learning for students and she advised that in person schools integrate that kind of learning in their curriculum as well.

"We hear from many in the workforce that its those soft skills that students are leaving high school and potentially lacking," Schleifer said. "So really making sure that we're giving those skills to students, that we're modeling it but also directly instructing them on all of those social and emotional aspects are so important, whether virtual or in person."

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Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed an executive order last month directing state agencies to discourage the practice of conversion therapy.

Conversion therapy is the discredited and unscientific practice of trying to change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity.

There are 20 states across the country that have passed laws explicitly prohibiting licensed professionals from engage in conversion therapy on minors. There are another five states that have executive orders similar to what was issued in Pennsylvania that specifically address state funding.

Casey Peck, senior fellow for advocacy and government affairs with The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and mental health organization for LGBTQ youth; and Carmen McKinney, a licensed clinical social worker for Alder Health, which provides affirming mental health care for LGBTQ community in central Pennsylvania; and Matthew Shurka, who co-founded Born Perfect, a national campaign working to end conversion therapy were on Smart Talk to discuss the importance of the executive order.

When he was 16-years-old, Shirk was put through conversion therapy.

"They try to find out what traumas I went through as a kid, and their theory was that some kind of traumatic experience caused my same sex attraction and that innately everyone is heterosexual and cis gender," Shurka said. ", I had a pretty good upbringing, so it was harder to define the cause of why I was gay and what their diagnosis was. I'm from the third child. The youngest of three are two older sisters, a mother that I was very close to and what they describe as a working distant father. And they said, this is the reason why I have I'm confused about my masculinity and I need to correct the rules in my own home."

Shurka was then told he could not talk to his sisters and mother for three years and had to learn to "be one of the guys," he said.

"And they explained that as long as they spend more time with the male figures, father, uncles, male cousins or the boys at school, I will learn how to be more connected to the guys and heal any issues they had in my masculinity," Shurka said.

Gov. Wolf's executive order aims to prevent the experiences Shurka went through from happening to other people.

"It specifically encourages the state mental health licensing boards to prohibit conversion therapy by licensed professionals throughout the state," Peck said. "And also directs that there be additional training and information for state agencies that are working with LGBTQ people so as to actually not only prevent things like conversion therapy, but also try and improve the experience for LGBTQ folks who are making use of state programs where all too often we see disparities in outcomes and some experiences of discrimination."

Organization like Adler Health provide affirming care to the LGBTQ community.

"Affirming care is just therapy that affirms who a person is, whether that is related to their sexual orientation, their gender identity," McKinney said. "It provides them with the space to explore who they are. If that's why they're coming to therapy and receive affirming care for the same reasons everyone else comes to therapy: depression, anxiety, relationship issues. Lets people get the same care that everyone else does."

McKinney added that conversion therapy is not therapy and any mental health professional practicing it is actually going against their professional code of ethics.

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John Waters, American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist is most famously known for directing boundary-pushing independent comedies like "Pink Flamingos" and the original "Hairspray”.

According to IMDb, John, Baltimore native, rose to fame in the early 1970s when he began making feature films and became popular as his subject matter grew more shocking and polished.

Sept. 22nd through the 24th , Waters plans to host a film festival called False Negative - An Evening With John Waters at the Barshinger Center for the Musical Arts at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.

Although Waters is now known for being a famous filmmaker, he said he got thrown out of film school.

"One line technique is nothing more than failed style," Waters said. "If you like my movies, you called them raw. If you didn't like them, you call them amateur."

Waters said he built his career on negative reviews and learned to overcome his failures by telling stories through different mediums.

"I believe you get one life and it's not very long in the history of times," Waters said. "It's a split second in the history of the universe. So, I want to do everything I can while I have the chance."

He said his upcoming film festival will be a great opportunity for other filmmakers to network and be discovered.

For more information about the film festival visit gleaners.site.

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Returning to work has been known to be difficult for new parents for a wide variety of reasons: lack of sleep, implicit biases that new parents face, finding the time and space to pump breast milk, postpartum, hormonal changes, separation anxiety and guilt, getting back in the swing of work duties and schedules, and so much more.

According to Parents.com, women are three times more likely than men to have to leave the workforce due to pandemic-related child care demands.

Lori Mihalich-Levin, CEO of Mindful Return and advocate for working parents said, it's important that new parents connect with other parents who are returning to work, talk to a therapist, or social worker to receive support and normalize the stresses and fears that one may be facing alone.

She also advised for parents to take parental leave, as it is necessary for recovery and can help destigmatize caregiving for both men and women.

"I'd say that you shouldn't feel any guilt about wanting to start your baby's life off on a healthy foot and to recover yourself. So I'd say, ditch the guilt. This is a major life event and the work will be there and you'll be okay if you take some time to pause," Mihalich-Levin said. " When it becomes completely normal for a new parent, whether a man or a woman to take a leave, then there will be less discrimination against women in the hiring process."

She said a good parental leave policy is gender neutral and provides about six months in paid leave. If your job doesn't have this kind of parental leave policy, she advised that people create working parent groups to seek change in their workplace or connect with local advocacy groups to make a difference.

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On Saturday, NASA’s Artemis rocket attempts to take off for the second time from NASA's modernized Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

According to BBC news, the lift-off scheduled for Monday had to be scrubbed when one of four engines on the vehicle would not cool down to its required operating temperature.

According to NASA, the Artemis mission is to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.

Brixx Minguez, General Manager of Shippensburg University’s Television Station, who interviewed astronauts and the Head of Space Exploration at the press site during the first attempt to launch the rocket said, the name Artemus comes from an ancient lunar goddess turned feminist icon, which is significant because they're bringing the first woman to the moon.

"There is this moment when you're getting to the end of your interviews with each person and you ask them, 'Any final words about the launch?' and people start to cry and say that this is their dream coming true. This is their childhood. This is what they've waited their whole lives for," Brixx said.

They also said it took everyone that played a part in creating the Artemis rocket 10 or more years to do so.

“We are going to the moon to stay,” NASA said. Brixx said what NASA meant by this statement is they're training astronauts to build a permanent moon base with Artemis mission.

Brixx said she hopes the issues that caused Monday's launch date to be scrubbed will be addressed for a successful launch Saturday.

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Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.