ReflectionsBlogsblog from October 7th
I really enjoyed the movie we watched last week in class. It made me think about poverty and how us Americans looks at poverty internationally. A year from now I'll remember how the guys from the movie connected with the residents of the village and lived with them and like them but after though 50-60 days returned to life as a normal American. It showed how becoming part of a community and connecting with the people can help you know what they need and give them future service. It makes me think about the importance of connecting with the communities you wish to serve. I felt bad for the villagers and I felt bad for the poverty they had to live in. But then later into the movie I began to think about the guys that were there. What are they going to do after they return to America? How are they going to help the villagers? I've never personally experienced anything like that but I had a friend that volunteered in a orphanage in Haiti and he said it was an incredible experience, but as he left he felt hopeless. He lived with the children for a couple days and then came back to him own room and hot meals back in America and couldn't really do anything for those children. It reminded me of the of the article we read written by Illich telling us Americans to stay out of Latin America and not provide them with help or service. Americans and other first world countries helping and serving people living in poverty in third world countries is sometimes viewed as bad and good. How can these people come in and not know anything about the culture and try to help? How do people help and make differences in someone's life who is in such extreme poverty? I thought this video really made me think about what it really entails to help people from different countries in such extreme poverty. It was worthwhile because it made me think about the ideas about serving others in unfamiliar countries and cultures and how it's hard to make an impact or get a true idea of what they need to me successful and try to grow out of poverty. I hope to one day do service in Latin America, and when I do I know now that I need to develop a strong relationship with the community I'm serving to fully understand their needs. Blog from November 4th About a month ago some students from SERVE and myself went to Floyd, Virginia and helped out at the Plenty farm. Plenty is a food kitchen that grows it's own produce and takes food donations from the community to feed the hungry in Floyd. My overall goal of the experience was to learn about what Plenty did for the community. When I went their I didn't know what to expect, but I'm so thankful I went. I learned so much about sustainable farming and the Floyd community. It gave me a new appreciation for my new home, the New River Valley. The group I was in picked potatoes. I never knew what was involved in growing potatoes and picking them. It was such a fun and interesting thing to try. It made me become aware of all the hungry people that live around us in Blacksburg. I'm not from the New River Valley, so I was not aware about all the hungry people that live in the Blacksburg/Virginia Tech community. I hope to continue my impact and help the hungry people in the New River Valley by volunteering at Plenty farm again and also helping with Campus Kitchen. Blog from November 30th At the end of Senior year my English class had to read Kite Runner. It is a book about a wealthy boy growing up in Afghanistan then when all the violence began him and his father moved to America where he was extremely poor. It gave me a lot of perspective about children growing up in different parts of the world and how different their lives are. I really enjoyed the book so I decided to read another from the same author called A thousand Splendid Suns. The book really changed my perspective. It was about two girls growing up in Afghanistan during violence from the Taliban and their dictatorship. Both the girl's lives merged together when they are both married off to the same man when they weren't much younger than I am. The way their husband treated both of them was so upsetting and outrageous at one point I had to stop reading the book because it made me so sad. I know it was fiction, but so many girls are in this situation in many countries around the world and it's not okay. These women deserve basic human rights that are taken away from them when their families marry them off. Yes, I understand that is the culture in those countries and religions, but if women are being denied basic human rights like education and have to live in fear of being raped by their husbands that is not okay. I first became aware of what happens to girl's in these countries when I read Three Cups of Tea in middle school. It was about this man who believed that girls in third world countries and especially the Middle East deserve a right to education that they have been denied for far too long. I also learned more about education for girl's in third world countries when I heard about Malala. She was the youngest girl to win the Noble Peace Prize after being shot in head by the Taliban on her way to school and survived. She has become an inspiration to girls all around the world to stand up for their basic human rights and their right to education. Being a girl from the United States I have never been denied my right to get an education, so I struggled to relate to these girls, but I wanted to find a way to help. Junior year of high school my friend told me about this club at my school called Girls Learn International. In this club, we educate ourselves and others about the treatment of women in third world countries and specifically the Middle East and India. We partnered up with a school from India and they sent us bracelets and necklaces they made and we sold them at craft shows in our community. It is a way for us to educate the public about the unfair treatment of girls in India and for us to raise money for the girl's school. It was a small thing for my peers and I to do to help those girls raise money to keep their school funded and educate ourselves and the public about how hard it is for girls to get an education in Middle East and India. |
fun times this semester
Erica, Cameron, and I on Halloween
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Erica and I in front of Burrus after Gobblerfest
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Erica, Jimmy, Kenny, and I before the Ohio State football game.
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