Haiti

Part A: Children’s life in Haiti

Economic situations have worsened in Haiti after the earthquake. Many people died from the earthquake and most people are situated in poverty. Due to this, many innocent children had to live in orphanages, some because their parents were dead and others because their parents couldn’t afford to raise them. The problem from this situation is that many of these orphanages aren’t habitable. Many children are living in lack of education, food, and medical care. In Haiti, children are growing up with no rights of survival and education.

There are several reasons why Haiti is struggling to recover from the earthquake. One of them is that the buildings were too weak. Economic situations in Haiti did not permit people to build secure houses, which caused many buildings to fall, taking many people with them. Another reason is because people are turning their attention away from problems in Haiti. Not much media is dealing with problems of Haiti nowadays, which makes people think that there aren’t many problems in Haiti now. This would probably have made the amount of donations decrease by a lot.

Just because there was a crisis in a country, it doesn’t mean that the country can’t recover. For example, Germany and Japan stood up as one of the top countries after loosing the World War 2. In Haiti, this isn’t happening. There are several reasons for this, and they are politics, technology they had before the crisis, and support from other countries.

After the war, Germany was supported by USA to make their economy get better. Although this was purely to stop communism, it helped Germany get back on their foot. Haiti also got some support from other countries, but their economy is trembling. This problem is originated from the politicians.

In many countries that are economically behind, there are rotten politicians (for example, North Korea). When other countries try to help them by lending the country some money, they would take much of it, and the country will have to suffer from interests. These things did not happen in Japan or Germany after World War 2.

Another reason Germany and Japan could recover was because of the technology they had before loosing the war. After the war was over, both countries were able to start making their products. Since their technology was better then the other countries, their products were sold and the profits helped the country’s economy. As for countries like Haiti, they didn’t have much technology of making products, so their products weren’t sold well, requiring much more time in order to help the economy.

To survive, Haiti will need some honest politicians and some better orphanages. Also, they will need to get the attention of the media, in order to get more support.

Part B: Ayiti the cost of life

1. What was it like playing the game?

The game was pretty hard. It thought me how I needed to sacrifice some things, such as education, in order to survive.

2. What was the game about and how would you describe it to a friend?
It was about a family in Haiti trying to survive. I would tell them it was hard

3. Which ‘primary objective’ did you choose, and why?
Money, I didn’t really have a reason.

4. What types of decisions did you have to make about the family members while playing the game and trying to achieve your objective?
I hade to make decisions about if they had to go to hospitals or not

5. What strategies did you use? For example, did you combine work and school, or did you send anyone to school? Which worked? Which did not?
First, I sent everyone to work, and earned much money. Then, with that money, I sent some to school, and some to hospitals. Then, I sent them to better works, with the education, Then I earned more money and the cycle went on.

6. Why would parents choose to devote so much effort sending their children to school?
Because they could get jobs that are easier and gives more money.

7. What obstacles did you face in trying to keep the children in school?
I sometimes ran out of money.

8. How do the situations and options in the game compare with those in your own community / country?
My family don’t require me to work.

9. Why is access to education a huge challenge as LEDC’s try to develop?
It costs a lot, and people have different languages, not letting teachers from one country teach children from another.

10. Why is it vital to a country’s development to educate its people – especially women?
To make the speak for their rights, to let them have better jobs and not go bankrupt.

11. Suggest some ways that countries could prioritize education, even for women, even in the countryside. How can they do this?
Make people pay fine for not educating their children, making education totally free, building more schools

12. Think back to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Look at the 8 targets. Look at how Haiti is doing so far. What will the targets be in the next 5 years for this country? Look at the MDG ‘Progress So Far’ website and search for Haiti to get the latest information.

…

Image from

http://behindblondiepark.com/2010/01/13/haiti-earthquake-damage-haiti-population/

Shark's fin soup

Sharks fin soups are one of the most popular soups to chinese people, because they are believed to stop them from having illness, and are representing wealth.

Thanks to the 1.3billion people of china who enjoy chickensoup with ear floating in it, 90% of shark population have decreased in the last 3 decades, and every year, over 100 million sharks are killed.

When sharks are cought and brought out on to the boat, fishermen will cut thier fins on the spot, and throw the still breathin creature out to die. The sharks loose thier ablility to swim along with thier fins, and are left to die on the bottom of the sea.

If the sharks go extinct, it will effect the ocean life in a harmful way. If sharks are gone from the sea, population of their prey will increase rapidly. They will eat up their prey, and when they run out of food from over eating, they will be extinct. None of the ocean life can excape this, including the planctons. People may not care about the small creatures, but they, due to their great number, produce most oxigen in the world. Without them, global warming will accelerate and we might find our skin melting because of sunlight sometime in our lifetime.

My images won't load.

Shark fin soup awareness

Last Thursday, our global issues class gathered in our classroom during lunchtime. We made cookies were in the form of a shark fin soup with red color on the bottom to represent how it was violently cut off. We sold cardboard that looked like shark's fin that had "STOP THE KILLING" on it. We made games representing the survival and death of sharks. Also, during the whole of the lunch time, we showed videos about the genocide of sharks.

We, by doing this, made people aware of the massacre taking place out in the ocean. Our action, hopefully, would stop our visitors from every eating shark's fin soup, and make them tell others about the Massacre, and stop them from eating shark's fin soup.

I think we succeeded to raise awareness as the whole class, since many people bought the cookies and saw the movie. But my group seemed to have failed this. Although people payed for our game (for some reason), we didn't seem to have explained to them that their cap represented a shark trying to escape the murderous fishermen and their long lines.

If I could do this kind of thing again, I would tell the costumers the situation they are, in order to raise more awareness. Also, I would get some red-painted fin-looking objects, and if the die, I would tell them that they were the only parts left of them, and the other parts were thrown out to the sea, left to be eaten by others.

From this, I learned how ignorant people were about sharks that were killed, and that these sort of campaigns are nessecary.

Image from : http://naturescrusaders.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/for-a-bowl-of-soup-we-alter-the-ecosystem/zzzshark-fin-soup/