IHSS Blog 2019-2020

After doing the research for my challenge project on kill and no kill animal shelters, I have decided that I want to find a way to educate people on the internet without stating any form of opinion in order to be informative without being offensive. What I want to do is make a website that will have information both good and bad on kill and no kill animal shelters in an effort to educate the public on the matter. many people will for blind opinions on specifically kill shelters as they don't do the research and end up attacking people without any information on the matter. This is something that people need to know about because it is important that people who are thinking about adopting an animal know what they are getting in to before they do so impulsively. I will also include information on why sterilizing animals is so important to the issue of strays and why people should consider sterilizing their household pets as well as it only puts their animal in danger and makes them w...

Connor Kissack Mr. Roddy IHSS 20 May 2020 Reflection Blog When I chose to do research on the Galveston Bay I primarily thought little of it. The only details I knew were that the beach is definitely one of the worst because of two reasons; the oil rigs as well as all the litter that has been tossed upon the beach by the people. These reasons were in fact correct and this helped me realize what has been happening in Galveston. I learned that no one has put millions of dollars into trying to remove a lot of the oil that has been spilled into the Gulf of Mexico that continues to wash up into Galveston Bay. I also learned that lots of erosion and lots of pollution comes and washes up on Galveston from hurricanes that start near the continent of Africa. The beach continues to get hit at year by year with no goal insight. I interviewed a variety of different people on their own beliefs on how they feel about Galveston and I even interviewed people who work in conservation groups...

Oliver Erdmann Mr. Roddy IHSS May 20, 2020 Interview Blog For one of my interviews, I interviewed my cousin. He is a rabbi in New York City and grew up in Houston. He said that he thinks anti-semitism will always be a thing, no matter where you are, there will always be anti-semites. They might not be currently acting on their hate but they are are thinking it. Although there are much less anti-semites today than there used to be, they can still hurt someone a lot, wether it be mental or physical. Mr. Hollopeter has been affected by anti-semitism for his whole life, starting in Bellaire and now in New York City. Because he has been affected by it his whole life, he said that his synagogue is meant to be a safe space for people experiencing any hate, not just anti-semitism. 

Oliver Erdmann Mr. Roddy IHSS May 20, 2020 Reflection Blog For my interviews, I chose my cousin, a rabbi, and Alex Karni's grandmother. After we had an in-depth conversation, I realized that I had gotten some good information. Both people told me their stories about anti-semitism and how it played a role in their lives. The interesting thing I found out about my interviews was that both of the stories I heard were very similar in some ways, even though they grew up in completely different places. Alex's grandma, Costa Rica, and my cousin, in Houston. This shows how anti-semitism is a world wide problem and a lot of people are affected by it. During the interviews, we talked about how they overcame the tormenting from when they were a kid to now. I realized that, what if people like my interviewees, told children how to overcome it. I feel like this would be one step closer to finishing the hatred. That is why Alex and I created an instagram account to help stop...

Alex Gross Mr. Roddy IHSS 20 May 2020 IHSS - CP: Reflection Blog For my Challenge Project on Antisemitism I overall learned more than I ever thought I would have. I started my research paper thinking that all I would do is talk about Antisemitism, and possibly attend an activism event. I started to see this project as more of an opportunity then a requirement, which I really think stuck with me throughout the entire process and changed my work ethic as well as the end result of the work I put out. Although this opportunity became impossible due to the coronavirus, I feel that what I was able to do instead was actually much more impactful. After writing my Challenge Project research paper I decided that I would focus on not just the problem that Antisemitism is, but also how unrecognized it is. I reached out for many interviews but did not get many responses. I ended up interviewing my dad which was basically my guaranteed one, and Sarah Yonas, the Texas regional leader for a...

Cidette Rice Mr.Roddy IHSS 5/19/2020 Chinese Exclusion in the Late 1800s In the mid 1800s, there was an economic crisis going on in China. It’s been theorized that this decline happened due to the sudden mass exporting of silver after decades of steady import of it. This decline started in 1820 and continued until the late 1850s and was called the Daoguang Depression. Not only was there a depression, but the Opium war and the Taiping rebellion also played big parts in influencing people to leave China. Many Chinese immigrants, mainly young single men, came to America to seek better financial opportunities that were popularized by the California gold rush. This led to an influx of chinese immigrants who either worked for other miners, or tried to find their own gold. After the initial craze of the California gold died down, many people moved on to jobs such as railroad workers, which led to the eventual construction of the transcontinental railroad by mainly immigrant chinese. I...

Cidette Rice Mr.Roddy IHSS 19/5/2020 Reflection Blog When I took up beekeeping in spring of 2020, it was because I felt restless not having a school routine. I felt like I needed to start something new and I had to have something else to focus on while I tried to process the huge changes that it took over my life and many others. I didn’t predict that I would have so much fun with it and that I would learn so much just through working with my mom on hives. The first time I asked her if I could be keep with her was a week before I actually started beekeeping. She thought I was joking at first so she initially pushed it off. It wasn't until six days later that I reintroduced the idea and she realized I wasn’t just playing around. on the seventh day, I suited up and she walked me through all the hives in our front yard and said that the next would include me going with her to a client’s house. I was excited but nervous, seeing it was only my second day beekeeping and...

Cidette Rice Mr.Roddy IHSS 5/19/2020 Interview Blog 1, Colony Dysfunction Disorder & Drones During the process of my challenge project I learned countless things about bees, such as their population makeup, mating habits, and the common problems that affect them. The first client hive I worked on with my mom was drone infested, meaning that of all the bees in the colony 30-45% were drones, rather than the normal 10%. This was caused by the colony rejecting their queen bee and a worker taking up the role of queen. This means that the worker bee had gone from an average bee to laying up to 1500 eggs per day. This would be a normal production of eggs despite the fact that the worker bee cannot mate with the drones, and the drones part is essential in creating worker and queen bees. Without the drone a worker bee can only lay drone eggs, and that is exactly what happened to our client’s hive. The process of getting rid of this excess of drones would mean replacing frames, sp...

Cidette Rice Mr.Roddy IHSS 5/19/2020 Interview Blog 2, Beekeeping Environments  Beekeeping put you in a lot of interesting environments and places, some more preferable than others. Last summer my mom, my brother Nathan and I traveled to Ashland, Oregon to attend a national beekeeping conference. As you can expect from a national beekeeping conference there’s a white variety of people from a wide variety of places, there were even some Canadians. I didn’t gain an interest in beekeeping until spring of 2020, so this beekeeping conference was more of an excuse for Nate and I to go sightseeing in California and Oregon while my mom attended the conference. Beekeeping conferences have also taken my mom to Cuba in beekeeping conferences have also taken my mom to Cuba, Tennessee and West Texas. As a beekeeper who likes keeping up with the newest advancements in American beekeeping, you have to have the means to travel. However, this is not always true, seeing as there’s local bee...

Andreas Cantu Mr. Roddy IHSS 18 May 2020 Interview Blog  When I began my contact log, I made sure to pick people and businesses that I felt I could get a response from within a short period of time. I was so wrong. Out of the 5 people I contacted I received a whopping zero responses after my first email. Needless to say I was quite discouraged, I began sending out my second wave of emails about a week later and ended up with some pretty quick responses. The first person to respond to me was a journalist at the Houston Chronicle, she and I conversed through email for about 3 days. She gave me a lot of information about my issue and referred me to some of her articles and other websites. It was really interesting to learn about my topic from someone who goes out and learns about it from those living it. She taught me a lot about the overlying race issue that is involved and how people of color get targeted much more than non minorities.   The next person that made ...

Sofi Savarese  Mr. Roddy  IHSS 5/18/20 For my IHSS Challenge project, I learned about how coral reefs are being negatively affected by plastic pollution and other products that are harmful to coral reefs. Through my project, I learned that civic engagement requires you to find the right resources and people to gather your information. For my project, I contacted two people that work with coral reefs, Kelly Drinnen, and Dr. Christi Savarese. I also contacted local homeowners in Galveston, Paige Peaches, and Lisa Gross. One of the challenges that I faced was receiving specific information from certain interviewees. While the specialists that knew a lot what they were talking about were easier to get information out of. It was a bit harder to talk to the local homeowners, the reason being that they gave very dry and straightforward answers. This caused me to have a little bit of trouble putting together the information that I gathered. I think that my partner and I...

During this challenge project, I learnt about the state of public transport in Houston as a someone who had just moved to Houston. I learnt that civic engagement requires lots of hard work and also requires people to step out of their comfort zone to create a difference. I also learnt how to properly engage with other people in a confident way to gain information which is something I never did in Singapore. A challenge I experienced during engagement was trying to engage with someone confidently, I am not a confident person so I found it hard to engage with them but over the course of the project, I built up my confidence to engage with them. A success to my engagement was getting a response from the organiser Critical Mass, I did not expect to get a response from anyone I got in contact with and was extremely surprised to have received an actual response from someone, as said before, I am not very confident and the fact that Critical Mass responded to me boosted my confidence allowing...

I have made a Google Slide presentation about Houston's public transport system. In this Google Slide, I talked about what the main forms of transport in Houston are, and their problems. I also addressed cycling as an alternate form of transport and talked about its pros and cons. A lot of the content in the Google Slides presentation is from the research I did when I was creating my paper and the interview I conducted with the organiser of Critical Mass, a bike riding organisation that assembles once every end of the month.

I interviewed the organiser of Critical Mass via it's official Instagram page and got some interesting answers. When asked if he thought cycling in Houston is safe, he replied yes, which goes against some of my research. In my research, I found out that in the past 16 years, 2,000 pedestrians and cyclists have been in accidents so it is interesting that the organiser of Critical Mass thinks that cycling in Houston is safe. He also thinks that cycling is an efficient form of transport despite the fact that there are still some improvements to male Houston a more bike-friendly city. This interview has really made me look at cycling in Houston in a new perspective. He also stated some improvements that could be made to make Houston a more bike-friendly city. Some of these improvements I did not think of, like informing more drivers about cyclist's rights. Overall, this interview really offered me a different perspective on cycling in Houston.

For the engagement aspect of my challenge project, I contacted several experts in child development and psychology and established a blog on the subject of child abuse with a focus on cultural differences. At first when I was trying to find contacts, it was frustrating when there weren’t responses but it’s important to be able to move on and find more sources. As I was interviewing and collecting  information, it was necessary to continue researching even after having written a paper on the subject. I found that there learning about different ways to get involved required its own set of research so further exploration on the topic was helpful. Even though I didn’t conduct many interviews, I still learned a lot about the inner workings of child services from a workers experience. I wanted to share that information along with the other things I researched. I think that it’s important to not limit research to solo interpretations of sources and be open to talking with people who hav...

Cidette Rice Mr.Roddy IHSS 5/17/2020 Plan of Engagement (Demonstration)         For my demonstration of what I learned during my challenge project, I was thinking of working a hive and filming it, similar to what I did during advisory. I got this inspiration from Mr.Roddy when he suggested it through email. For advisory, each advisee had a morning that they would host and lead a 30 minute meeting. Most of the time, these meetings ended up having a scribbl.io link in the chat. While I do really love scribbl.io, I wanted to take a different route with my morning. I talked it over briefly with Fabricio (who is also in my advisory) and the mentioned in during the meeting. A couple people said yes, so "operation: advisorbees" was go. On a Friday morning, I would be removing a feeder frame from a nuc (starter) hive, checking over 2 different hives, and extracting honey. This all went relatively well, besides from the fact that I was a little too short to saw off a...

Cidette Rice Mr.Roddy IHSS 5/17/2020 Plan of Engagement (Interview)      For my project, I intend to make a difference through educating my fellow students about what it means to be a beekeeper and how the average beekeeping process works. To do this, I will have to gather information about the two subjects through experts and my own experience of working with bees. I will definitely consider the time I spend with Shelley Rice as though I was interviewing her, since she is an expert. Over her 12 years of beekeeping, she has taught countless classes, been on TV a couple times, and was voted treasurer of the Houston Beekeeping Association. Long story short, she is very experienced in the Houston world of beekeeping.       There are many other beekeepers in town that are friends of my Mom, such as Nicole Buerges, who specialize in areas that my Mom doesn’t. For example, my Mom is mainly an independent beekeeper who is hired by clients to manage hive...

     The Challenge Project was definitely an interesting experience for me. I learned about civic engagement and how the definition of that changes when life is moved online. The coronavirus and the lockdown greatly affected how this project went for me, and I'm sure for all of my peers as well. Many, including me, had to rethink our engagement plans entirely and mold it to fit into the new normal, where everything is virtual.  Civic engagement is very important to a community. There is a sense of bonding in certain civic engagements, for example, protests. It is important for people to stand together and work to better our world.       One notable success I had was my meeting with Jim Blackburn, a professor at Rice University. His opinions and input opened my eyes to a lot of new thoughts I hadn't considered yet. I also think that the infographic that I made about air pollution (my topic) was a success. I am proud of the result ( Lud2MdYb7YQ )....

Isaak Townsend For my challenge project I did the legalization of drugs and then as the project went on and I researched it more I started to think that it was alright for some drugs to be illegal but one that I always thought should be legal is pot also known as marijuana.This project was one that I started because I thought that it was going to be easy and what I found out while I was researching the topic of pot many people have similar opinions on one aspect of it but then after that their opinions differ greatly for instance all of the people that I spoke with said that they both understood and would probably advocate for the legalization of marijuana for medical use but then when I asked them about recreational use the answer's some said like the person who lived in Washington state he said that he doesn't think that it should be legal for recreational use because he said that hes seen to many family's been destroyed by it. Their children when they are in their teens...

Blake Peterson Mr. Roddy  IHSS  15 May 2020  IHSS Reflection Blog I learned that civic engagement is very important for people to participate in to improve our society. During the presentations on Thursday, I learned about how many issues there are in Houston and how important it is for us to fix them. While researching air pollution the main challenge I had was getting in contact with organizations that worked to help improve air quality. I sent emails multiple times to two people that work to fix air pollution but, I wasn’t able to set up a time to interview them. They told me to give them some time when I could interview them and then just didn’t respond. I tried emailing them four times, but after they didn’t respond I just gave up. Something that went well during my engagement is that I learned a lot more about air pollution than I knew before this project. I didn’t know how air pollution could affect people and how bad it was in Houston. I don’t think I...

Isabelle Saxon 05/15/20 Reflection Blog I really loved my Challenge Project. It took a while and was at times very hard but I loved doing it. I loved getting the opportunity to talk about special education. As a special education student myself the topic is very important to me. I have to admit that going into my topic I knew it very well unlike many of my peers. However I was surprised to learn that there wasn’t as much advocacy about the topic as I thought there would be. I had always really wanted to get more engaged in advocacy for special education, but I had assumed that I would have to wait till I was older to do something actually impactful. The project really helped me open my eyes to how I could engage now and make a real difference. I will continue to be engaged in the topic long after this project is over. Already have strong ties to The Joy School. I have an internship there, and I will likely help engage more over the coming years. I really want to help spread awar...

Nora Mayral Boyle Dr. Roddy Integrated history and Social Sciences 15 May 2020 Reflection Blog: Nora Mayral Boyle I learned a lot about civic engagement, even though the rise of the coronavirus in our country and area Coronavirus and its subsequent ‘side effects’ restricted our engagement process. My issue was gun violence in schools, and it was exciting to find such an issue that I was passionate about and be able to explore the issue and interview people affected by it. At first I was unsure how my engagement would take place, but then I learned about the Bellaire High School shooting that had occured a little while before. The Bellaire High School shooting gave me an opportunity to reach out to students my age to discuss such issues with people the very that are affected by. In addition, I already knew these people, so our interaction felt more comfortable than I imagined talking to a student I didn’t know would be, as it is a very serious issue. My interviews were bot...

Luke Kirchner      I thought my challenge project was a great success. I have gotten a good amount of hits on my blog page after I posted the link on some Reddit pages. My prior research added a great insight into the problem at hand and I enjoyed making the blog and finding the funds to use. My topic was about the music industry and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected it drastically. I then found online funds to help musicians and I compiled them on a blogger page and posted them. I can only hope that people might find these and donate so the music industry can survive through the pandemic.      One of the biggest hits to touring musicians was the COVID-19 pandemic. This basically halted the live music industry and now musicians can't tour. One of my favorite bands was going to play a show in Houston, but a week before they were going to play they had to cancel the entire tour. Then I understood how this was going to affect our daily lives. Bands who...

Reflection Blog I learned a lot during my first challenge project experience, I enjoyed the process even though we had to adjust some parts due to our current situation. I enjoyed picking a topic that I am interested in and then researching that topic. The most important part in my opinion was the interviews, I not only enjoyed this part the most, it also helped me the most in my research and engagement. I learned that anyone can take a part in civil engagement and everyone can educate and learn about what they are interested in. At first, I didn't know how I was going to engage in my topic, I didn't know what Was going to do. In the end I made a website that I am very happy with. I like this form of engagement because it is not final, I can continue to update and make changes to my website. I also like how anyone can view it and maybe one day someone will use my site for a school project. America was built on many different ideals but one of them is that the citizens are su...

Fabricio Guerra Mr. Roddy IHSS 15 May 2020 My Challenge Project This year's challenge project was quite difficult. The requirements of the this project was to research an issue going on either locally or worldwide and then engage with society somehow. I ended up choosing overpriced insulin shots since there was so much attention around politics and universal healthcare. What made this difficult was the fact that the entire world is currently under a quarantine, and this means that physical interactions with people are very difficult. Not only that, but I was in an entirely different country when engagement was supposed to start. One part of the project is that you have to have interviews with specialists who are expertises in the issue you are researching, and I don't know if this to do with me being in a different country or not, but whenever I reached out to a different person they would never respond, no matter how many times I emailed them. It was hard to call them...

      My 2020 Challenge Project focused on Houston’s preparedness for an outbreak. Since we began this project last semester, I had no idea my chosen topic would soon become a worldwide catastrophe. In times of uncertainty, knowledge is what conquers fear. My desire to educate my community (school/neighborhood) stemmed from this belief, thus I chose to create an infographic. However, in order to make a successful document, I needed to educate myself beyond just researching online.         I learned that, ideally, civic engagement comes after gaining information from both material sources in addition to live interviews. Professional experts will be able to share with you more accurate knowledge and give insight to how you may successfully engage with the issue. I did struggle to interview all of my contacts as this chaotic time creates limits on availability, especially for front line workers (who made up the majority of my contacts). I was able...

Chinese immigration to the United States was generally frowned upon due to the hard economic times during the 1870s. This led many people, mostly other immigrants and European Americans to compete for jobs traditionally reserved for the Chinese. This caused many people to have a dislike for the Chinese. This led to violence towards the Chinese eventually leading up to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Back then, the Chinese immigrants were extremely hardworking and dutifully obeyed their employers. They could adapt to any situation really well and made for very good house servants. Most of the upper class citizens respected the Chinese, as Mark Twain said, only the scum of the population dislike the Chinese. In spite of the hate towards the Chinese, the Chinese still wanted to live in the United States, a representative Chinamen in America sent a memorial to the then President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant. In the memorial, the representative of the Chinamen gave a list of all the re...

I plan to make a difference by first reaching out and interviewing people related to public transport in any way. Including people from METRO, Bike Houston and Critical Mass. Interviewing these people could give me a better perspective of the state of public transport in Houston, on top of that, it could confirm some doubts that I have. After reaching out to them and interviewing them, I will proceed to use all the information that I have gathered to create a website where I can raise awareness of problems surrounding public transport in Houston, this website will serve as the main way to raise awareness about the state of public transport. I will create an infographic relating to the public transport in Houston, it will be posted on a social media account that will be created in relation to this problem. I will include some of the points in my essay in the infographic, this way more people will be aware of the state of the public transport in Houston. It could also persuade more peopl...

Adrian Perez  Mr. Roddy  IHSS  May 14h, 2020 Reflection Blog  As I reflect on all the accomplishments I made throughout this entire challenge project, I realized that I learned a lot about civic engagement. I learned to have patience when it comes to trying to change something, because a lot of things don't happen overnight. I learned to reach out whenever I was in need because having more than one voice could have a more positive impact on your issue. This challenge project was very entertaining. Some of the more challenging parts of it was the wait times I had to wait for someone to reach back out to me. Those wait times felt like an eternity. Also whenever an organization wouldn’t get back to you, and you would have to scrap them as an option. But whenever they would respond, it would greatly benefit you. One of the organizations that responded to me was Mothers Against Police Brutality. This organization representative that contacted me was John Full...

Ariana Luk Mr. Roddy IHSS 14 May 2020 Civic engagement reflection Through this project I learnt that if you really want to engage in the community you have to be passionate about what you're presenting. After writing the essay I wanted to let people know what they were doing to their eyes and body but when I realized how difficult it was to get in contact with people I felt a little down. I think my topic is fairly new to this era and that might have been one of my biggest struggle to conquer in this assignment. I chose to research Screen addiction/misuse. At first it was difficult to think of any occupations specializing in this subject, but Ms. Pilisi was there to recommend some people to me. After my interview I was thinking of ways to engage, I wanted to move more towards the effects it has on our bodies and less on the addiction part. So I made an infographic explaining the harms of excessive screen time and how you can prevent bad habits. In my opinion my biggest succe...

Andreas Cantu Mr. Roddy IHSS 14 May 2020 The End  Over the course of these past two months I learned how difficult effective civic engagement is. There are so many different ways of engaging that the word civic engagements can mean so many different things. Without a solid plan and plenty of supporters your engagement can go completely unnoticed, it became quite apparent early on that my contribution to the end of gentrification would mean little to nothing in the big picture. I came to the conclusion that that's the issue with civic engagement, it requires so much to get so little.  My biggest challenge when coming up with my engagement plan had to be, how on earth I was going to spread awareness. There are so many different ways to get your message out to the public, that settling on one would be quite the struggle. I ended up with the decision to hang up flyers all around my neighborhood with information on gentrification and where they can find more. That went rea...

     For my interview blog, I decided to compile both my interviews here, because one has much more substance than the other. My interviews were about the subject of the music industry surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. I reached out to some musicians, the governor's office, and local music venues. Not many people responded, but the ones who did, I interviewed and got some good information. I reached out to smaller venues in Houston such as White Oak music hall and the House of Blues. What I didn't totally consider was the fact they are closed- it was very hard to reach someone who worked there. I had to use a contact I had from an upcoming gig at White Oak to get info. According to them, they are only following laws that are set by the government. They said they aren't struggling too hard with finances, but they need to have shows to resume in order to maintain business. In light of recent developments, live shows may not resume for a while, which could hurt venues like...

Andres  Yengle Mr. Roddy IHSS 14 May 2020 IHHS Blog Reflection  So for my engagement project, I made a short infographic about the death penalty and how it has changed in the past 20 years. In my infographic, I explained how the executions have gone down. I sent my infographic to the High School. I learned a lot about this topic and I am excited to hear some feedback (if I get any). I did get some texts about people asking me how I made my infographic so I think people enjoyed it. I did want to make a blog but I never really got around to writing it so I decided to just make an infographic. I think my success was probably being able to send it out to all of the High School and the Teachers. That was a success because I didn't know there was a way to send it to all the students as a contact so I wrote out everyone's email individually. I don't know if I will engage with anything long term but maybe I will decide to share my infographic with more people. It's very i...

Kilali Latter Mr. Roddy IHSS 14 May 2020 Reflection Blog I have learned that civic engagement can be quiet difficult. I also learned that there are many ways to engage in a topic. For my project I did a website because it was the best way to share the information that I learned with the people in my community, especially considering that we are currently in quarantine and can’t leave our houses. I think some of the successes I had were my interviews and the end result of the website I made. I was able to get an interview with four out of the five people I contacted and one of those interviews was even with a member of congress. I also think that the website I made was made very well as had everything that I wanted on it. I think one challenge would be conducting the interviews at first. I was not very used to doing them so I was very nervous but after two of my interviews I felt I got the hang of it, so those last two went more smoothly. The other challenge would be learning how to ...

Sara Avalos Mr. Roddy IHSS 14 May 2020 Challenge Project Reflection Blog My topic for my challenge project is the journey that immigrants have to take to come to the United States while enduring physical and mental challenges that come with the journey. I made a website so that my community could be informed and I think that that is the best way to share my information. When deciding how I was going to be able to engage in the community while still being safe from this virus. While civil engagement is not the easy thing to do, I think that it is very efficient to spread the news about a topic that is affecting the community. Making the actual website was fairly easy, the challenge was figuring out what information to put on the website. While I was not able to have multiple interviews, I think that the two interviews that I did have were great additions to my knowledge and my website. I think that I was able to summarize the most important information about immigration. I am planning...

Luke Kirchner      For this year's challenge project, I originally was talking about music and happiness in relation to different venues. With COVID-19 kind of crashing the party, my topic shifted slightly to be based around the problem with venues closed and musician's livelihood. For engagement, I plan to start a blogger page and talk about different relief funds. I will cover these funds in detail, explain the problem at hand, and go into how you can help. I think it will be a great success. I have a few funds in mind, and I believe I can compile them fairly quickly. The problem is not only for the musician who can't go on the road, but for acts that were on tour already, and got canceled. Lots of money goes into renting tour busses, roadies, and renting hotel rooms. On top of that, cancellations are not getting any easier and many smaller bands are finding themselves in debt.      Fans who have purchased tickets are having no luck trying and getting...

With so many different types of people immigrating to the same place at once, the contrasting values that arise make it very difficult for everyone to coexist when agreements seem impossible to reach. In the case of the Chinese Vs. Negroes after blacks were given citizenships, there seemed to be a new question of whether or not people from other backgrounds would be given the same privileges. People were asking if Chinese could be considered Americans if they were able to learn American values or if it would be impossible if they had already had a highly developed culture and identity, unlike the blacks and native americans. From their perspective, since everything was less globalized and integrated, this must have been a very serious question for people who have such distinct identities. Our current civilization today has proved that integration is possible and change is inevitable. When we think of immigrants, we think of people who moved America looking for a better life and a glo...

For my engagement in the community, I plan on volunteering with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. There are different ways to volunteer and for now, the best way to do so is by volunteering from home. Some projects that people have taken part in are quilt making and scrapbooking for children. I have emailed them about volunteer opportunities and they’ve sent me an application form. I made a blog that I will use to update you on my volunteer opportunity. I will also be posting information about making reports on child abuse and other information that I have collected from research and interviewing. As a blog, I can continue my challenge project after this semester and continue to use it as a way to record my experiences. Since my original idea was to inform people about the different types of child abuse and how to address them, I am thinking of putting up data about child abuse, explaining disproportionality, and writing about different parenting techniques arou...

After the first interview with Ms. Pilisi, she realized that she had a lot more information about children’s services than she initially thought she had. We continued our discussion on April 27 about reporting and training for social workers. Since we can’t always see every facet of the situation, a lot of what is reported is a judgement call, so some cases might not actually be from abuse. There are cases of reports being made and having the child separated from the parents for examinations and investigations which then ended up being false charges that end up doing harm when there weren't issues to begin with. But it is still highly advised that reports be made if there is suspicion because it is better to be safe than sorry and stopping the abuse as soon as possible is best to prevent further damage with repetition. Reports can be made anonymously, even though they probably won’t be addressed, but no one will be prosecuted if they make a report in good faith. So even if the si...

After contacting Ms. Pilisi, our school counselor, we set up a meeting on April 21 to discuss child abuse. During our meeting, we talked about her personal experiences working in psychiatry emergency care. She mostly saw patients affected by trauma and abuse. The patients that she was assigned to work with were adults though. Then Ms. Pilisi explained the process of reporting to Child Protective Services (CPS). The report is placed in a database which is separated into several levels of prioritization which is then handed off, based on the zip code, to be managed by regional facilities. In Harris county and surrounding, there are 3-4 facilities. They will contact the parent or the child, if a home resident is a suspected perpetrator, they go immediately to the child or a non-parent guide like a counselor. They will generally go to the school to interview the child then bring them to the facilities for medical examinations and interviews. In the building, they can tape the interview...

After having researched child abuse with a focus on the impact of cultural perspectives, I figured that the best way to reach out and work towards improving the circumstances is by informing people on the subject. Child abuse has been difficult to define, especially as people’s values have evolved over time and factoring in different cultural perspectives makes it even more difficult for people to agree on a definition. But there is scientific and psychological evidence that show how physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect can have long-lasting, negative impacts on children. Information like this could be posted as PSA’s on platforms that target audiences who are most affected or most likely to come in contact with child abuse. Especially in communities where it is  more difficult to prevent, informing them about signs to look out for and the best ways to report could be crucial to improving the level of protection offered to children. One way of informing the ...