Family is one of nature's greatest masterpieces in which its members are to be intimately acquainted without having a proper introduction to each other. The bond is just embroidered naturally from the first day of our lives when warm hands embrace our bodies and hearty smiles comfort our cries. The closest family to us is our parents who are the only ones obligated to adore us; compared to the rest of the world whose affection needs to be earned.

To acknowledge the significance of family, 15th May has been specially observed as the International Day of Families. This day aims to promote awareness of issues relating to families. This year’s theme, Advancing Social Integration and Intergenerational Solidarity, realizes the fact that in every family consists of members who come from different generations thus challenges of having a fruitful intergenerational relationship are encountered.

A busy and hectic lifestyle is a mutual experience for most of us today, especially in metropolitan cities. Active young people are often faced with several stressful obstacles, particularly during their most taxing activities in their academic and working life. A lack of proper rest, coupled with skipping meals and an imbalance diet are some of the accepted norms associated with today’s frantic lifestyle; the biggest repercussion of such patterns being hypertension (HTN) also known as High Blood Pressure. It is a shocking fact that between 1989 and 2002, the number of teenagers who have high blood pressure increased from 1 to 5 per cent, meaning that within 10 young people, one to two of them have been diagnosed with Hypertension.

The fulfillment of all fundamental human needs is largely dependent on water and access thereof. Be it socio-economic development, environmental preservation, even poverty eradication, none of these goals can be fully attained, without water. Yet today, fresh water remains a scarce resource and access to it has even posed as a root to conflict across regions and communities alike.

Take a second, Imagine the world is black and white! Visualize all flowers share one common color, all food one taste, and all music one tune. To picture this, is to envision a world with no beauty or splendor, a world without different shapes, colors or sizes. A similar synopsis may be directly applied to a civilization that celebrates differences in race, color or creed; a civilization that holds one demographic in higher regard than another. Now, suppose for a second, you are playing by a set of rules that determine right or wrong, good or bad, grounded on where you are from, or the color of your skin, a world that is racially discriminated.