My Final Post

The Heaven Shop by Deborah Ellis

In global issues we read the heaven shop which was about aids. Overall this book was effective about telling you about aids, and told us that being an orphan is has ill effects.

The Paper Bag Game

In the last class of Global issues, we will play the paper bag game, and I am very excited to play it but I am bad at crafting. My strategy is eat as little as possible such as eating a crumb for each meal, and drinking water from the rivers.

About Global Issues

Global Issues is a class where you learn about the troubled issues the world faces. After finishing this course I learned that I am a really privileged person, and that life is very daunting for many who live in poverty.

Haiti

The state of Haiti's children after the earthquake is very awful. They are all very sad, many kids have little food, water, shelter. Many diseases. Children are dying. Many children orphaned, and are held for adoption.

Their human rights are very limitedThey do not treat each other fairly. Haiti has some slavery. Some girls are forced to get married even when they are teenagers. Many have no right to voice their opinions. Their human development index 154 out of 172.

UN telling people to donate to Haiti on television. US army there trying to solve instability. Famous people, and the rich getting involved in earthquake by doing concerts, charities or donations. Haiti problems told on internet, and media.

A lot of people stealing food. A lot of violence from gangs, drugs, rebellions, and many homeless people. Gangs are controlling some of the streets of Port Au Prince. Corruption, environmental problems with a lot of deforestration. Slavery 17^th century, and wars 19^th century, colonial control, resources stolen from French, mountainous, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, massive instability. 1% own everything, and 99% own nothing. Many people migrate out to Dominican Republic or USA. Many people still very hungry, and too poor. Help not so quick. Too many leaving after earthquake. Needs a lot of aid. A lot of aid, but still not enough food. Prices have rocketed for goods. People dying. Aid isn’t coming so quickly.

A lot of poverty environmental degredation, violence, instability, rival gangs, and dictatorship. Human rights catasphoric. Mountanious country, corruption, migration out of here, 1% own everything. Export products very cheap, and can’t make much money. Haiti imports too many expensive goods.

It will struggle because a lot of infrastructure has been destroyed. The government is struggling. Has to evacuate people to safer areas. Will take 12 hours a day for the whole year to rebuild Port Au Prince. Government has collapsed so has the UN building.

Many people still homeless. UN is trying to help Haiti by giving food, and water. Trying to get help from everyone. Celebrities are singing songs so people can donate to Haiti. Recovering with more, and more people getting fed.

Haiti is slowly recovering from the earthquake. A lot of aid is being donated. The US is trying it's best to donate food. Haiti has also less hungry people compared to when the earthquake started. Lastly it's people are beggining to get their basic needs.

All of this information was found on the Mrs. P's Global Issues blog's videos, and the UN website.

The picture at the top of this post is about where the earthquake was mainly located at. Picture from austinestone.org.

Very awful progress of MDG’s. All goals cannot be achieved by 2015 deadline except for promoting gender equity. Percent of women in parliament is 4.1%. Life expectancy 58.3.

Third World Farmer Reflection

Global Issues Portfolio Reflection
3rd World Farmer Reflection

“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Third World Farmer is a game in which you are a farmer, and your aim is to have all your family members in the farm for as long as possible. The purpose of the game is to show us that it is very hard to get out of the poverty cycle, and that every year many horrible things happen. Also another purpose of the game is to show us that getting food is very hard, and that being a farmer is no easy task as we had thought as you can get sick easily, and medicine is very expensive. My strategy when I played the game was to plant different crops such as corns, and peanuts. This strategy was quite effective as when one crop died, at least one of them would survive, and be sold. Another strategy I used during the game was to have many babies so when someone died in my family, I would have a replacement. This turned out to be an awful strategy because when I had babies, the mother’s health was very critical, and I had to waste a lot of money on medicine ,and I had no money left.

A short term decision is plant crops to survive, and how to pay for the crops. They are poor decisions because if something terrible happens to your crop, your crops die, and you will have no food, and you will get no money from the crop. Also short term decisions lead to a development trap as you can’t get any richer as you lose everything quite often. In the game I sometimes made no profit at all, and I lose a lot of money. If they use short-term decision-making, then when I played the game, when something bad happens, you will have no alternatives, and you will lose a lot of money. Since it happens very often, you will be stuck in the poverty cycle for three generations according to the teacher.

A way to get them out of the cycle is use more efficient farming. You should use more efficient farming because if you use efficient farming like sending your kids to school, then your kids are educated, and can get out of the cycle, and also if you use better resources which applies to long term decisions then you can survive longer.


A long-term decision is a decision which you have planed for the long future. They are excellent because if you have a plan for a long time, your plan will be better because normally long-term decisions help you get out of the poverty cycle by getting an education. They are also good because you normally can get vaccinated which makes you healthy. In the end your infrastructure would be better as you have a lot of money. Also Evidence is from the global issues blog. They lead to development because if you get an education, then you can get out of the poverty cycle. In a website I read, it said that education is the way to get out of poverty. If you are vaccinated, then you are healthy which has increased your standard of living.

I learned that being a subsistence farmer is very hard because you will only use short-term decisions as you are always hungry which is what the global issues blog said. It also means you will never get out of the poverty cycle until 3 generations have past or if you get help which is according to the teacher. I also learned that farming is hard, and bad things will always happen which was what happened when I played the game.

The SLR it is closest to is reason critically because you have to think hard about how to make enough money, and how to survive. In the game I survived because I reasoned out the solutions how to get out of my problems.

The closest MDG is Goal 1 which is end poverty, and hunger. It’s related because in the game you are below the poverty line, and you are always hungry.

The challenges faced by farmers in L.E.D.C countries is they are too hungry to think about development so they only use short term decisions which are awful decisions. According to the global issues blog, short term decisions stop development which is a big challenges. The barriers to development for a farmer is they only care about their basic needs like food, water, and shelter as they don’t have them. For them education, and vaccinations which lead to development are useless as they want to survive first which is what the blog said. Farming, and poverty are linked to development as farmers are usually poor according to newspapers, and it’s linked to development because when you are poor, you can’t really be developed as you use short term decisions which won’t help you to be develop.

We have learned about the UN Millennium Development Goals.
We have planned, run and reflected on Peace Day which was a success as we raised $700.
We have invested money in the Angkor Wat marathon to help people affected by land mines.
We have played the simulation game Third World Farmer and we learned a lot about how some people in L.E.D.C's meet their basic needs and how they have fewer choices than us.


Third world farmer picture. I chose it because it shows you how the third world farmer game looks like. Image from thirdworldgame.gif

Peace Lunch

“Peace is its own reward.”(Mahatma Gandhi)

Today at lunch, we promoted peace during lunch by selling cookies, face paintings, telling people to see the peace videos, art galleries, and making peace commitments.

The atmosphere was very awesome with many people talking like crazy with many people also eager to participate in the peace activities, and people buzzing with excitement.

After the peace lunch ended we raised RM611 or $185 in just 40 minutes according to the teacher which is magnificent, and we also managed to sell116 out of 150 cookies which is excellent which was said from the teacher. Although we did quite well some problems I had was that peace videos are quite boring for many people as many people wouldn't watch them even if I asked them. The skills I learned after doing the action project was how to run an action project, and how to multitask easily. Lastly I learned after making commitments is that making commitments is very easy.

As you can see I feel that we did well on our peace lunch action project as we raised a lot of money, everyone said that our action project was very good, and we sold 116 out of 150 cookies. Also I think that everyone enjoyed our action project. I also think our action project had raised the awareness of peace.

Photo from www.centralohiansforpeace.org.

Response to Peace Assembly

In the assembly we did peace, and it was quite successful with one mistake. After the assembly finished I felt that the message of peace was very successful. It was successful because most people watched the video as during the assembly I heard people saying what the message said. It was also successful because most of the audience followed us when we did the mob dance as when I stood up I saw people doing the actions. This is what we did well in the assembly.

Although the assembly was quite awesome, and successful, I think there was one area which we could have improved on. I think we should have been told to memorize the the mob dance moves a week before as even though Ms. Palko was there doing the dance moves, we still make a couple of mistakes which we wouldn't have if we were told to memorize them the day before. Evidence is I saw some people sometimes use the wrong hand to do the dance moves. This is what we could have improved on.

After you have seen my blog post, I think that we did quite well in the assembly as the message of peace was told to everyone in middle school. Also most people I asked said that they learned a lot about peace so our mission to teach people about peace was successful. My job for planning the action project is to post videos for homegroup on my film at lunch on tuesday.

Reaction to Peace Day Film

"Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace ."(Francesco Petrarch) After seeing the peace film I agree with the Peace One Day founder Jeremy Gilley that we should have a day of ceasefire which is currently September 21 every year. I am also glad that peace day is also adopted by the United Nations(UN). Peace One Day logo from http://www.ecorrazi.com/.

The big ideas I saw after seeing the peace day film is that if there was one day of ceasefire, soldiers could realize what they are doing to their country, and the environment, and that the war they participated in was a waste of time, and they could realize people suffer during war. In addition I realized that in the film one of the big ideas is to get everybody in the whole world to be involved on peace day by doing peace day events worldwide, and to let everyone get along with each other so one day we can really have peace for 365 days. These are the big ideas of the film.

War is also pointless because people die, and the cost of war is huge according to the film. In my opinion, unless you actually gain any territory, and lose very little resources, war will be useless as you gain nothing.

Peace is important because if it happened, regions where supplies are hard to reach can be more reachable, and everyone in war countries could have immunizations according to the peace day film. Secondly there would also be access to freedom movements, and information according to the film. Thirdly in the film it said that with peace many of the world's problems could be solved such as finding homes for homeless people affected by wars. Fourthly in the film, it said if there was peace it would be a relief for us to know that there will be no more violence.

Furthermore as mentioned in newspapers, it said wars cause people to be homeless. In addition if there was peace, the whole world could be united according to the UN. Lastly in a book it mentioned that if there was peace there would be way less people suffering, and more people happier. This is why peace is important.

Peace links to development because according to http://www.globalsecurity.org/, countries that are at war are mainly the lesser economically developed countries(LEDC). Only America, Spain, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, and Mexico that are not LEDC's participate in wars. Although these countries that are not LEDC's are also having wars, their wars are not as important, and have fewer deaths. Only one country that is not an LEDC which is America participate in bigger wars. This is how peace links to development.

What is Global Issues and Why should I Care?

"I am for peace, and I am for a negotiated peace, but this accord is not just peace." (Edward Said) Global issues is about big issues that are currently happening now such as the 8 millennium goals, and peace. The issues are the 8 millennium goals which are end poverty, and hunger, achieve universal education, maternal health, child health, environmental sustainability, end HIV/aids, achieve gender equity, and global partnership. This is what global issues is about, the 8 millennium goals, and peace.

We should care because everybody in the world deserves to have a decent living. An example is in a book, it said that many people are poor. Also we should care because some of the issues are getting worse such as environmental sustainability. Evidence is in the newspaper, they said that many countries have gotten hotter since 2000. If we don't do something on those issues there could be more catastrophes. We should also care because many people are suffering, while only some aren't. Evidence is in a book, it said more than half of the people don't always have food to eat. Lastly we should care because everybody on earth has the right to have the same privileges as everybody else. Evidence is in a book, it said some people can't go to school, while some can. As you can see with my evidence, we should care about global issues because if we don't act now, the situation will get worse.