Campus Engagement 2

Nadean Richards

Ms Tweed

Intro to Women’s Studies

27 march 2012

The event I attended was called “Environment on Global Climate Change” and it was led by Alexandra Cousteau. She traveled all around the world evaluating water and climate change. She mentioned the global water crisis which is water sanitation, water resources all around the world, and the access to clean water. All of these things are meant to be interconnected and society hasn’t achieved this goal. Two questions that she asked were “Do we have quality of water?” and “Do we have quantity of water?”.  The answer to both of those questions are no because the quality of water is not as clean as it should be and the quantity of water is less than needed to obtain normal levels of water.  These are very important concerns that we as society need to be aware of because this is a world changing crisis. We need to be aware of where the water comes from and where it’s going once it leaves the community. I am a part of the community that needs to be more aware of global issues because it does affect me. Pollution is also an issue because that is the reason why the water is not clean along with bacteria and many other factors. Another issue includes sewage being backed up into our water system making our clean water unsafe. This issue has been around for years now and still occurs in today’s society all around the world.  An example of climate change that really put it in perspective for me was “when birds disappear it is a sign of a drought”. I thought that was very interesting because I never thought about it in that way and it does make sense. The climate change could possibly cause dryer droughts, colder winters, worse storms, and worse floods all around the world. This is a warning that people should take seriously and try to prevent. I believe as a society global climate change and the global water crisis can be prevented if we all work together. Activism is way to help solve this problem because it makes people aware of a serious issue. This was a learning experience for me because I didn’t know a lot about these issues and watching the exploration really help me understand. I hope these issues get resolved so we can live in a safer world and provide the best environment for our children.

Activism Log 1

Activism:

My group went to our community partner on March 3 2012 to do our service learning project. The turnout was good we had about 10 girls come to our event. The youngest girl was 5 years old and the oldest was about 12. We completed our project and everyone participated in the vision board activity. We also took pictures of the girls and gave them snacks about half way through the event. We also had a small talent show and the girls danced and singed. It was nice to see them show their talent because it showed confidence and enjoyment. Our pitfall was advertisement because we were expecting a bigger turnout then we ended up with. To help solve our pitfall we handed out two flyers to each girl before they left and told them to hand it out to their friends and invite others to the next one. Next time we should go there a few days before the event and handout flyers to young girls.   

Reflection:

The activism I have done so far relates to seely’s article “Fight like a girl”. It relates because we played a game called connections with the girls and the purpose of the game is to find commonalities with one another. In her article she talks about finding commonalities with one another so we all can a share a common goal of ending discrimination. We also displayed activism on the girls because we gave them flyers and told them to tell their friends about our program. In the article she talks about different ways to do activism and we used flyers and simply telling them to talk to their friends. This experience has changed the way I view feminism because my first impression was that it was mainly about women’s issues and the determination to get equal rights for women. Now that I have been learning different aspects of feminism my opinion has changed and I enjoy learning new things every day. Our community partner has views on girls developing into young women and teaching them self worth and having goals in their life. This is also why we decided to the activity with the vision board because it gives the girls a chance to dream and make them come true by accomplishing whatever is on their board.

Reciprocity:

This SL project is not just a project to me because I am actually being a positive influence to young girls. Teaching them about self esteem and commonalities makes me re think my personal decisions in life and what I could have done differently. These girls actually open up to me about certain things in their life and when I was their age I couldn’t even do that. The advice I give them I also make a mental note for myself because I am still growing into a young woman. From a feminist perspective this may be defined as activism because we are reaching out to the community and making them aware of certain issues. Activism is the first step in order to change the world and it can be as easy as talking to friends.

Works Cited

Frazier, Lyndora. Beautiful Butterflies. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2012.
<http://inspirebeautifulbutterflies.org/staff.html>.

Seely. Fight like a girl. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.