Global Issues Network:
In the beginning of the 11th grade I joined Global Issues Network. When I first joined G.I.N. I never would have thought that this group would have changed me so much as a person. Throughout the year I did various activities to help promote or help the group whether it was by making posters or by helping to advertise our upcoming events or goals.
Our first big event last year was Goals to Go where we were raising money for Lady Lushas School to help them buy there own property to live on. After that we did smaller things like raising awareness by doing the Day Without Shoes which was run by the shoe company Toms. By having this day we made it clear that thousands and thousands of children don't have the luxury of wearing shoes therefore these thousands of children get all kinds of diseases and infections.
One of the first acts of business we started in the beginning of the 11th grade was to start recycling the plastic bottles that are used everyday. After a year of recycling plastic water bottles we had collected enough data to show just how much we had used, recycled and sold. Which was enough shocking evidence to allow us to get plastic water bottles basically abolished, but before getting this movement passed we had to get most of the high school student body to sign or petition. This was one of our first great triumphs as a group to show that we can succeed.
Hopefully in the next year we will be able to start even more fundraising and awareness events, such as my big hopes to have two new days initiated with the help of Students for the Environment, which is Plant a Tree Day and a community service day where we help pick up trash at one of the local parks.
Global Issues Service Summit:
By doing G.I.N. I was gifted enough to have a great opportunity to go the Mozambique for the Global Issues Service Summit, where I had the chance to meet many other great minds and to hear what they had to say about today's problems and possible solutions.
On the first day of the Summit all of the I.S.K. groups did their presentations, where we got to hear what other people thought about our ideas and ways to improve it. For my presentation I worked with Anisha Hira, Tejvi Mulji and Sara Kjellstorm, where we discussed how the arts have been used to help raise awareness and or to fundraise for different events. For my part I did how Art has been used throughout the last 1000 years to raise awareness and to raise money for different causes and organizations.
On the second day of the Summit we were all put into different groups and sent to different places to help the local environment. My group went to a deaf school where the children and supervisors showed us how to make pencil cases, money wallets and small purses out of empty cartoon boxes. This is how the children and teachers earned some petty cash. I hope to start doing something like this in the next year for one of the local organizations, and orphanages.
On the last day we wrapped up the Conferences listened to the last keynote speakers such as Nelson Mandela's wife who told us her remarkable story.
Hopefully next year I will be able to go to the conferences again, to hear and to help and see how we as a the future leaders can change the world today.
