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In Blog Post #1 I talk about my general findings on the topic of Sex Slavery. After that, in Blog Post #2, I furthered my understandings on the issue by constructing an interview to ask an expert. And in this Blog I actually did something about it. Something to help better the issue in the way of bringing awareness.

For my agent of change part, to bring awareness, I have decided to make stickers promoting a website I have discovered in which are experts on the issue. Meaning they specialize in helping victims of Sex Trafficking. They have lots of factual information on their site and they are very honest with their findings. Therefore, I chose to promote them by creating stickers and placing them around the city to bring an incredibly wide range of an audience. My stickers will contain some specific facts from their site directly. I think the stickers will definitely gravitate the viewers’ awarenesses in a way that will make them want to read them and also visit the website. I am hoping for more people to discover the site and to notice that slavery is actually still an issue in the world that people are actually working towards helping.

{Stickers made}

{Stickers I created containing Love146’s quotes}

{Stickers promoting Love146}

I am glad that I was able to further my understanding of the issue that happens today in the world. I am greatly thankful that I was able to share this information to lots of people. I have a lot specifically about the victims of Sex Trafficking and the troubles that have brought them to that particular system. I have learned that this is a huge issue and that a lot of different organizations are looking out to help endangered sufferers. Something I could of done better was probably to make posters along with the stickers to put up in the school. I feel as though a lot of people should realize how much an issue this is and statistics about it. What I have left for other people to do is simply to visit the website present in my stickers in which I was promoting and to share it with others.

Annotated Bibliography

In my blog posts one and two I spoke about how unknown Domestic Violence is. It is a sort of hidden, underground issue, yet effects one in four women and one in seven men in America within their lifetimes. It is mostly viewed as a “woman’s issue” because 85% of the abusers are men, and women are more likely to become dominated by an abusive partner. This is not to say that men do not fall victim, domestic violence targets men, women, and children of all races and economic status. One of the primary issues surrounding domestic abuse is that it is extremely hard to inform people that you have fallen victim, sometimes because the bruises are worth the so called “love” they have found. Education is key in stopping this problem facing millions.

Campaigns have been started trying to capture the attention of the people living in a social media dominated world, like Safe Horizon. The campaign is called “#PutTheNailInIt” and teamed up with Miss America 2015, Kira Kazantsev, to help prevent domestic violence by painting your left ring finger purple to pledge against domestic violence. I decided to use this same concept, adapting it to fit my own guidelines. I created my own hashtag, “#NailItPhilly” to track how many people I myself could motiviate to join the movement. I said that we should keep the nail polish movement the same, yet I know many people who are not comfortable painting their nails so I also made it so we could draw a purple X on the same finger. The original campaign also includes donating, and I thought education was most important and most managable for those around me. Domestic violence needs all the attention it can get to help create a brighter future for all of America.

There are many different ways to try and end this issue,

like by using the hashtag by safe horizon and Miss America

I learned a lot through doing this project. I learned that people really look to others for guidance, especially involving this hashtag. At first, no one contributed and posted, but after I got one or two posts, it began to increase the amount of posts. It was hard motivating, and I see how difficult it is for one person to try and spread a hashtag. I would have maybe made it more entertaining for people to want to help if the topic itself was not motivation enough. The ALS ice bucket challenge was very successful and spread through social media very quickly. I could have designed my own challenge which might have turned out with more results. Through this entire project, I learned more about domestic violence and got the amazing opportunity to speak with a representative from a large organization, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and reflect on how much attention this issue truly needs. I feel like I made an impact, and that is a step in the right direction towards ridding this country of domestic violence.

These are some examples of the people who contributed to my hashtag!

Check out my Annotated Bibliography!

My topic is Autism and as I stated in my first blog post. Nobody really knows a lot about it. This is one of the reasons why I chose this topic the second reason is that it is a topic that hits home with me. Scientists are researching what the possible cause of Autism is and if it can be prevented. All this researching has led the general public to see it as a disease. This is wrong I personally consider autism a mutation that can have different effects depending on the level of the spectrum it is on. This article supports my belief, yet the general public has no idea what Autism is. Therefore I decided to raise money for the Autism society. This society uses its donations to spread the awareness of autism and to provide for people with Autism.

To raise money I held a bake sale and passed out flyers. The point of the flyers was to spread knowledge on what Autism itself is whilst the point of the bake sale was to raise money while educating the school. I raised a total of $245.

Here is one of the flyers that we passed out. After buying something from the bake sale the buyer would receive a flyer.

Here is the cake that we sold slices of. The cake says Autism Awarness on it

To change the general public's view on Autism is a very difficult task. But I believe that by having a bake sale to attract attention and speaking to the buyers about Autism when they arrived was a very good way to at least educate some students in SLA. As I was doing this project I have learned more about children with Autism. I learned that they have a ¨disability¨ that allows them to succeed farther than others in specific categories. I also learned that we need to expand our knowledge on topics such as autism. If you simply only listen to the news about autism then it will sound like autism is a disease that is causing major problems. This is very wrong because after conducting some research I learned that if a person has Autism that is on the law part of the spectrum it is possible for you to not notice that they are autistic. This project has allowed me to feel very accomplished because I feel as though I have successfully spread the knowledge of what Autism really is.

Annotated bibliography

PIC: Agent of Change

Back in my first two blog posts, I discussed the research I had uncovered on the Syrian refugee crisis. In my first blogpost, I talked about how over 11 million Syrians are displaced outside of their homes, with almost 4 million being outside of the country altogether. I talked about how there are people in Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq. I discussed how people are forced out of there country for upwards of 17 years. In my second blogpost I did  my original research, where I interviewed Melissa Fleming of the UNHCR, and found even more information on the crisis. I found that the numbers of refugees is still increasing, showing no signs of slowing down. I found that refugees are having an even harder time getting out of their country, as many of the surrounding countries don’t want to allow too many people over their borders. Many groups, such as the UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) and the IRC (International Rescue Committee) are raising money towards helping refugees, and groups such as the IRC have been using social media to raise awareness of the issue. This being said, I still found that too many people know too little on the subject.

With the idea in mind of raising money, I saw that many of the organizations allowed people to donate money to them so they can get blankets, food, clean water, etc. to the refugees. I decided for my agent of change that I should help with this cause and donate money, as well as attempt to raise awareness of the issue. I decided to do a bake sale in my school, Science Leadership Academy, (SLA) to raise money and awareness. Although I only raised a small sum of fifty dollars for the refugees, I also was able to inform more people about the issue, and hopefully make more people realize that this issue is still going on, and that it is a serious problem, with people dying, and losing their families everyday. Although my Agent of Change was small, I hope that it had some impact on the issue.

The donation screen on the UNHCR website.

I’ve never been a big fan of using hashtags to try and make change happen.

I’ve never even been one to try and make change happen, so I guess my opinion is an outlier that shouldn’t be counted.

Especially since I’m a huge hypocrite when under stress.

In my previous two posts, the talk of cosplay enforced sexual harassment was the focus. In the first post, I mentioned people who were faced with the harassment, and why it’s important to know about. In the second post, I showed results to a survey I sent out to 25 cosplayers, asking them about their experiences.

I’ve mentioned a group called Geeks for CONsent a few times in the past posts, as well. They’re a group of two girls, cosplayers, that have booths set up at conventions and raise awareness about sexual harassment at conventions; such as trying to help place stronger rules against it in Convention rules. They’ve also given people a place to talk about their experiences, and even get help with it; almost like a convention buddy system. No one goes alone.

For my agent of change, I decided to go against myself and use a tag on a social media site called Tumblr.

I had rounded up a group of people and asked them to reblog/repost photos that were posted by cosplayers and tag it with:

Which would eventually link back to a post made describing the project.

(Original post found here)

Out of the people recruited, only a few actually got back to me with their participation.

The following screenshots (along with the links to the original posts with the cosplay featured, not posted directly due to personal rights.) are the few I gathered.

Original posts found here, here, and here.

Original posts found here, here, here and here

Originally, I had planned to do a video. It was to be a public service announcement type thing, where cosplayers sent photos of themselves with signs in cosplay and talked about the things they’ve gone through if they wanted. But, sadly, not many people actually wanted to take part, or just didn’t have the time. So the idea flopped/

However, a few people have given me the permission to use their photos for example. Credit being given where asked, of course. (They’re actually both from the same fandom- how funny is that?)

(http://that-multishipping-choirboy.tumblr.com)

Since starting this project, I’ve grown a lot more involved with this community. This project has changed my outlook on things, and made me realize that people become really good at covering things up about themselves until they’re actually asked about it. It’s also made people feel more comfortable with themselves. By talking about it with someone, they’re willing to face people with confidence, and they’re not afraid anymore. I think I can call this a success.

Moving forward, I think it’d be a good idea to keep this tag going, to try and expand it and make it a normal thing to do.

Make it kind of… a safe word.

There’s still a lot to do with preventing sexual harassment all together, not just at conventions alone, but we’re still fighting for it. And that’s what matters.