Authors Note

Skateboarders and Bmxers have always hated each other for a very long time. For example, whenever I'm at a skatepark, I always feel like the Bmxers are trying to kill me with how high their going into the air. And also whenever other skaters see Bmxers, they have a really bad attitude around them. I chose this topic because I love skateboarding way more than I even love my mother. And writing about it is really fun. And also I have been skateboarding for about two years now and I also have a immense hatred for Bmxers and I would love for them to never show up at a skatepark again. What I hope people get from this story is that these are two groups of people that just won't give up on hating each other and maybe it would be a good thing if all this hatred stoped.

Synthesis Page

Social Awareness Project

Social Awareness Project

Eli Stiewing 810

Table of Contents

1. Overview

2. Gretchen Wallace and Conscious Social Change

3. “Benches”

4. Writing “Benches”

5. Hairspray and Racism

4. Bibliography

Overview

I found doing the Social Awareness Project a challenging, inspiring and moving experience. I was challenged to think more deeply about the world I live in and to look more closely at issues that I may have only glanced at in passing before, such as the issues of homelessness and the plight of veterans that I explored in the writing of “Benches.” I was inspired by the power of theatre film and music to make a statement about social issues and have an impact on the way people think about these issues, such as racism, in “Hairspray.”

I was inspired and moved by Gretchen Wallace’s approach to social change and the amazing story of Seraphina Hacimana, whose simple ideas touch the lives of over 9,000 people every day. I hope you find as much to think about in this project as I did in creating it.

Gretchen Wallace and Conscious Social Change

My aunt, Gretchen Wallace, is one of the founders of the “Conscious Social Change” movement, and I interviewed her for the Social Awareness Project because I feel she is changing the world every day. She believes that to create positive change, you must invest in your own self-awareness. It is a process, “led by responsible and ethical change agents, who engage in their own practice toward deeper self knowledge and personal transformation, while striving to advance positive change for the common good.” Gretchen implements this approach to change as the founder and president of Global Grassroots, an international non-profit with “a mission to catalyze women and girls as leaders of conscious social change in their communities.”  My aunt Gretchen is changing the way that people go about creating change in the world, and that starts with ourselves.

Gretchen has developed the Five Principles of Conscious Social Change. Principle One, “Cultivate Presence,” means, “being fully present in every moment.” This means we take the time to truly listen to ourselves, which will helps us to truly listen to others. Principle Two, “Become Whole:” to take the time to understand ourselves, and why we do what we do, so that we can understand others, and why they do what they do. Gretchen explains that, “The unexamined self has been at the root of many activist movements that have turned violent as well as leadership attained through oppression.” Principle Three, “Ensure Balance,” is the commitment to self-care as we go out into the world and care for others. Principle Four, “Stay Attuned,” is to use presence to stay responsive to the needs in a situation as opposed to being driven by our what we think should happen. And Principle Five, “Leading From Within,” means leading collaboratively with presence, creativity and clarity.

Global Grassroots, an example of leadership and an organization based on these five principles, operates in Rwanda and Uganda, seeking the most vulnerable women and girls they can find who have ideas for social change. These are girls and women who want to solve priority social issues in their communities affecting other women and girls, such as domestic violence, illiteracy, sexual exploitation, water access, etc. Many of these women and girls are widows from genocide, subsistence farmers, teen mothers, girls who lead their orphan-headed households and women with only an elementary school education. The organization runs a program called The Academy for Conscious Change, where women and girls are trained to start their own organizations, based on their own ideas.

In this program, the students do the work of healing from trauma using mind-body approaches. They are taught mindfulness based leadership skills, “so that they can develop the self awareness and confidence to become compassionate leaders, and all the skills needed to start their own non-profit organization from scratch.” The entire program takes fourteen to twenty-four months. The women begin with a forty-hour training program. Global Grassroots teachers then coach the women as they develop their social venture plans. Gretchen shares, “When it meets our criteria, we fund 100% of their start up costs with a grant, and then provide ongoing support as needed over the first 12 months of operations. We know have over 500 change agents who have graduated from our programs who are serving 40,000 women and girls each year.”

I asked Gretchen what was the greatest challenge she faced in her work. She described the pressure to secure funding for her projects and trainings. She shared that because the work she does is complex and takes time to implement, donors have less interest in her programs than in something basic and concrete like mosquito nets to prevent malaria. But when I asked Gretchen what kept her going in the face of these challenges, she shared three stories, each demonstrating the power and impact of the work she is doing. I was most inspired by the story of Seraphine Hacimana, a forty-year-old mother of 8 children with a 1^st grade education.

Seraphine, after doing the Global Grassroots training, started a team of 19 women who called themselves “The Hardworkers.” With an initial $2600 grant and ongoing support, Hard Workers designed their own non-profit clean water solution. Clean water is hard to come by in Galanga, a remote region of Rwanda. Women must walk many miles to get water, often at a dirty creek. Women who are disabled from the war, elderly, blind, pregnant or HIV positive are too weak to walk for miles. Some send their girls to fetch water, which prevents them from going to school. Some can afford to pay a man to get water for them on a bicycle, others who can’t afford to pay, exchange sex for water delivery. With their grant money, a water tank was installed next to a church within walking distance of this remote community. The tank collects and purifies run off water from the roof of the church during the rainy season. During the dry season, they pay for water to be delivered by truck from the city of Kigali. Gretchen writes, “Hard Workers supplies 100 households, totaling 800-1000 people, with fresh clean water daily. The revenue generated from those who can afford to pay, ensures the most vulnerable, including the blind, pregnant, disabled and elderly always have water for free. The organization is focused not only on ending sexual exploitation for water, but ensuring the elimination of water borne disease and protecting girls’ ability to attend school.”

Seraphine and The Hardworkers’ story is a powerful example of how Gretchen’s work is changing the world. The team went on to use profits to pay orphan’s school fees and to provide annual health insurance for vulnerable women and their families. They have paid their loan forward by establishing a small revolving loan fund for vulnerable women. They have now established three more water tank sites, and provide clean water for over 9,000 people. Seraphine is a respected leader recognized by the Rwandan government. Based on Gretchen’s many experiences with social change in the field, she has created a curriculum that is now accredited for undergraduate and graduate students at The University of Virginia. I have so much respect for Gretchen and the work she does. She created a way for these women to listen to their needs and the needs of their community, and create a workable response. If we all learn to listen to and understand ourselves as we listen to and understand others, the world will be a better place.

Benches

F, A, Dm, Bb,

Out of high school nothing to do, filled out a form for something new

Tryin in boot camp to get a clue, now I’m one of the proud and few

Shipped out to Afghanistan 2010, out in the desert with a 1,000 men

Sittin in the desert now as then, see it happenin again and again

Chorus:

Benches, it’s like lyin in the trenches

I am so alone

And there is no home… 

Danger came from everywhere, me and my buds took our share

So many corpses with empty stares turning into my endless nightmares

My best friend died in front of me, his eyes looking into eternity

My leg disappeared in a sudden blast, my whole life shattering just like glass

Chorus:

Benches, it’s like lyin in the trenches

I am so alone

And there is no home… 

Back in the US, try to learn to walk, What’s the point, I can’t even talk.

All I see are ghosts from a crazy war, can’t work, can’t sleep, can’t think no more

Lost my home all my family and my friends, can only see through this crazy lens

I sit on this bench and wait to die, a broken prisoner of Semper Fi

Chorus:

Benches, it’s like lyin in the trenches

I am so alone

And there is no home…  to go back to

Writing “Benches”

I started by wanting to write a song about homelessness, and came up with the hook, “benches and trenches.” When I went a little deeper into the topic of homelessness, I discovered that 33% of the homeless male population is veterans, and 26% of the overall homeless population is veterans. There are now more homeless veterans from the Vietnam War than soldiers who were killed in that war.

I decided to use the Afghanistan war, or “Operation Enduring Freedom” because it was a recent war that has happened in my lifetime, and its veterans are young. As I read about this war, I saw that it led to many senseless deaths and injuries. I imagined that my character, the one who sings this song, could be an unfocused, aimless teenager, who joins the Marines, because he didn’t know what else to do with his life. In the horror of the guerilla warfare in Afghanistan, he becomes a traumatized and wounded soldier, comes back from this war, and is no longer able to walk or make sense of his life, or connect with people. And so, he becomes homeless, without the mental or financial resources to take care of himself.

Hairspray and Racism

Last spring I was in Roland Park Middle School’s production of Hairspray, written by John Waters, and first produced in 1988 as a film. It was later staged as a musical on Broadway in 2002, and then made into a film again in 2008, the form in which I first saw it. The film is set in 1962 in Baltimore, MD, and addresses the issue of race, as a group of white and black Baltimore teens attempt to racially integrate a live televised teen dance show.

I played the lead male character, Link, who is one of the “Nicest Kids in Town.” Link is afraid to take a stand to integrate The Corny Collins show because he is afraid it will jeopardize his career as a performer. Corny sings, “Nice white kids who like to lead the way, and once a month we have our negro day!” Even though Corny would like to integrate the show, his wealthy backers want to keep it segregated, and he must toe the line or loose his show. It is Tracy Turnblad, an unassuming, enthusiastic and open-minded girl, who ends up leading the charge.

Tracy meets some of the black kids in detention, and discovers a whole new world of movement and rhythms. Link, and several others, is finally convinced to go up to “North Avenue” to visit Motormouth Maybelle’s record shop, where they dance to the new sound of rhythm and blues. Together, Maybelle and Tracy lead the charge to change perceptions around race on television. Maybelle sings about equality, “There’s a dream in the future. There’s a struggle we have yet to win. Use that pride in our hearts to lift us to tomorrow, cuz just to sit still would be a sin.” In the end, all the kids, both black and white, boogie together on the Corny Collins Show.

It was amazing to participate in this production in a school that is primarily African American. I could see in the cast itself some of the same characteristics that show up in the play- fantastic dancers, amazing singers, and great actors. I also saw that my school is still somewhat segregated; the white kids tend to hang out with other white kids, and the black kids tend to hang out with other black kids most of the time. Most of the white kids in Baltimore City from families with money go to private schools that are predominately white, and there are still places in Baltimore that no white kids would go. Only since 2011 have high school graduation rates for African American boys been greater than the drop out rates.

“Hairspray” is still relevant to our times, even though it seems as if there is more integration on the surface in America than there was in 1962. But just last week, Ferguson, Missouri exploded in a firestorm of anger when a judge failed to prosecute a white cop who shot an unarmed black teenager. I feel sad that our society has not come further than this. I feel that the issue of racism in America needs to be overcome. Maybelle’s words still ring true, “There’s a dream in the future. There’s a struggle we have yet to win.”

Bibliography

Gretchen Wallace and Conscious Social Change

http://www.globalgrassroots.org

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-segal/can-a-toilet-eliminate-se_b_6212118.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/30/gretchen-wallace-women-in-rwanda_n_942654.html

Benches

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)

http://www.veteransinc.org/about-us/statistics/

http://nchv.org/index.php/news/media/background_and_statistics/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/17/royal-marines-horrible-reality-afghanistan

http://icasualties.org/oef/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/15214375

Hairspray and Racism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairspray_(1988_film)

http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/specialcollections/hairspray/

http://mayor.baltimorecity.gov/news/press-releases/2011-09-30-city-schools-graduation-rate-continues-climb

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/keyword/graduation-rates

Blog #5

Eli Stiewing 810

I’m writing about the article “Drones Put Spying Eyes in the Sky” by Stephen Omes published in “Science News for Students.” In this article, the author wants to teach the reader about the possibilities of the new technology known as drones. “Drones have enormous potential to change the way many different people work, since aerial robots can collect huge amounts of data in a short time.” As smaller and cheaper drones are developed and become available, people are using them for many different purposes. The author basically explores the facts, without giving any opinion about them. He shares three main different innovations in the use of drones that make a difference in the world.

In the first example, we are introduced to Thomas Snitch, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park, who is launching drones in South Africa to help stop poachers from killings rhinos. Snitch, “ combines a drone’s view with math and computer software to find and catch poachers before they strike. Jeff Sloan of the U.S. Geological Survey agency (USGS) recycles military drones for multiple purposes. He explains, “they fly cameras that capture images in natural color. Most also host video cameras that hunt for heat. Anything that emits heat- from vehicle engines to human bodies- produces infrared light. Thermal cameras can detect that infrared light, which the human eye cannot. The cameras push beyond what the human eye can see.” One of their projects is tracking wildlife. In 2009, Sloan’s agency used drones to monitor migration patterns and count the Sandhill Cranes in the San Louis Valley of Colorado. Rory Paul, is an engineer who works with Volt Aerial Robotics, a company that builds drones in Chesterfield, Missouri. Paul says, “ Almost any kind of sensor can be attached to a drone to make measurements. In 2012, Paul’s company used drones to observe a soybean field in Iowa. The cameras could detect insect damage without the farmer having to trek across hundreds of acres of field every day to protect his crops.

Many other uses of drones are described in this interesting article. Drones offer the possibility of increasing a farmer’s crop yield. Scientists are beginning to look at drones as a way of mapping landscapes. Scientists sent in drones to measure radiation levels at the power plant in Japan after the 2011 Tsunami. Recently, archeologists used drones to search for buried remains in a 1,000 year old settlement in the desert of New Mexico. Last spring, storm-chasers seeking to learn more about tornados, sent a drone into a supercell, a type of stormcloud that causes tornados. Drones are available on Amazon.com right now. They are exploring the possibility of using drones to deliver orders. And people have used drones to take aerial photographs of their properties.

The world is changing quickly, even in my short lifetime. I am impressed by the many ways that drones can be used to serve people: conserving and studying wildlife and increasing crop yields are just a few of the many possibilities this technology opens up for us. What if we could design micro drones that could explore microscopic things, including the human body? The possibilities are endless.

Field Trip Blog

Today, I went on a field trip to the Museum of the City of New York. I had a really great time, even though I arrived late from a Murrow tour. I thought the museum was very enjoyable and interesting. I especially loved the exhibit known as the Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao photographs. I appreciate the way he combined many smaller photos into one very large photograph- close to six feet in length. It’s fascinating the way that the pictures have an element of night, day, and morning in them. These were amazing pictures of New York, capturing the beauty of the city.

     I found the Activist New York Exhibit inspiring. So many New Yorkers have fought for their rights and their beliefs. The issues that environmental activists have taken on particularly struck me. Starting with the growing realization that the automobile was destructive to the environment, advocates began protesting against cars and urging their fellow citizens to use bicycles as much as possible. Bike activists have arranged many “Bike-Ins” in the last four decades to convince the city of New York to create separate bike lanes on city streets, and to generally raise awareness about bikes as great exercise, a valid mode of transportation, and a green house emissions-free machine. As I looked at the photographs of the bikers, I felt happy that people have been making an effort to pollute less, be more green, and convince the rest of us to do the same. After leaving the museum, I felt glad and proud to be a New Yorker now.

The Giver Reading Response

The Giver

What if you lived in a society where there is no choice for you and all the color, love, and all the feelings you have, have been eliminated? “The Giver,” by Lois Lowry is about an eleven-year-old boy named Jonas, who lives in a society many years ahead of ours. Is it true that as the Giver says, “when people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong”?  In “The Giver,” the reader learns that as flawed as we are as human beings, and as safe as a controlled world can seem, we still yearn for the right to exercise our free will and to see the world through our own eyes and our own senses.

At the beginning of the story, Jonas is living his life like any normal kid, but sometimes he sees things, things we know to be colors. In Jonas’s world, the “elders” have eliminated all sight of color because, as the Giver says, “our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with differences…we gain control of many things. But we had to let go of others.” Jonas lives in a society where everyone must obey the rules and tell the truth. In order to prevent conflict, differences aren’t allowed. In this way, the society Jonas lives in has eliminated fear, pain, envy, and hate. Jonas is unwilling to let go of some important choices.

Jonas is different from all the others in his community because he has the gift of seeing colors. I think this is a metaphor for Jonas’s capacity to see the nuance in life as apposed to just black and white: “if everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!” In the final scenes of the book, Jonas risks his life to have a choice and to give the possibility of choice to his community. Starving, he thinks to himself “If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love.” The reader never learns whether Jonas brings color back to his world or not, but will know that he is willing to die trying. After reading this book, I appreciate all the choices, colors, nuance, and feelings that we have in our society.

I Am Number Four Synthesis Page