Global Issues Club

Here is another popular video that deals with Global Issues:

Here is a powerful video about the strength we all have when we see that we are a part of a bigger whole.

What if this reality could change? What would it look like? Please leave your vision as a comment. Feel free to write a poem or express yourself in anyway you want, but imagine this new reality. What does it look like and how can we get there?

…The smelters use more electricity than the rest of Mozambique combined. The company imports most of its raw material and equipment duty-free, and enjoys an extensive list of incentives ranging from discounted electricity to a prolonged tax holiday. It also has the right to repatriate profits. The result is an isolated economic enclave that uses large quantities of scarce resources without returning revenue or jobs to the economy…

Read the rest of this article here. What do you think? It is a bit sophisticated with language, so feel free to ask some questions, but this trend of foreign investment as a tool for poverty reduction not working is very common. What do you think? What questions do you have?

Is all of this making a difference getting you down? Remember that real change takes time and can become very frustrating. It is always important to use the wisdom of the past to help carry us through. Here is a list of quotes to help guide and motivate you as you wok hard to make the world a better place. The list will always be at the top of this page for easy access. If you have quotes please leave them as comments on the page.

You are not alone! People have been working to make the world a better place for as long as others have been destroying it.

I joined the Global Issues Club, because as long as I can remember I have wanted to change the world into a place that reflects the ideals that I feel human beings are capable of exhibiting when given a chance. Ideals like peace, kindness, justice, creativity and love are not just a series of utopian standards, but they are, I feel, the very essence of human nature. I refuse to be told that human beings are naturally greedy, or evil, or flawed. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to create the world I want to live in and not be forced to live in a world dictated to me by others.

After traveling the world extensively and teaching in schools in Africa, inner-city NYC, and now in the international school system, I have seen that people simply want to love and be loved. We are more a like than we are different. We want to live in communities that are fair and functional. We want to spend time with our loved ones, relax, and share our joys and sorrows. We simply want to live the lives we have the potential to lead.

Unfortunately, we live in a much more complicated world than the Eden I have described above. We are constantly assailed by the power and dogma of political forces. With society and the media guiding us on how to think and act, I feel in it important, especially for young people, to have a place where they can sort through it all and offer their own ideas and execute their own actions. I think there need to be places where we can educate ourselves, reflect on what we have learned, and get ready for action.

I have chosen teaching as my life’s work, because I feel that young people- not only have the desire to bring about change, but they are filled with an optimism and dedication to making change happen. Unfortunately, this buoyancy is often deflated later in life, leaving defeated, complacent consumers, where there were once devoted, passionate active global citizens.

I hope that this Global Issues Club will be a place to raise our awareness and instigate action. I enter teaching because I realized that I cannot change the world alone, but with the help of young people I hope we can build a better world.

What do you think? Are you ready for a life long commitment? Together we can be the change we want to see….

Mr.R

Hello all,

We have added a few sites to the Awareness links in the sidebar. I hope that we will have some time to view these sites togther and discuss what they are about, but in the meantime, why don’t you snoop around the sites, watch the short film and raise some questions here on the blog about what you see!

The first is about population growth and it is called 19.20.21

The other is called The Story of Stuff and is about Consumerism.

We look forward to hearing what you think…

Last year, I worked with three other schools in an international collaborative project dealing with a variety of Global Issues. I would like for you to snoop around this wiki page and see what you find. Make sure to click here and see the table. Once our blog is up and running, we will be able to to contact these students and see if we can build a larger network with them to see if we can collaborate further. I have added a link called International Teen Life under the network heading as well, so you can always check it directly from the sidebar and view some videos and see how the entire process worked.

Here is the Powerpoint the students presented at last years Global Issues conference:

[slideshare id=193045&doc=poverty-1196872627539665-2&w=425]

You can download this Powerpoint by clicking on the onslide share link above.

As a club we have been reading the book, Moving Mountains by Claire Bertschinger and Fanny Blake, tells a magnificent story about a woman, who fears nothing in order to help people who are in need of medical and physical care. Claire had to make life and death choices for herself and those around her.

Having dyslexia, it made it hard for her to qualify as a nurse but she pursued on and become a qualified nurse who helped save many peoples lives in so many different countries. Claire had to live in awful conditions with little food, being the strong woman that she is; she stayed on until she felt her work was done or until she was moved to a different location by the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross).

Claire achieved many things in her life, things that you and I can only imagine. Claire had a vision that she followed with passion. Nothing seemed impossible to her, she thought of others before seeing to her own needs. You can read more about her work here.

Now that most of us have read the book, we would like to reflect a bit and share our thoughts here on the blog. Here are some questions to help us get started:

• How have you been impacted by reading about Claire’s experiences in Ethiopia? If you had to choose one part of her book to share with others, what would it be and why?
• Why is the book called moving mountains? Is it possible to move mountains?

Here is an excerpt from her book:

excerpt.mp3

Hello everyone,

Before we start sharing our new niche on the internet with people in our grade level, school, community, and then the larger world community, we need to first build our blog. The teachers thought it would be a good idea to have you, the members of the club, begin to write a few articles, posts, book reviews, or personal reflections about why you are here and what we are doing as a group. If you want to leave a short answer, simply click on the comment link below and type your response directly. If however, you are interested in writing a more in depth piece please email it to me and the tech team and I will post it here on the blog.

Here are a few guiding questions to get you started:

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action with without vision is a nightmare.”

-Japanese Proverb

• Why did you join the Global Issues club? What is your vision and what action do you plan to take?
• Can I make a difference in the world?
• If I really care about an issue, how do I convince others to care, and therefore act?
• What makes a person great?
• Who are your heroes? Why are they your hero?