Norina's Astronomic Achievement
Date: 16/07/13
Author: Norina Shah
Norina - The Brightest Star
When our editor received an email from a 14 year old girl from Quetta, Pakistan, not only was it a surprise, it was also an amazing story. Eduzine is quite literally ‘over the moon’ that we have reached and connected with young people worldwide, who have fantastic positive stories to tell.
Many people will be familiar with the incredible story of MalalaYousafzai, the 15 year old Pakistani girl, shot by Taliban militants for demanding an education for girls. However, Malala is not the only girl working extremely hard to gain an education. This is Norina’s story, in her very own words, which we have no doubt you will find inspirational.
“My name is Norina.I'm from the Pakistani city of Quetta. I have a great interest in astronomy and I want to tell you why I have this great interest in astronomy. When I was about 8 years old I became passionate about outer space and from this age I started to discover how to capture pictures of planets, stars and the moon in the night sky. I know that my first picture was of the moon and I tried to describe it to others by using this picture and explain it in my own words. At that time I learned only about the moon, but at that time I was still young and I didn’t know much about the universe. When I was about 10 years old I started to use the internet to gain greater knowledge about our universe and since then I have come to know it very well. Our internet service is very poor and I have often spent hours trying to connect to the World Wide Web. My aim in life is to become an astronomer. As you may know, Pakistan is one of those countries where people do not attach any value to astronomy. For this reason, I want to challenge my country's thoughts that astronomy is an unimportant subject in our life. I want to become the youngest astronomer in my country but I don't want to show off to the world that I'm the first girl in Pakistan to become their youngest Astronomer. No, I want to encourage and inspire those other, younger children, who are also really interested in astronomy. If I do become the youngest Pakistani astronomer I'll want to tell the children that they can become the youngest astronomer too. Just believe in yourself and make your dream come true by doing a little bit of hard work. I'll promise the children that they can get their aim and have their dreams come true.”
“Well as we know, Wikipedia is one of the best sites for getting information about anything, but it is not always good or correct information. I used it much of the time but I didn't use only this one website. I used many websites because I wanted to get exact information about planets and stars, so I also used www.sciencekids.co.nz and planetforkids.com. But possibly the best website, which I like so much because it explains to me about the universe very clearly, is www.polaris.iastate.com That was the website I started to use when I began to truly understand about the universe very well.”
“From 2012 I decided to use Twitter and Facebook to show the world about myself and how interested I am in astronomy. All my Twitter followers are supporting me so much but Eduzine is the first to give me the opportunity to tell many people about myself. There are now many followers on my twitter account, but the organisation which is most closely connected with me is Futuristex. This is a most important organisation for me because they were the first to encourage me to continue my astronomy education. Then there is another follower, a girl from the USA, who is the most important person for me. Why? Anna is 15 years old and wants to become the first astronaut to land on Mars. Her tweets and her thoughts are very much appreciated by me and her support is just too much! The planet I like the most is Mars, the fourth planet. It is the one planet which is a little bit similar to our Earth. On Mars there is only a little amount of oxygen and water. Its weather is also perfect and better than the Earth! As for stars, I like Alpha Centauri the most, which is the third brightest star and we can see it from Earth with a naked eye. I did have an old telescope to see more stars and planets but last year it was broken by my younger brother!!”
“I do attend a school and now read in the 9th class (UK Year 9 equivalent). I learned about astronomy from the 3rd class till the 5th class. I also got extra support for this subject for gaining my wide knowledge about astronomy on my own. Also it helps that my family shares my interest and supports me … except when breaking my telescope! It is very difficult to get an education in Quetta as it is a very dangerous place for girls to learn. My wish is to get further education from a foreign country; that's why I'm working so hard to get good marks and go to a foreign country sponsored by the government, because my family is not rich and cannot afford to pay my education fees in a foreign country. I would like to also send some images and pictures, but I'm so sorry I don't have any images which I can send by email.”
“Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share my interest and tell my story to your readers. I will be very thankful to you and to your readers for reading this story.”
Thank you to Norina for contacting us with your story and congratulations on your fantastic work and achievements. Please be assured that Eduzine will do everything we can to help you achieve your aims!
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Date: 16/07/13
Author: Norina Shah
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