My 1,000 Loved Ones
OnMarch 12, 2020, Boris Johnson, the primeminister of the United Kingdom, states in an address to the nation that, “Many families in Britain will lose loved ones before their time.” 1 This is not a casual remark but rather an official statement from the person holding a position that has existed for 300 years, the longest continuous political office in the world. At that moment, the intensity of global events escalates. The intensity of my concern for my loved ones weighs on me. They number 1,000. I have 1,000 people who I am personally responsible for. I am afraid of losing any one of them to this vicious virus. Just who are my 1,000 loved ones? As a diplomat in the Office of the Cultural Attach é in London, my 1,000 loved ones are the 1,000 Qatari students currently living and studying in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. My responsibility is to ensure their successful educational journeys by establishing strong relationships with the universities they attend in order to ensure that they take full advantage of their opportunities abroad. To be honest, I do not know them all personally, nor have I talked to all of them face-to-face, but now I am essentially responsible for their lives. With some, I am an older brother-type figure, with others, I am a person to email with standard questions about their institution and education. But now, I am acutely aware of the life-or-death role I play in their lives amid a global pandemic. We are in the midst of a global emergency that may be larger than our emotional capacity as humans; one that goes beyond our imaginative abilities of what we consider to be a crisis. At our office, we come up with an action plan and subsequent recommendations quickly to manage the potentially deadly risk. Measures are put in place to protect all Qatari students in the UK and Ireland. I am a member of the crisis management team and we work together very closely 1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-51862282/coronavirus-pm-says-more-to-lose-loved-ones-before-their-time
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