Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Haiti report

Haiti has been denied the right to have freedom of speech many times, and the U.N is trying to stop this. I think the only way to stop it is to get a new government.
There are many difficulties while recovering from the earthquake in Haiti, one of which is that the government has crumbled down to nothing. The U.N has taken the lead now. But with a long history of a corrupt government and rebellion, it is hard to see if it will actually get better. Some countries can rebuild faster than this if they have money, if they are not an island and if they have a government up to the task. The biggest thing that put Haiti at a disadvantage was it's history of a corrupt government, corrupt leaders and corrupt military. I don't think the country will cope very well, and if it ever does get back on it's feet, it would have to owe a lot of countries favors because without a suitable government, there is no way it can get help by itself. But if the U.N. keeps helping, and we help to, Haiti could get back to normal in a few years.
I thought the Haiti game of life was very agonizing and confusing. One bad thing could happen and the whole family would suffer. But I guess that's what happens in real life.
The game was about a better life in four years. You could have focused on one of four strategies; 1. to get lots of money, 2. to get education, 3. to just live your life in happiness and 4. to be healthy. I would describe it as a good game to play if you are trying to understand what can happen if you have no money.

The primary objective I chose was education because with education you can get better jobs and that means more money and that means you can care for the family better.

You needed to balance the work out, so each family member gets a bit of education, a bit of rest and a bit of work.

I tried to make sure everybody got a bit of education and one person didn't get all of it. This didn't work because it took too long for anyonProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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to get a good level of schooling.
I think parents would choose to devote so much effort in sending their children to school because they are trying to give them a better life than they had and to give them opportunities in life.
The summer holidays were a big obstacle in trying to keep the children in school because you needed to get tutors and they cost more money. Also, trying to keep a good income coming in for the school was a big obstacle and often I needed to pull the child in school back and send him to work.

The holidays coincided with those of New Zealand, like Christmas and Easter, but other than that, it didn't have much in common with my own country.
Because many people don't have the education to educate children and they don't have the money. Because if the parents don't have education then it becomes incredibly hard to give your children education.
So the people of that country can have opportunities and be able to help the country. Instead of needing a voice, educated people of that country can be come the voice. Women need education in developing countries so they can claim their rights and become proper people.
They could send more resources and money to the rural areas and build schools so the people can put more time into education. They could also develope the houses so the women do not have to walk for hours to get water. that would give them more time to go to school.

I found the chart, but it was all in French, but mum can kind of read French and it looks like most things have improved apart from the extreme poverty rate. That has gone up. Here is the address: http//:www.ht.undp.org/public/omdhaiti.php

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Shark fin reflection.




In this Shark fin awareness project, we tried to make the school aware of what is happening to the sharks in the world. We used a lunch time to have a short shark fin festival. We held games, activates and bake sales. I think this project did work, and that we did make a difference because people were walking out of the room saying, "I'll never eat shark fin soup again!" Also the people that came to the festival saw the videos of what happens to the sharks, and some of them were pretty disturbing. If I ate shark fin soup on a regular basis and then watched those videos I would
not be having it again.
If I were doing this project again I would try to promote the videos more so people would become more aware, because not a lot of people were actually watching them because of the games and other activities. I think I learned a lot about shark fining and the horrors people are doing to them. I learned all about long line fishing and how people need it for a good income. I also learned about how you need to have a good plan for an action project, so it isn't messy or confusing. Overall, I think that this Shark fin project was a big success.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

From Predator to Prey















http://planetsave.com/files/2009/02/sharkfins.jpg

Sharks finning happens all over the world. Dodgy organizations long-line fish, catching not only sharks, but all the other fish that happen to get caught. These organizations, sometimes legally, sometimes illegally, get the sharks up from the water into the boat, cut off all the fins and throw the sharks back into the water. This may sound like a humane thing to do, letting them go, but you try and go swimming with no
limbs. The sharks can't swim anymore so they sink to the ocean floor, waiting to die. What was the main predator of the sea for 400 million years, has now become the prey. This is a complete outrage because the fins don't have any taste at all, so sharks fin soup is just plain soup. The fins are actually just like ear cartilage and have no taste. Whats more is that people sell the fins for heaps of money and more people think that eating sharks fin soup signifies class. It really only signifies ignorance.
We do have an acton plan, to educate the school of this horror. On May 20th, we are going to have a sharks fin day, with activities to help promote how bad sharks finning is. The few weeks before will be for raffles and assemblys to educate the school. A few days before, we may be showing sharkwater at lunches when you need to by tickets.


Watch these videos to find out mProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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e!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im7W1AnDmgA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YprXxDccXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMYtuMgwNCY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlMKicE5Uqc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFQ04kERoI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN23hZqccR8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xysF2zyxn-s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smyyhEnhINc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2UKgLsOhRM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnHN8m7APtw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCqPXhhxZIg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7TqTEtbmY8