Radio Commentary Project & a Brief Reflection on this Year

This week, we've been working on writing and recording a radio commentary about something we feel strongly about. I chose to do my commentary on human trafficking, specifically in North Carolina. Not very many people know this but North Carolina ranks as the 8th most likely state where human trafficking takes place, with Charlotte being the number one city. This project has been really different from other things we've done. Instead of using our iPads to videotape things and editing them in iMovie (sometimes inserting a voiceover), we're only using GarageBand to record our voices, so you never actually see us. I don't know if it's because I care about this topic a lot because it's a problem in my own community or if I like the idea of only hearing a voice, but this has been one of my favorite projects we've done in this class. 

I feel like this class has made me a more active and informed member of society. If it weren't for the various service projects we've done for local charities and global issues, I would have no knowledge of some of the really bad (and the occasional really good) things happening. By doing projects that require us to put our own voice into it, I've become more comfortable sharing my opinion and standing behind it, because I know that I've done my research and I "know my stuff." I think everyone should take the time to research the amazing charities and organizations in their local community and get involved. There's always something you can do to help.

Declaration of Human Rights

Before reading the Declaration of Human Rights, I never really realized just how many rights we have. Things that seem so simple to us, such as the right to move in and out of states and countries and the right to a free education from elementary school to high school, aren't necessarily in place for people in other countries. While going through this unit, I really began to appreciate the fact that I get to go to school everyday, for free, and relieve the same education as the boys around me. Some people in my class believe that even in the United States some for the rights in the Declaration of Human Rights aren't recognized. For example, some of them thought that the right to equal pay and equal job opportunities isn't realized and that the right to assembly is violated constantly, specifically in Furgeson, Missouri over the past year or so. 

Overall, what I have learned over the past week is how lucky I am to live in a country where I feel my rights and recognized and respected. 

Check out the Declaration of Human Rights here:  http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf

World of 7 Billion Video

This week we participated in the World of 7 Billion video contest. We could one of the three topics, public, water scarcity, and deforestation. Every topic had 2 or 3 subtopics we could pick from to focus our videos on. The goal was to make a compelling video under 1 minute. I chose public health and women's reproductive rights. Collecting information and statistics wasn't the hard part, fitting it all under one minute was. I found a lot of interesting information about reproductive rates in third world countries and the amount of childbirth-related deaths occur. For example, in Afghanistan, 1 in 11 women will die from pregnancy-relate complications compared to the 1 in 4,300 in developed countries. It's interesting how "simple" the solution really is. By increasing the quality of medical care and educating women about their rights to their bodies/providing contraceptives and family planning, the population growth would decrease and life would be better sustained.  

As much as I would love to be able to post my video, the website won't allow it. 

Twitter Chat

Last week, I decided that my goal for this week was going to be to decide on a date to moderate the school's first Twitter chat on mental health, which will be held on March 1st. The chat is going to be centered around whether or not students feel as if the school supports good mental health and ideas to promote education and awareness within the school. I hope to use the responses from students and teachers to create a campaign that people will really respond to. 

Field Trip!

For our next in-class project, we are partnering with a number of local organizations to create promotional videos that meet their organization's needs. Yesterday we took a field trip to meet some of the people involved in the organizations and ask them if they had any requests/ideas for the content of their video. We went to the Ada Jenkins House, Davidson LifeLine, Angels and Sparrows Soup Kitchen, Cornelius Animal Shelter, and a Lake Norman Rotary meeting. The class was split into groups of 3 and assigned an organization. My group was assigned Davidson LifeLine which is perfect because I'm already working with them on my passion project. 

As we went around from organization to organization, listening to the number of services they provide for people, I became more aware of how sheltered all of us are. The Ada Jenkins House provides health services, food pantry, counseling, job fairs, and after school care/education for impoverished or low-income families. There are only about 7 people working there who are on payroll. The rest of the staff is made up of doctors, college students, retired people, and other citizens volunteering their time. This was really impressive to me because the entire organization really relies on the community coming together. 

The animal shelter was probably my favorite part of the day because of the dogs, which seem to be pretty healthy and in shape. Here are some pictures from our visit, taken by Kate, one of my classmates: 

Selling Mental Illness

Is there such a thing as oversensitivity when it comes to mental illness? A lot of people refer to 2015 as the year that the world was offended by everything. Is mental illness a part of that? 

In today's society, people make light of mental illness by making jokes and misusing terms that pertain to it. For example, people often tweet "KMS" or, "killing myself" as a joke when something doesn't go their way. Even large corporations plan a role in this. Target sold a shirt that said OCD in huge letters and then under it "Obsessive Christmas Disorder". Urban Outfitters, a store that I get a lot of my clothes from, is constantly under fire for their controversial designs. These designs include a crop top with the word "depression" printed all over it in different sizes, a Kent State University sweatshirt that has blood splatters all over it, and a t-shirt that says "eat less" in pretty cursive letters. Celebrities, or in this case "politicians", often help add to the stigma of mental illness. For example, Donald Trump released a statement saying that he believed the reason for gun violence stems from the mental ill, or "sickos" as he refers to them, targeting areas with loose gun laws (yet another reason to not like him.)

While working on my project, I've become more aware of the way mental illness is portrayed in the media and throughout my school and workplace. In a way, I think I've become even more sensitive to certain terms people use to describe mental illness and the overuse of illnesses, mainly OCD and depression. Some people might think of this as a bad thing, but I don't. I think the world would be a much better place if people acted with more compassion and took the time to think about what they say before they say it, or design it. 

Target t-shirt: 

Urban Outfitters:

PSA Projects

Over the past week or so, we've been working in groups to create PSAs on a variety of topics. My group is creating a PSA on digital wellness. We decided to focus on not letting social media control your happiness/body image and perception of the real world. We decided that the most effective PSAs are those that contain little to no narrative and have words flashing up on the screen, so that's what we're making. So far, the hardest part has been trying to find music that is labeled for reuse and fits with what we're making. While my group members focus more on the video presentation, I'm creating a website that will serve as our "call to action" and will be shown through a link at the end of our video. We tried finding a website that incorporated articles about how what you see on Instagram isn't the real world, upbeat videos about photoshop, and some sort of movement or something our peers could physically participate anything. When we couldn't find anything, we decided to build our own website so we could put everything we wanted in one place. Our actual video isn't complete but I think the website is pretty much done. If you want to check it out, here's the link: http://yourselfworth.weebly.com