CAS Project: Mid-Year Process 2016-2017

February 17, 2017

Proposal from October

Idea:

• Group will create coloring books that bring awareness to different global and local issues to young children.

• Bake sales will be held during the lunch period to raise money for the cost of creating the coloring books

• Each group member will contribute in creating pages of the coloring book

• Books will be donated to children and families

• Group possibly will hold an event (i.e. Children’s Day, World Refugee Day, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty) at a local park or other area with children to distribute the coloring books

• Books will focus on Poverty and Human Rights, Refugee and Migrant Rights, and Children’s Rights

• Each book will include a brief description of the issues depicted either in the beginning of the book or at the bottom of each page.

Issue: Poverty and Human Rights (http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/poverty-and-human-rights) https://www.astep.org/ http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Personal assessment/opinion on the problem

• Growing up in New York, we have constantly seen homeless people everywhere. From the corner of the train carts to the streets on Fifth Avenue, there has been an increasing number of homeless people. This is just New York. There are numerous third world countries that have entire populations that are homeless and starving. Poverty is an issue that is present both on a global and local scale. Despite how common it is, not many people do anything to fix this problem, which is why it is so important for us to raise awareness to this issue.

• Why does it matter? What difference does it make?

• We must raise awareness of poverty because everyone no matter who they are has the right to adequate housing, food, water and sanitation, and a to education and healthcare. Most people do not know that the rights of any person in poverty are violated. By raising awareness, we are helping out those who are unfortunate and cannot afford to be provided with these rights.

Global consequences of this issue? Connections to human rights?

• Poverty is a major issue that not only affects the United States but also affects the entire world. Since it is a relatively well-known issue, many people assume that there are a lot of people fighting to stop it. The reality is opposite. Almost half the world lives in poverty. At least 80% of people live on less than $10 a day. Not only does this affect many men and women, but it also affects the lives of many children. Many children do not have the opportunities to get an education or have a stable job. They live day by day, fighting for survival, which causes their voices to be unheard. Living in poverty denies people of their rights to life, free speech, rest, health, and an education.

Specific articles of the Universal Declaration for Human rights are being threatened and/or violated?

• Article 3: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.”

• Article 6: “Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.”

• Article 18: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion…”

• Article 24: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.”

• Article 25: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

• Article 26: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.”

What facts or ideas support your POV? Political, economic, and social conditions contribute to these violations?

• There is an evident prejudice towards those in poverty recorded many times in social experiments where people’s reactions regarding homeless people were documented through video. However, poverty does not only include the homeless but also low-income families which are hard to classify as poverty from just the surface. There are many social demands regarding money such as needing the expensive, trending object to be considered relevant in a social setting.

What international and national communities are affected? How?

• In all communities around the world, there are people that experience poverty because of the area’s economic demands and conditions. Poverty is a global issue that people from all countries experience also from the state of their country, for example the Syrian civil war that is displacing many families and workplaces.

What future generations will be affected? How?

• Our goal is to educate the youth on current events so that they can become aware of issues in society. In the future, they can take action and work to fix these global and local issues.

What can be done?

• With other people/organizations: In order to raise money, we must work together and make use of our school environment to raise awareness by spreading what’s going on with poverty locally and internationally. Once we take on the goals for poverty in our own community, we can reach out to organizations like Artists Striving to End Poverty which works with NYC or internationally like India, Dominican Republic and South Africa. We can donate money because their cause is connected to what we’re working for by providing art education for students of low-income families and helping out immigrants/migrants through art camps. Another organization is Care, which helps out by raising money to feed people and provide social justice in order to defeat poverty.

• By governments/policymakers: The governments around the world work together to defeat poverty like the United Nations tackle issues like global warming, poverty and more.

• What actions are you taking?

  • We are going to hold bake sales to raise money and create coloring books to showcase the scenarios/situations that we can take action on to solve them. For example, we may create a page that shows a drawing of a homeless person and someone giving food or help to the homeless person. The money we fundraise will be donated to organizations that strive to end poverty and the coloring books will spread awareness. The coloring books can be given out or sold at parks like Socrates Sculpture Park or special events.

So far, we have realized that the amount of time placed into the creation of coloring books may be too time-consuming. We had difficulty finding an affordable company that would print out the coloring books for us, and designing over 10 pages that portray human rights issues. Each page would be very detailed, and after sketching them out would have to be traced with ink and copied.

As an alternative:

We agreed upon making care packages and perhaps designing the outside to incorporate both creativity and service. We plan on having two bake sales with the goal of $400, and donating about $20 from our own money to create these care packages. The design on the outside will promote ideas that we care about and are there for them.