Community Surveys
Walnut High School of Walnut, California, USA
Our community is very sheltered and pretty suburban. More than half of the people living here are Asian. Walnut is very much like a bubble.
What we like most about the community are the trees. Walnut has a very green look not often found in cities. However, what we least like about the neighborhood is how we usually have to go out of Walnut to find anything worthwhile to do: volunteer work, restaurants, and larger libraries.
Problems in the community:
Too sheltered, lack of social awareness
Could have more cross-cultural connections
School littering
Not enough funds for a debate team
Many discarded plastic bags
Academic stress
Solutions: If we can spread One World Youth Project to more of Walnut students, and grow large enough as a group to hold community events, we could also raise world awareness. To have an official debate team requires district support and a dedicated teach adviser. As long as there is a student and teacher willing to put in the time and effort to get the support needed, through fundraisers even, there could actually be a debate class for debaters to practice in. The environmental issues of trash and overuse of plastic is harder to solve. The environmental clubs on campus could encourage members to recycle plastic, and even go with cloth or paper bags instead. To alleviate academic stress for certain students, there could be events that make juggling school easier, such as more extensive information presented at college night or group study sessions.
8 Goals:
1. Establish more cross-cultural connections
2. Raise environmental awareness
3. Start an official debate team
4. Change people’s disregard for trash
5. Spread consciousness about global issues
6. Reduce academic stress
7. Increase use of cloth bags
8. Spread OWYP activities to younger children
Frijoles Magicos of Lima, Peru
1. San Juan de Miraflores is located in the southern cone of Lima, near the ocean. It’s a humble community.
2. What we like… There are parks. People are friendly. There are a lot of schools and NGOs. People work together in community – there are communal kitchens (comedores) and “glass of millk” (vaso de leche) programs. We also have libraries (well, not too many), shopping centers, the Peruvian Sports Institute (IPD), lots of Internet places and health establishments.
3. Our concerns…
1. Some households lack services such as water and sewage; also, many people don’t own their own homes
2. A lot of gangs
3. Little security
4. Little cleaning
5. Little collaboration
6. Poor use of the Internet
7. Abandoned parks
8. A lot of poverty
4. Our ideas for addressing these concerns…
1. The government needs to provide employment for people
2. Create an organization that will talk to gang members about how they can change, including psychological services and the provision of activities such as sports and dance
3. Neighbors should organize to take care of the security where they live
4. The government should provide large cement trash cans (since otherwise people will steal the trash cans) and additional garbage trucks
5. Again, NGOs and neighbors themselves should find ways to get neighbors to organize
6. Internet businesses should add some type of code or security system to keep young people from accessing certain pages
7. Community members should plant plants, flowers, trees and pick up trash
8. The government should provide work, food supplies and literacy programs
Medford High School Roots & Shoots of Medford, Massachusetts, USA
How would you describe your community?
Multi-cultural, quiet, urban, unique, old, suburban, typical, unchanging, lots of trees/woods when compared with neighboring communities
What do you like most about your community? Least?
Most: Woods, multi-cultural, Mystic Lakes
Least: River is dirty/polluted, loud highways, trash/pollution
What are your concerns for the local community? What problems do you see? List five to eight concerns.
Lack of social events/gatherings in which the community interacts, don't help and encourage youth enough/often ignore their concerns/importance, dirty/polluted Mystic River, pollution, oil spill recently caused a major fire and destruction in Everett (neighboring community), government corruption/entrenched polticians, Dunkin Donuts
What goals could you set to lessen the impact of these problems or eliminate your concerns? ~Start more environmental groups/begin to educate youth on environmental issues at a younger age ~Get more people to walk ~Bike lanes ~Collect donations to help the Everett victims ~Mystic River clean-ups
Goals For The Community by 2015: 1) Clean-up Mystic River 2) Help Everett/poor and homeless families in general 3) Improve schooling 4) Beautify community 5) Plant trees 6) Encourage people to walk/excercise 7) Encourage people to appreciate natural resources such as the Mystic Lakes and the Fells Woods 8) Increase communication and social events within the community
Global Connections of Seattle, Washington, USA
How would you describe your community?
The Seattle community is creative, aware and hard driven. As the most influential metropolis in the Pacific Northwest, we are politically liberal minded and striving towards creating eco-friendly standards. As a very international community we enjoy combining many cultures into our own. The Seattle scene is a very social one where art, music and other events are constantly bringing people together. Yet while Seattle is a wonderful city to live in, the community is facing some challenges.
What do you like most about your community/least?
In Seattle, we have a culture of global awareness that is making leaps and bounds towards the Kyoto Protocol. Though this is something that Seattlites are very proud of, perhaps what is most shameful to us is the hypocricy of this situation. As we boast amazing ecological advances, we also have some of the worst commuter traffic in the nation. Though we recycle religiously and plant trees wherever possible, we can’t seem to get around the idea of efficient mass transit. Whether that means better bus schedules, restrictions on personal vehicles or an building an electro-magnetic subway, effective eco-friendly transit is the major development needed in Seattle.
Concerns for Seattle:
- Traffic
- Poor funding for Seattle Public Schools
- Low income housing
- Pollution (even though we are well respected for our efforts towards this in our country we have a long way to go.)
- Government inefficiency in taking action on concerns listed above.
- News media corruption
- Hypocrisy in the sense that Seattle’s port brings to the USA many products that have been made under unsustainable conditions. Though at home we would condemn this type of manufacturing we are encouraging it by buying these products.
- Human rights of those who manufacture/grow our goods on the international level. We believe that our Bill of Rights should hold true for all humans, yet we exploit other nations. We need to be more conscious, we vote with our dollars.
Goals Brainstorming:
Increased efforts in Light Rail by 2010.
Give out free bus cards to employees of certain companies to spread out commuters. Eg. Microsoft/ Boeing employees who live in Seattle would save much gas, lessen pollution and ease traffic if they could bus more efficiently.
Re-direct tax money into S.P. Schools so that specialty subjects such as science etc. can have adequate funding to purchase materials.
Global Connection’s Goals for Seattle by 2015:
- Light Rail is complete and operating.
- 15% change over from personal vehicles to buses for commuting.
- Successful restrictions on pollution per capita, setting a new standard for USA.
- Successful redirection of tax money towards Seattle Public Schools. Higher standards for High Schools.
- More affordable real-estate market for low income families.
- News media focuses less on “personal drama” stories and makes progress towards informing the public about important global and local news
- Mandatory in the Port of Seattle, Only import goods that have been manufactured under sustainable conditions.
- Ensure worker’s rights for products we buy from other countries.
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