Blog #3 - Agent of Change

Hi! My name is Katarina Backo and I am a ninth grader at Science Leadership Academy. I am doing a project for my English class about an issue that concerns
me, and I have to write three blogs about it. Here is the link to my first blog, second  blog link and this is my third blog in this series. My issue involves play time, and how technology impacts children’s activity and therefore their lives. I am an artistic, athletic person connected with my family and happy about it. I wish that everybody could have the happiness I have, but I think that wrong use of technology prevents that. Hope you’ll enjoy reading my ideas.

In my Blog #1 my focus was on balance (“I love technology as well, but I think that everything should be balanced.”-Blog #1). My concern was that nowaday teens will choose to play with technology rather than going outside to play.

In my previous blog my focus was on how “ I went to all my activities and still didn’t notice new teens making use of abundant free teen programs that exist in Philadelphia. Besides working on this project I  had the opportunity and luck to do a research on how technology affects people for my technology class. For my Science Fair Project I have decided to dig deeper into how teens tell time and that helped me understand how I could resolve my issue.”(-Blog #2)

For the past few weeks, I was aware of how friends around as well as myself, were totally out of order and organization for our school work. It’s not that we can’t do other things, its just that when we are playing a game, listening to music, on facebook, on twitter, we lose the sense of time and end up not being able to finish things. If people heard about and tried the programs Philadelphia offers, then there would be enough human interaction. They would be able to experience what people used to do for fun, before electronics were there. If we do that it will help us not depend on technology so much.

As an agent of change I would like to show what is happening in Philadelphia and I hope that my peers will join me in my endeavours. As I was talking about in the last 2 blogs, I have a lot of activities and I want to share my experiences in order to increase the visibility of programs for teens.   

I was happy to volunteer at my old Mural Arts Program location (Southwark), where anime photoshoot took place. For the past couple of weeks teen artists have been working on creating costumes of anime characters they created to present some of the world problems. For example one of the issues mentioned was littering, and I helped the issue come alive by being involved in finalizing this costume:

Litter anime character

The students first decided which issue they wanted to take. Next, they designed their costumes, which later they made themselves, with the help of teachers from Mural Arts, and volunteers like me. Mural Arts Program also provided all the materials teen artists needed.

The day of the shoot there was one photographer, professional makeup artists and volunteers. Even though there were professionals at the scene, teen artists took pictures, and everyone was involved in creating the wonderful environment. It was a really fun experience and I hope you will enjoy the pictures!!!!

The photo shoot

Makeup for all the models (even the guys)

Preparations

Later those photos were displayed in a gallery with other art projects of the other locations of Mural Arts. From the experience teen artists had, I think they learned a lot about design, making and modeling. Events and projects are happening at Mural Arts all the time, throughout the city of Philadelphia. Murals, sculptures, drawings, photos, are not the only things students in the Mural Arts Program make, there is also memories, friendships and important life lessons.

I volunteered at the Christian Street  YMCA. My YMCA has a lot of holiday parties with lots of activities and food for different holidays.The YMCA provides lots of sports, activities and workouts, but my favorite part is the pool. I am the part of the swimming team and our team has a lot of swim meets, which are competitions against other teams from other YMCAs. When I did not swim on those I helped on the deck. Also I helped with swim lessons for little kids.

25 yard pool at the Christian street YMCA

At the Whitman branch of the Free Library of  Philadelphia, where I always volunteer, there are a lot of different sections, and teen section one of them. There is a lot of clubs in the library, scrabble club, chess club, games club, and they have a relaxing yoga class. I volunteered at the Science in the summer program and it is a 2 day course with different labs. They also needed volunteers for Summer Reading Program, to help them inform and deal out prizes. This time I volunteered at the activity for little kids called “Story time”, where kids listened to stories, made bracelets, mixed colors, and made collages.  

The teen section at the Whitman branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia

I asked the librarian to give me a few words about things they offer for teens in the library:

Throughout this project my opinion changed, evolved, and grew. It helped me see things around me clearer and with more understanding. Maybe, I could have made posters, flyers, and other advertisements, to represent the programs, to show people that they can do something interesting in their spare time. However, I think that this way everyone can get first hand personal experience from me.

The way I was an agent of change was not just volunteering. I also took my friends to those places and after they experience the atmosphere, activities and fun they stayed and started to go there more often. There is only one thing left to say and that is: Instead of staying inside, go out and enjoy the world around you!!!!