Part A- Haiti Report

Haiti is an easily targeted country for natural disasters, like earthquakes and hurricanes to hit the country. Disasters constantly hit Haiti which makes it difficult for the country to regain its well-being state. After the latest earthquake hits Haiti on January 12, 2010 and after many lives lost and buildings crashed, Haiti tried to rise up and regain back the country’s government and people. But as we all know, it’s not as easy as it seems, putting Haiti back in a good state would take time and effort. After watching the video of “The Lost Children of Haiti”, I realized there’s more damage made to Haiti than the buildings or government. The numerous children of Haiti were in danger from diseases, hunger, sanitation, sexual assault and also a new modern day slave trade. Half of a million children are living on the streets, alone to defend and survive themselves. Children in Haiti consist of either being separated from parents or lost their parents or even lost. The numbers of children who are lost in Haiti are estimated to 50,000 children. There are many orphanages filled with lost children. Some people could not afford to feed their children so they give them to the orphanage for care. The children human rights are abused in plenty of ways. For example, they don’t have enough of their basic needs. Food and water resources have always been a problem and these children can’t work for money to get food or water. Children in orphanages too has a problem with this as well because as many children filled the orphanage. It gets harder and harder to feed and take care of all of them and plus it would cost a lot too. The human right to have security is also a major problem to these children. The children often get abuse, beaten, sexual assaulted and put in slavery. Organizations such as GOP, (Global Orphan Project) Unicef, Un and more started to help out these children. Orphanages were made, security for the children, kids reuniting with parents and more were happening. I think that this country would cope in the forthcoming year by continuing the improvement and lead and keep the good changes happening.

Sources:

image 1- google. url-http://www.google.com.my/imglanding?q=haiti&imgurl=http://www.fromthevaultradio.org/home/wp-content/images/FTV194_Haiti/haiti-flag11.jpg&imgrefurl=http://fromthevaultradio.org/home/page/2/&usg=__PqMq1EixB-UU1IH5GS59WYX7geM=&h=333&w=500&sz=18&hl=en&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=RTKYx_HAUXB8RM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhaiti%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&sa=N&tbs=isch:1&start=6

image 2- www.nytimes.com url- http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/02/07/world/0207-TRAFFICKING_9.html

image 3- www.cbsnews.com url- http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-500145_162-6101313.html

image 4- www.nytimes.com url- http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/02/07/world/0207-TRAFFICKING_5.html

Part B- Reflections on 'Ayiti- the Cost of Life'

After playing ‘Ayiti- the Cost of Life’ game, it made me open my eyes and see a different perspective. This game showed me how people living in Haiti struggled to maintain their needs. The details in this game basically show how a real-life person in Haiti endures hardships while trying to have an average life. It is a ‘strategic game’ which means choosing a strategy that would work would be the key to win this game. This game is not difficult but provoking in many ways. This game is not difficult if you have used the right strategy but if you mislead in a single click, you might go the wrong way and end up living in poverty. In the beginning of this game, it showed how you can choose the ‘game-playing strategy’. There are four choices, health, happiness, education and money. I chose on an education strategy because I thought it would be the best way to win this game. In my opinion if I choose health, it would be more difficult since there’s a higher probability that my family is going to get sick. If I chose happiness, it wouldn’t really be possible since my family would have to work study and get sick so I thought it would be hard to get them happy. Also, for me, choosing a money strategy would not be a good strategy since you have to buy things, pay for education and pay for the medical needs. Whilst playing the game, what I did was roughly was to rely on my family members health and their money. I tried to combine work and education and have that balance. I make the parents and the eldest child work while the young girl and boy went to school. Sometimes all the family members worked but when one or two of them get sick, I would send them home to rest or to the clinic. When I have enough money, I would get the children to study while the rest worked. When I don’t have enough money, I made all of them work. If the time is right, I would place one adult, either the mom or the dad, to school for studies. I ended up playing this game based on their health and money and to put any members to school whenever possible. Parents would put a lot of effort for the children to earned knowledge and study because some of the jobs require education. Obstacles like having not enough money and low on health are obstacles that keep the children from going to school. Access to education is a challenge that LEDC’s try to develop because people need significant amount of money and people living in LEDC countries, does not have enough of money. When people have education and knowledge, they would end up helping the country to be more developed. For example, if a young girl had the right education and gained the right knowledge to be a doctor. She would grow up to be a successful doctor and would contribute to the country. And so the country would be more developed. Countries could prioritize education by making education the number one important things needed to be done. Also making the price of education to be lower down and therefore everyone could get education. And that the government should provide a lot of teachers. Haiti MDG progress so far is looking okay but many needs to be worked on. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and environmental sustainability should be the targets that are needed to be achieved in the next 5 years. Also forth education, it is improving but hasn’t been achieved so I think this progress should continue until it is achieved. From the MDG showed on Haiti, these are the goals needed to be achieved and fast in 5 years.

Action Project Reflections.

In about two weeks, our global issues class had helped made awareness to help save the sharks. We made games, food, drinks, and fins and provide videos for the students of our school to watch. Also we are showing a movie called, ‘Sharkwater’, it is a documentary to tell the world of how the sharks are being hunted down for their fins. And how people eat ‘shark fin soup’. This soup is basically cartilage in chicken soup. The soup has no taste at all when it only contains shark fin. We think that by having this Action Project had helped made a difference on other people. People are now more aware of the situations where sharks are being hunted down. I think that people now wouldn’t buy or eat any shark products. If I could do the Action Project again, I would talk more to the people about the sharks. This would help make a difference and raise more awareness. I learned that doing an Action Projects not only helped make a difference but also it’s fun to do. This, for me, is one of the things I like about global issues. I felt disgusted when we started to learn about sharks and the shark fin soup. Personally, it doesn’t look appetizing or tasty. And it is horrible what people do to get the shark fins. They reel the shark onto their boat and just sliced away the fin. What do they do the rest of the sharks? They put them back in the ocean to leave it suffer and die slowly and painfully. After learning this and having the Action Project done, I still feel that I can help more to the shark problems and therefore I could help others as well.

Photo Source-http://www.angelobell.com/wordpress/wp-content/swim_with_sharks.jpg

Misjudged Creatures.

Sharks are probably the most misunderstood creatures of all time. Many people fear them for their ‘scary’ features. Movies like “Jaws” caused people to think sharks as monsters and make them fear sharks more. This is where people misunderstood sharks to monsters. When sharks sometimes do attacked people like swimmers, surfers and divers, it’s because they mistaken them as their regular food. Once the shark bites once, they immediately stop. It is not the shark’s fault since we, as people, invade their ocean. Truthfully, shark attacks hardly happen and the fatality is usually 6 per year worldwide. While people kills 100 million sharks per year. The sharks population has been decreased by 90%. Sharks are hunted down for their fins for the tasteless shark fin soup, teeth for jewelry, jaws for tourist souvenirs, skin for the leather, cartilage capsules and powders for medicinal cures that doesn’t work (*Do sharks hold the cure to cancer?
No. Contrary to popular belief sharks do get cancer. John Coffey a cancer biologist at John Hopkins University succinctly said: "I don't think there is any benefit to buying shark cartilage and eating it [as an anti-carcinogenic], any more than I think that eating rabbit will make me run faster.",) liver oil for skin and cosmetics products. Sharks are the top predators in the ocean and therefore its niche as a predator and as scavengers makes them important in the eco system. Sharks balance the eco system. If sharks are wiped out and extinct, it would cause serious damage to the eco system. The population of other species can increase or decrease causing the eco system to lose its natural balance. The impact of this would be phenomenal. In my opinion, people killing sharks are the same thing as killing ourselves. I think the slaughtering, finning and killing of sharks should be stopped because it only does not affect the sharks but to us too. If the sharks populations are wiped out then its impact would not only affect the ocean but to us too. Below are ways to save sharks (:

• Raise money and invest to organizations and campaigns that are helping to save sharks like the Sea Shepherd

• DON’T buy shark products.
• Boycott against restaurants and shops that sells shark products.
• Encourage people to watch Sharkwater. This way people can see the truth about sharks.
• Teach other people about the important role of sharks for the ecosystem.
• 2010 3rd trimester global issues class is going to hold an assembly educating others about sharks.
• Read these articles as well: http://www.seashepherd.org/sharks/

Links to the sharkwater trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggtxA4wuXzY

* source- http://www.bite-back.com/sharks_faq.htm