“What would happen if there were no graveyards and, instead of graveyards, we built paradises?”
That’s the question 23 year-old Mexican college student, Daniela Núñez, asked herself.
This question would become the foundation of her biodegradable urns project and company: BioEternal.
“BioEternal literally started in one of my courses,” Núñez said in an interview with RISE NEWS. “After researching, she found several companies in Spain, Colombia and Argentina that work with biodegradable urns. That’s when she decided she could make a change by bringing the seldom used concept to Mexico.”
After validating the market in Mexico, Daniela noticed that people like BioEternal, not only because of the practice, but also because of the entire experience the product offers.
With the help of partners and guided by professors from her university, she started creating the foundations for her business.
A critical moment for Núñez and BioEternal happened during her fourth semester of college, where she signed up for an I semester.
The I semester is a unique business incubation offered by the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores Monterrey (ITESM).
“While I was there, BioEternal started moving forward really fast,” Núñez said. “I also faced my biggest challenges. People liked my idea but they kept asking me how I would work with Mexican culture.”
Núñez spoke about the Mexican culture as one of her biggest challenges.
“Mexicans have deep roots in their culture, especially when it comes to death,”
Núñez said. “It’s rare to see practices that differ from what we are used to, or from the typical funerary companies. That part was very complicated and we didn’t know if it would work here in Mexico.”
Daniela Núñez, the founder of BioEternal.
Another challenge Núñez faced while working on Bioeternal was the Catholic Church’s strong presence in Mexico.
“Ad Resurgendum Cum Christo,” a document released in August 2016 signed by Pope Francis states that the ashes of deceased people may not be kept in unholy or unblessed land.
“But after validating the market in Mexico, I realized that people no longer have a strong commitment with the Church,” Núñez said regarding the challenge.
Besides BioEternal, there are five companies that sell biodegradable urns too in her market.
Núñez spoke about Limbo as one of her strongest competitors in Mexico.
“A company that’s already selling and has very good sales is Limbo,” Núñez said. “Their product is something like a sand ball, but their concept and idea is about reintegrating with nature.”
Another company named Colibrí not only work with humans, but also work with animals.
“My plans are to start with humans and then make an approach to the animal market,” Núñez said. “If I started with the animal market, people are going to relate or interpret this practice as something exclusive for animals and that’s not a good idea.”
For Núñez, working with BioEternal has been more than just a way to help the environment.
“It’s very pretty to think about becoming a tree, but that idea is not enough, especially when you’re going through such a complicated stage in your life,” she said.
That’s the reason why Núñez decided to link together her company with the concept of green thanatology.
Without exploring the meaning of life and death, thanatology studies death.
Green thanatology, which is related to liberation, focuses on helping people go through someone’s death with the help of nature.
Companies like Limbo and Colibrí only focus on helping the environment, and this provided Daniela with an area of opportunity.
BioEternal’s focus on healing and its link with thanatology are its main strength and something that puts it beyond its competitors.
Death is not an easy subject to handle.
This is the reason why Daniela not only wants to change processes, but also wants to change experiences.
“It’s no longer an experience of burying a person, but of planting a life,” Núñez said. “Let’s make it beautiful. I want people to be able to keep these memories. That’s one reason why Bioeternal is named that way, because it’s an eternal memory.”
Setting up her company has not been easy and, currently, Núñez’s bigger challenge is money.
Producing a large number of biodegradable urns and signing up for this year’s national funerary convention are big and necessary expenses for her.
“I’m out of resources and I’m going to need help from crowdfunding,” Núñez said.
Núñez said that her long term goals are about making her own funerary company and a Bioeternal park.
“I don’t want families to go to a graveyard. I want this to be a friendly concept in which people visit a forest and visit their own tree because that’s much more attractive and pretty,” Núñez said.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
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How Strong Female Relationships In Pop Culture Make Real Positive Differences For Young Women
I met my best friend when I was fourteen.
Of course, she wasn’t my first best friend.
She’s not even my only one now.
Since I was little, I’ve surrounded myself with girls that push me in every possible way.
However, it wasn’t until recently that I really started to appreciate those relationships.
The lack of strong female relationships in pop culture is sort of like your heartbeat.
You spend years not noticing it.
But when you do, you can’t stop noticing it.
Even as I started to write this piece, I was shocked by how many of my favorite female characters don’t have a single strong relationship with another girl – at least not one the audience gets to see.
The moment I started to notice my heartbeat, I was still really young.
When I was 8, my favorite TV show was Wizards of Waverly Place.
For any of you who’ve ever watched it, you know that the relationship between Harper and Alex is incredibly strong and incredibly complex.
That was a friendship that changed my life.
I could see me and my friends, finally represented on screen, and it felt amazing.
Not only that, but I wanted to work to improve the friendships I had with other girls.
Nowadays, I hardly ever consume any pop culture that doesn’t have a strong female relationship at its forefront.
The best part is, they’re all different.
My favorite show is New Girl, where the relationship between Jess and Cece is both one of the show’s most subtle, while also being its very bedrock.
My favorite artist is Taylor Swift, someone who became widely known for the strong female relationships she developed.
Teen Wolf is unabashedly one of my favorite shows on TV, and its highlight of female friendships changed the way I think about them.
Photo Credit: rawpixel.com/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
This is a show that finds a way to put female relationships at its forefront, despite being centered around males.
The friendships between Allison, Lydia, Malia, and Kira, in all their different combinations, display an incredibly wide variety of relationships.
Some of them have dated the same boy, some of them have tried to kill each other, and some of them have every petty reason to hate each other, but they don’t.
This show has decided that its female friendships are more important than any love triangle, even though those do exist.
The show doesn’t pretend those obstacles don’t exist, they just demonstrate that the relationships formed among girls are way stronger than anything they could face.
They have found a way to put complex, varied, and oftentimes confusing female relationships on display, something I see in very few corners of the pop culture world.
I’m not the only one who’s felt the effects of seeing strong female relationships on TV.
I asked a few of my own strong female friends to talk to me about when they’ve seen their life changed by viewing those types of friendships in pop culture, and here’s what they said:
“Ann and Leslie [of Parks and Recreation] taught me that women should strive to build each other up, and that nothing is stronger than a female friendship built on pure love, loyalty, and trust. Female friendships don’t have to be filled with drama, and the best ones consider a five hour phone call about anything and everything equally as important as huge celebrations and milestones.” – Maggie
“Cristina Yang and Meredith Gray from Gray’s Anatomy depict what not only is a wonderful friendship, but a support system for one another. The fictional characters from the show have inspired me to not only be in my friends’ lives during the good times but to be there for support during the hard times.” – Sreelekha
More and more female friendships being represented is crucial, but the way they’re portrayed is also really important.
And while we like to think all female relationships in pop culture are great examples of representation, some miss the mark.
Here’s the biggest issue with the way pop culture sometimes displays female relationships – they exist only in a two-dimensional world.
An example of this comes from an often-raved about female friendship that just premiered this winter – Betty and Veronica on The CW’s Riverdale.
Now, I watch and love Riverdale, and I think there’s a lot of potential for the relationships to develop in new and interesting ways, but the way Betty and Veronica’s relationship exists now is very two-dimensional.
Disregarding the discussion of queerbaiting, and any sexual tension fans have picked up on, Betty and Veronica have the quintessential Strong Female Relationship.
Sure, they’ve both had feelings for the same guy, but that doesn’t matter!
They’re Strong Female Friends, and all they do is lift each other up.
The reason this comes across as a little unrealistic is because it is.
Look, I love my best friend with my everything I have.
I really would die for her, but sometimes I want to be the one doing the killing.
We’ve fought – a lot – and we have fought about boys!
The reason I consider our friendship one of the strongest in my life isn’t the fact that we’ve had jealous, petty moments – it’s the fact that we were able to move on.
Female relationships are just like any other relationship in life – they’re complicated.
The right way to portray a strong female relationship isn’t by following the rule book about what you think that should be.
It’s about embracing the different ways girls interact, the different ways they form bonds, and the different types of relationships that rise from those bonds.
One show that’s done this perfectly is HBO’s Big Little Lies.
Much of the miniseries is based on petty fighting between these women, but the end result (no spoilers here) is all the more satisfying because of that.
The show portrays female relationships exactly as they are – complex, frustrating, petty, and most of all, different.
All five of the main characters have extraordinarily different personalities, and the show doesn’t pretend those don’t exist.
In fact, every episode up until the finale points in a certain direction that is the destruction of those bonds.
However, the final episode clearly puts on display the way relationships between women are stronger than anything else in this life, even if their personalities don’t exactly mesh.
Despite all of this, all strong female friendships are good, just like all strong female characters are good.
The reality is, when a girl sees two other girls being friends, whether on TV, in a movie, in a book, or in real life, she’s inspired to develop those same sorts of ties with her friends.
And the effects of that are really, really good – like, scientifically proven good.
A UCLA study from 2002 suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women.
Hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis.
Relationships among women aren’t only good for the women themselves, they’re a necessary foundation to our entire society.
When women build each other up, instead of tear each other down, everyone wins.
And as women work to unlearn the decades of media that taught them girls should always fight over boys, the representation of female friendships in pop culture will be more important than ever.
My list of strong female relationships in pop culture to check out, not already mentioned:
Rachel, Phoebe, and Monica: FRIENDS
Blair and Serena: Gossip Girl
Cher & friends: Clueless
Hailee Steinfeld’s music
The Clone Club: Orphan Black
Ginny and Luna: Harry Potter series
Sansa Stark and Margaery Tyrell: Game of Thrones
Selena Gomez’s “Me & My Girls”RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: rawpixel.com/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Auburn Just Sent Out The Best Response To Crazy Fans Who Stalk Recruits On Twitter
For most people, the first Wednesday in February doesn’t really have any major significance – other than being a major let down after their massive Groundhog Day parties the night prior. (Do people do Groundhog Day parties? They should.)
But for College Football fans, the first Wednesday in February takes on a different meaning altogether thanks to National Signing Day.
For the uninitiated, National Signing Day is the first day where a high school senior can sign a “National Letter Of Intent”, which basically locks them into attending a certain college for the next year.
For the crazed, National Signing Day is a legit holiday. Thousands of people on Twitter actually spend large chunks of their lives tweeting at high school students in the hopes that they will attend the team the nut roots for. (Of course, most do not engage in this type of activity.)
It has become a real problem and some schools have tried to rein in their fan-bases as a result.
But Auburn University may have the best response to this social media problem.
Just take a look at this handy flowchart that the folks in the Auburn Compliance Department tweeted out:
With signing day approaching, please remember boosters and fans can’t tweet at recruits. #leaveittothecoaches pic.twitter.com/QWApi1jo9y
— Auburn Compliance (@AUCompliance) February 2, 2016
Seems pretty straightforward.
When in doubt, don’t tweet at random teenagers! It is creepy and not helpful to your team at all.
Cover Photo Credit: Auburn Alumni Association/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Millennial Intelligencer: Controversial Tax Credit Cut Divides British Parliament And Society
Conservative MP’s in the British House of Commons have come under fire in recent days following a controversial measure which would cut tax credits for many middle and lower income British citizens.
Earlier this month the House of Commons passed a controversial measure proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; (equivalent to Treasury Secretary) George Osbourne, that would cut an estimated £4.5 billion in tax credits to lower income British citizens.
In a major political defeat, the traditionally ceremonial House of Lords blocked the government supported tax cuts in what has been dubbed by some Conservatives as a “Constitutional Crisis.”
Peers in the upper house voted by a majority of 17 to back the opposition Labour Party’s calls for the government to provide full redress to tax credit claimants who would be affected when their entitlements are reduced; as well as, a delay in implementation of the tax credit cuts until the government has effectively assessed the full financial impact of the measure.
The tax credits were introduced by the previous Labour Government as a way to encourage work and give aid to low income British workers and families with children.
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the average tax credit family-single earner family with children- would lose an estimated £1,000 annually as a result of the cuts.
Prime Minister Cameron defended the cuts during last Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, stating that any cuts not made to tax credits would have to be made to the police or the NHS. The Prime Minister also stated his belief that the average family families will still be better off by 2017, as a result of the introduction of the National Living Wage.
In an interview with the BBC, Chancellor Osborne agreed to listen to people’s concerns and announce any modifications to the plan in November. The Chancellor maintained his belief; however, that reforms to the tax credit system were necessary to strengthen the British economy and provide economic security to families in the long run.
“If we have uncontrolled welfare bills, uncontrolled tax credit bills and the like, there will be no security for working families,” Osborne said.
The cuts were supported by David Cameron and a majority of Conservatives in the House of Commons; however, a number of Conservatives publicly challenged the measure.
Welsh Conservative Leader, Andrew Davies, stated that he supported the idea behind the reform but said he could not support the timing of the cuts insisting that the cuts should be phased in over a period of time. The majority of Scottish MP’s also raised concerns over the measure including the leader of the Scottish National Party who called the measure, “A daft idea”.
Chancellor Osbourne is expected to announce a modified version to the measure sometime in November. In an interview with the BBC, Chancellor Osborne agreed to listen to people’s concerns but maintained his belief that reforms to the welfare system were necessary to strengthen the British economy and provide economic security to families in the long run.
“If we have uncontrolled welfare bills, uncontrolled tax credit bills and the like, there will be no security for working families,” Osborne said.
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Cover Photo Credit: DFID – UK Department for International Development/ Flick (CC By 2.0)
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