This Thursday was International Day. Our school chose to focus on only one millennium goal for this year, poverty. David J. , the representative from Crossroads, he told us his story of how this charity got started and alot of other stuff about poverty that i don’t remember…
Bottom line : poverty is bad and it should be stopped.
After and hour and a half of talking listening and sitting on numb butts, we finally got to activities.
It wasn’t anything that anyone expected. Everybody was thinking running outside in the scorching heat playing ‘fun’ games. But we did something else… something that was suppose to help us understand the lives of people living in poverty who are working day in day out…making paper bags…
We were all divided into ‘families’ of 6, working until our hands burn making paper bags using newspaper a mixture of flour and water as glue. We were suppose to sell the bags to shopkeepers and get the money and pray we make enough to pay for our rent, rice, and whatever else we can afford. To make it worse, we would sometimes catch a shopkeeper on a bad day. They would say “Aww guys! Look how pretty these bags are!” the she would tear it up! David J. would scream into the microphone “C’mon guys make those bags!! Think of your children starving to death! Their fate lies in you hands! Time is of the essence!!” He would repeat the over and over again…its annoying and it just adds up to our ‘fight’ for survival…
After a whole lot of paste, angry faces, and newspaper, it was finally over. The dreaded activity.
We had lunch of rice, potatoes, and carrots…it wasn’t one bit enjoyable.
Next we went into the Gym for yet another presentation. The another activity was waiting for us in the atrium.
We had to carry water from one big bucket to our team’s small bucket. Which ever team fills the bucket up the fastest wins. It sounds easy but we had to do it in other people’s shoes. We didn’t get to choose, we were given two random shoes and were expected to wear them.
Next Activity :
Crossing a “river” with a disability. Being blind, completely immoblie, mute, or deaf. I got the blind one and I had to crawl over the bridge. This was suppose to let us experience the life of a cripple.
Next and Last Activity :
This is my personal favorite. Everybody got this card stuck on to their back. They come in Blue, Pink, Yellow, and Green (I think). On the card, it says a job. You’re not suppose to know what you have but other people can see it. The object is to find out what your job is by asking people hints like “Am i rich?” etc. I got V12 Engine Inventor on a blue card. Turns out Blue cards are all jobs that are at the highest rank in society.
Here were the categories :
Poorest of the poor : Pink
Working Poor : Green
Middle Income : Yellow
Wealthy : Blue
There were a bunch of jobs where i found very funny like “Thai prostitute” or “U.S hobo/bum”
Afterwards the highschool students who are part of the Global Issues Group gave us the statistics of the world. I learned the wealthy people make up about 20% of the world and control 86% of the world’s natural resources and 45% of the world’s population is living under poverty.
As far as i can remember we had another 15 minute assebly in the auditorium.
Then the day was finally over…and so is this blog post.
