By: Fidan Ibrahimova –

Sara Paw (9)

What makes me unique? I think I’m unique because I’m a refugee who fled from a civil war. I am unique [because] my parents worked hard for me to have a valuable education. I am unique [because] I am a strong, independent woman, who has rights like any other individual. Paw’s family originated from the Karen culture. Karen people are an ethnic group that live in southeast Asia and along the border of Thailand. Paw’s family had to escape after the Burmese Military came and took over their land. The Burmese Military took over the Karen villages by killing, torturing, and forcing labor to the Karen people.

Natalie Rauner (10)

“I am going on foreign exchange next year, so I will be going to school in Spain and live with a Spanish family for 10 months starting in September.  My sister, when she was my age, was a foreign exchange too. My dad has been a part of the rotary exchange program which is the program I’m doing it through. I’ve known a lot about it and always knew it was an option. But recently, I decided I should do it.”

Ariana Welter (11)

“All of my talents and wanting to be an animator for Disney or a National Geographic Photographer after high school. I’ve always loved disney movies, it’s like my favorite thing. I got my artistic talents from my mom, and she get her talent from her great grandma and it just went through the line. My mom paints but I’m more of a drawer. In 7th grade, Garrett Wurm showed me one of his flip books he made, and if he would have never showed him his, I never would have started making them.”

Cameron Azimi (12)

“I was raised in a house where two religions were practiced (Islam and Christianity), and where two languages were spoken (Farsi and English). My father came from the capital city of Iran, and my mother came from a small town in western Nebraska. This has given me a worldly view, proven to me that two different cultures can coexist in the same household, and made me interested in my family’s history, which has revealed to me that we are all related and all have a diverse background of origins and experiences. It has proven, especially in these times where Islam and Christianity seem to be at such odds, and they possibly can’t coexist but they can. I live in a house where its coexisted my entire life and it’s perfectly fine. If you make the effort to work together and accept your differences but also work toward the similarities, then, really, they can coexist successfully.”