Haiti Mini Study: Part 2

Ayiti The Cost of Life

1. What was it like playing the game?
This game was actually very interisting, but yet very difficult. Whilst playing this game, I applied the same concepts I used in 3rd World Farmer and it made it a bit easier

2. What was the game about and how would you describe it to a friend?
This game is about how life is in Haiti. The struggle you face in this game is what Haitians face in real life. If I had to describe this game to a friend I would say, " This game shows you how it is like to live in extreme poverty, and to not have enough of the basic human needs."

3. Which 'primary objective' did you choose, and why?
I chose Education. I chose this because I thought it might help me with getting better jobs and I also thought that If you don't get education you can't get a well-paying job.

4. What types of decisions did you have to make about the family members while playing the game and trying to achieve your objective?
I had to think a lot on what i'm going to make each family memeber do. So eventually I sent the mum to work on the farm, and the father and son to work, whilst the two other children were resing at home.

5. What strategies did you use? For example, did you combine work and school, or did you send anyone to school? Which worked? Which did not?
I sent the mum, dad, and one of the children to work and I kept the other two children at home until the mum, dad, and other child got home a little sick then I switched them around so the family could get money. Also, while the mum, dad, and other child was a work, the other two children were in school.

6. Why would parents choose to devote so much effort sending their children to school?
So their kids can get a good education, get a good job and then try to help the family out of poverty

7. What obsticles did you face in trying to keep the children in school?
My family was bankrupt and i couldn't afford to pay for their education

8. How did the situations and options in the game compare with those in your own community/city?
The situations in the game aren't exactly like what happens in my communtiy/city but there are quite a few people who are in extreme poverty and can't afford to put their kids in school and give them an education.

9. Why is access to education a huge challenge as LEDC's try to develop?
Access to education is a huge challange in LEDC countries because eduation costs a lot of money and lots of people can't afford it especially in LEDC countries.

10. Why is it vital to a country's development to educate its people - especially women?
So the people can get an education to learn how to read or write so they can have a bright future and everyone in the country should be able to get an education even if it means if they pay a little less so the kids will go off and study and maybe come back the country later on.

11. Suggest some ways that countries could prioritize education, even for women, even in the countryside. How can they do this?
There could be little school where kids go everyday for a few hours to at least learn how to read and write and maybe the parents don't have to pay that much so the kids can get an education and still help with farming.

12. Think back on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Look at the 8 targets. Look at how Haiti is doing so far. What will the targets be in the next 5 years for this country?
~ Achieve Universal Primary Education
~ Improve Materanl Health
~ Combat HIV/AIDS, maleria and other diseases

The Game Website: http://www.unicef.org/voy/explore/rights/explore_3142.html

Picture:http://wasteland.suman-sinha.com/photos/Posts/Ayiti.jpg

Haiti Mini Study: Part 1

On Tuesday, 12th January 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti. It's main hit Port-au-Prince but the surrounding cities all felt it too. Buildings collapsed, Homes destroyed, and Families disappeared. The Haitian Government estimated around 230,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless. Also, they estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged.

If you think about it, Haiti wasn't very 'secure' before the earthquake so even if the earthquake struck, it should have struck anywhere but Haiti. Haiti was in Poverty before the earthquake, and now, even more people can't afford to give their children education, more people have to work harder to help satisfy their hunger, and more children have to work harder to gain money to support their families.
Can you just imagine the pain, going through their minds right now? No food, no water, not even any shelter. The children separated from their parents, not enough of the basic human needs to survive, and over 50,000 children are lost that are under 18.
Once everyone started to hear about this earthquake, there was a very fast response. Haiti's neighbouring country (Dominican Republic) was the first to help, by sending Water, Food, and Heavy lifting Machines. Slowly the US and other countries such as Iceland, Qatar, and China started pitching in to help make hospitals and to help aid the civilians.
After Haiti's earthquake, Haiti is now stuck in extreme poverty and is going straight downhill from there.
So far, around 600 kids have been registered into orphanages and only 20 have been reunited with their families. Haiti lost, and barely even had any supplies to build anything so it would take quite a long time to get the supplies and re-build everything.

I think if Haiti continues to get help from all of the other countries, Haiti will start to slowly build up again with the right resources but they have to take baby steps in achieving that goal.

Picture: http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/PICTURES/news/2010/01/2010-01-29-haiti-earthquake-unicef-orphans-tragic-list-kids/haiti-child-waits-for-meal__14772821__MBQF,templateId=renderScaled,property=Bild,height=349.jpg

We Helped The Sharks (:

Today we helped the sharks by helping raise awareness to the school and by proving to the students that sharks aren't scary and aren't that dangerous. We are still going to be showing the 'Shark-water' video next week, to show what really happens to the Sharks and how people and risking their lives to help save them. Today I really think we made a big difference. We helped people understand what really happens when making sharks fin soup and I hope we've started to prevent people from eating it. Awareness was raised during this action project and hopefully we helped people understand why sharks fin soup isn’t good. If I could do this action project again, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t change it that much but I think I might just show more of the videos to prove how bad Sharks fin soup really is. Whilst doing this project, I learned that over 100,000,000 sharks die each year for no reason. I didn’t even know there were that many sharks in the word! Some countries just cut the fins for the money and don’t care if one of our top predators dies because of us. I also learned that even though we are trying to help sharks, google also believes that sharks are only predators and always try to kill humans. What has this world become?!?!?!

Picture: http://templecuttingedge.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/great-white-shark-1.jpg