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            I have already begun to start my project for change, which is to educate myself and to bring awareness to my topic. Last Wednesday, May 16, I joined a group called Fuerza. This group is part of a larger organization called Juntos, which is a community of Latino immigrants in Philadelphia who strive to earn human rights in the fields of labor, education, and immigration. The group I joined consists of several other teenagers who have come to educate themselves about the topic of immigration rights and fight for their rights.

            I first heard of Fuerza through my cousin who was in the group. I asked her about the group and I made a decision to go to the weekly meetings. At the meeting we had a speaker from CNS (Campaign for Nonviolent Schools). We talked about the decrease in the amount of counselors in high schools and the budget cuts and how it affect the community of immigrants. Another thing we discussed was the high drop out rates among Latinos.        

To quote New York Senator Bill Perkins “Charter schools came on board with the promise that they could do better for less… No sooner than they became they started advocating for more money…they began advocating to be a part of those public schools, to take over those public schools. So it’s a switcheroo kind of a thing. They came in with one expectation, and now they’re in the public schools creating all kinds of chaos. And the Mayor is closing down schools, with the plan of putting in these charter schools. And I think it’s outrageous that they’re getting paid so much.” 

Private corporations who are only looking to make money are running our schools. Does anyone else find anything wrong with this statement?

Which company the schools actually go to is still undecided. Some ideas that are floating around include having “Achievement Networks” and decisions about schools would be made within each. These decisions would be about curricula, discipline, staffing, supplies, etc. As retired teacher, education activist, and writer said Lisa Haver said in a Daily News article “District officials have admitted that this new system would do nothing to lessen the deficit…. A bidding process would determine who controls each network. Anyone may be chosen: former district personnel, charter school operators, corporations, or politicians including State Rep. Dwight Evans, who last year bullied one charter school behind closed doors in order to override the choice of parents at Martin Luther King High School. How have we arrived at a point where the public school system can be auctioned off to the lowest bidder?”

I am strongly against the privatization of public schools. After doing even further research, I learned that when a school becomes privatized, they no longer have to be transparent to the taxpayers who support it. They don’t have to release the salaries of the CEO’s or staff, do not have release whether or not they have the required level of certified teachers, and do not have to say whether or not those teachers are even teaching the subject they are certified in.

In some ways, I wish I could talk to the SRC. I would have plenty questions for them. How am I supposed to learn geometry from a certified gym teacher?  How am I supposed to become a member of by global community, and an active, contributing citizen if my government doesn’t value my education? How can I trust the SRC to be a powerful advocate for my education if, as Lisa Haver said, “its policies can be dictated by billionaires with deep pockets and rigid contracts”? 

You can find my bibliography here.

STDs are one of the most dangerous diseases to have. It makes you very sick, and you won’t be able to grow up to have babies because you won’t be able to have intimacy because of the risk of giving the disease to other people. Especially if you are a teenager. One in every four female in the U.S has a case of STD. Between the years of 1997 and 2011 the percentage of teens with STDs jumped a total of 53 percent.

There is a theory for the reason as to why teens get STDs. Children go through puberty earlier because of  better nutrition, and the immature cervix of teenage girls is especially vulnerable to infection. Psychology: Kids with raging hormones think they are invincible and take stupid risks. Sociology: Children who grow up in the inner city take risks because they can’t imagine a decent future. Technology: Better screening detects more STDs. Poverty: A lack of access to medical care means those infected won’t know they have an STD and will continue to spread it. Culture: Casual high school hookups have replaced the romance of dating. The media: Kids are being sexualized in ads, movies and on the Internet. All these reasons can be a possible factor as to why kids get STDs. Or maybe it’s that they weren’t raised with the mindset that we were given by our parents not to have sex and to use a condom when we do.

Personally, when it comes to this topic i blame the parents. It’s supposed to be their job to tell the child to job to tell the child about the dangers of STDs and how they can be prevented. My theory is that the parents of these teenage children with the disease is that they don’t care, or they too have experience with more than one partner. i believe that if parents warn their children and teach them the rights from wrongs in intimacy, the teenage rate of STDs would be a lot shorter.

As I go about with my research i still wonder lots of things about teenage STDs. Why are teenagers more subject to getting affected. How was this disease first discovered, and how is it best treated? These thoughts are going all through my head and want to be answered.

What is Human Trafficking? It’s the form of slavery in which people control and exploit other human beings in order to create a profit.

Why is this a problem? Because until slavery and trafficking is fully abolished, the world is not a free one. Because no matter where the slavery is in the world, our freedom depends on the abolishment of it. Because, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, ‘no man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.’

Since my last post, I've taken some time to conduct some research outside of school. As it turns out, 1 out of every 5 people that I interviewed, between the ages of 14 and 18, didn't even know that Human Trafficking was a large world issue.  

Where is Human Trafficking occurring? Everywhere. Almost every single country on the planet is affected in some way by Human Trafficking. This map shows only a segment of the trafficking trade around the world:

            While I was trying to promote my survey, I was also doing more research into the world of social networking and found that many businesses use social networking as a way to raise support, awareness and money. According to a reporter Debbie Miller, when marketers were asked if social networking was important to their business, 62% of them said, “strongly agree” and 28% “agree”. In addition, she made a chart about the pros of social networking in business:

 Hello everyone again I come to you with my 2^nd post on government spending on prisoners vs. students. One of my main issues is the fact that the government gives convicted killers, rapists, kidnappers, etc. health care that a lot of kids in America don’t have and food housing and more opportunities that most kids don’t get. Some new info I picked up is about private prisons. Although they are beneficial to saving money it also has its faults. For starters the security is very bad in some places as it said 3 murderers had escaped before. Also with private prisons they put high profile prisoners in low security places.

This added to my knowledge because although it’s good to use private prisons for financial reasons it is not for safety purposes. It costs less if the government pays a private prison rather than run it themselves. In my opinion safety comes 1^st cause if we aren’t safe than having money means nothing. After we get our security up to protect the people then we can worry about money. Although we can solve the safety issue by just putting low profile prisoners in the private prisons with medium security and leaving the high profile prisoners in the max security prisons. I have an idea that could work but it would take a lot of work and maybe money but the results will benefit us in the long run. 

  What if we built an island like Alcatraz and put all the high profile prisoners and low profile prisoners there with no resources to help them escape and a high wall around the perimeter with sharks swimming around so they wouldn’t try to escape that way. In the long run we would save billions because they wouldn’t have to keep building new prisons and prison cells and also having to pay guards to watch over them. I think this could work if we perfect what my main idea is and if we put the time and effort into it. I wonder if any other people care about this topic as much as I do. I am going to ask teachers and principals if they can help me get in touch with government officials to help this problem get fixed. My bibliography 

• The organization called ACLU which stands for ( American Civil Liberties Union ) brought their first LGBT case in the year of 1936.

• The ACLU is an organization that helps people that are for example Lesbian,Gay,Bisexual, and Transgender. It helps them towards enjoying their constitutional rights of equality, privacy, personal independence, and also freedom of expression.  

• Then, there's this project, the LGBT project that includes the society of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and lastly Transgender and this project was found on the year of 1986.  

• Last but not least, there is plenty of support for the LGBT community and throughout the nation there are over 700 LGBT clubs including in colleges and even on their own college campuses. Which means that people like this are never alone.

1. I don’t like it but, it’s life.
2. I’m cool with that.
3. I look at them the same way I look at others, equality!
4. Equality.
5. I don’t think nothing about them, it’s fine.
6. Aye everybody is on their own.
7. I don’t have a problem with them.
8. It’s okay we need to respect it, we all have the right.
9. Long live homosexuality.
10. Don’t know.
11. I don’t agree with it , because they’ll mess up my kid.
12. I’m not in favor of it because god made both a man and a woman. I’m against it.
13. I believe everyone is titled to their own opinion.
14. If they want to be like that let them be, it’s not you.
15. I think it’s just people who are born different, with a different sexuality then others. They should be able to have all the rights that straight people have no matter what.
16. I say leave them alone. They’re people too.
17. I think it is a touchy topic, schools need to be more prepared to support students who might be/might not be sure....whether or not people support it, we need to support the children.

            In case you’re just visiting my blog for the first time, I will reiterate what this entire blog is focused around, the current, and rising murder rate in Philadelphia. As said in my previous post, this is a serious epidemic for any Philadelphia citizen, and everyone should be aware of the danger that people everywhere are faced with from most of the useless violence that surrounds them.

Now since my last blog entry I have done some more research in my local area about one of the major safety precautions that each block, in each neighborhood, in each part of the city should have; a neighborhood watch. Through my research, and investigation I have found out that my personal area does have a neighborhood watch. But honestly, what is the point of having a neighborhood watch, if they will not do much to keep the neighborhood safe. For example, after talking with my teacher Ms. Dunn, and her telling me that not only does her area have a neighborhood watch, but also they are almost always on duty, and they are well known in the area, I realized that I didn’t even know if my area had a neighborhood watch. That in itself obviously shows a lack of work being done when most people in the neighborhood doesn’t even know their neighborhood watch exists. Even when going to my mother, she didn’t know that we had a neighborhood watch. I had to go about 4 doors down from my house before one person even said that we do.

With this realization that my own block doesn’t have an active neighborhood watch, but doesn’t have that much violence, it led me to guess that some of the areas in Philadelphia that are much more violent most likely do not have any kind of neighborhood watch, and I think that could make a major difference if these areas were to get one. I personally believe that a certain area is not bad, it is those few people in that area that are bad, that cause an entire area to be stereotyped as a “bad” neighborhood. With a neighborhood watch, these areas would have more of a grip on those people that give that area a bad name, and in turn could eventually change the reputation of that area.

I truly believe that Philadelphia is not a completely violent city. Even though it has had an increasingly high murder rate, Philadelphia as a whole population is not to blame. It is that of the individuals who cause the violence’s fault. These individuals are the ones who give Philadelphia this reputation, and the number of these individuals could be lowered if neighborhood watch existed in EVERY neighborhood.

Although I have learned a lot, there are a few things I am still left wondering about when it comes to the Philadelphia violence. I am still wondering where exactly in Philadelphia are they’re the most homicides. I am also wondering what exactly the Mayor has been trying to do to stop, or try and drop the homicide rate in Philadelphia.

My bibliography available here.

I wish to speak to someone about La Tomatina. Mostly everyone I talk to is from Spain, so I want to ask someone about this.

Mis preguntas son 

¿Tú sabes sobre "la tomatina"?

¿Qué tipo la gente assiste?

¿Tú pagas asistir?

I think La Tomatina sounds so amazing so I'm excited to hear about it from natives. 

I'm not really nervous about anything, the people are not intimidating.

I chose to speak with Jeff who is from Spain and is 20 years old. This was the first time I had spoken with him.

This interaction helped me toward my personal goals because I really just want to feel comfortable conversationally speaking and a topic about something they experience falls within that. 

I spoke with Jeff for a long time, but I include the best piece of our conversation

Hello readers! My name is Amy Farrell and this is my second blog post about an issue I care very deeply about, testing on animals. If you wish to read my first post, click here

Since my last post, I have found several new websites with useful information on them. Also, I have found things you could replace animal testing with. Before, when a woman had a pregnancy test done, the laboratory procedure involved killing a rabbit. Now, you can buy a home pregnancy test over the counter with no harm to animals. Instead of dissecting real frogs or animals for a science classroom, there are many online  alternatives such as this. For some skin tests, scientists have developed a synthetic skin that can be used in place of animal skin. If the test is not that dangerous, they will do it on human volunteers under serious supervision. Some people argue that these methods cost more, but in reality they cost less. The scientists do not have to keep buying and breeding and cleaning up after animals anymore. The question is, why don’t they just stick to alternative methods? 

I believe they don’t use the alternates  because they are afraid. If the test goes wrong they could get into a lot of trouble. What many people don’t realize, is that a little less than half of the tests that are conducted are inaccurate. For example, some companies test mascara on rabbits. One brand caused the rabbit to go blind, but they still sold it to customers anyway. 

By doing this project, I have discovered the many sides of animal testing. Some feel it is the worst possible thing that could happen, while others feel that it’s the only option they have. I hope that by reading my blog posts, it will help everyone become more educated and learn more about this topic.

      Hi are you sitting at home wondering what you want to do for the rest of your life? Just graduated college and don’t know what you want to do next? Well I definitely know how you feel. Hi my name is Jordyn Randall and Im in the 9^th grade. I’ve been thinking a lot about what job I would want to have now, my future and what I want to do after high school and even college. But I found out that its not easy to find a job and that there are 13.9 million people unemployed.

       In The major worker groups, the unemployment for adult men ( 7.5%), adult women ( 7.4%), teenagers ( 24.9%), whites ( 7.4%), and Hispanics ( 10.3%) showed hardly any change in April, although the rate for blacks ( 13.0%) declined over a month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 5.2% in April. This information hasn’t been shocking but considering that my race is the highest unemployed is disappointing but makes me want to strive to not be in this category.

I believe that some of this unemployment has something to do with taxation. Businesses pay more taxes in the U.S. than any where in the world. Many businesses are being truly crushed by this, which is also chasing businesses out of the country. Barack Obama has just proposed  a boost in unemployment taxes. I feel that this is going to make businesses not want to hire more employees.

There is a such thing as unemployment benefits though. Unemployment benefits are payments made by the state to unemployed people. Depending on the authority and the status of the person. The amount of money may be small, covering only central needs, also known as welfare. In some countries a proportion of unemployment benefits are divided by labor unions.

 After doing all this research I feel copying more money will get rid of all our problems because if people have more money they will buy more things and businesses will have more money. I also feel that we should just keep the prices of everything the same instead of raising the prices of things every year. I don’t think we should do both because that wouldn’t be to good for businesses.

   Did you know every 10 seconds of the day an animal is abused or tormented? Most of the domestic animals (cats and dogs) that are abused usually die because they don’t have the strength to live. Others that are abused are most of the times put out on the streets. To me this is just wrong. I’m not saying its right to abuse animals but if you do you should at least have the common courtesy to bring them too the Aspca (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.) Henry Bergh founded the ASPCA. His purpose of this organization was to and I state “to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.” I believe in his cause of preventing animal cruelty along the Unites States but he should have had bigger plans to expand the organization across the world.

    Studies by the AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION recognized that most of animal abuse cases aren’t intentional but were just incidence that were caught in between a human fight. They also found out that 71% of Women entering shelters with injured animals were the cause of their injuries. They beat the animal out of anger and frustration and they pass this behavior off to their children. Also, 70% of the animal abusers had past records of crime. Animal cruelty doesn’t just have to be beating animals but abuse can be animals living in bad conditions.  The SPCA investigates most of animal cruelty cases. Adoption services for animals need to do a better job and a background check before they give these beautiful animals away.

    These animals need your help! Go save an animal life today and spread the word. Go volunteer at your local Spca and give an animal a second chance at life.

 ​http://scienceleadership.org/blog/Animal_Abuse:3 <---Link to Blog 1

Bibliography

This is the you in the world project, and it is to help put a dent in homelessness. It is blog two, and is about opinions and more research. The research I did really helped me understand homelessness, and how it can affect anyone. Homelessness is defined as not having a set place to sleep in the nighttime. When I think of homelessness, I think of sleeping on the streets, and under overpasses. That is exactly what homelessness is. 

     Homelessness is in all parts of the city, and all neighborhoods. There were volunteers that went out yesterday, May 17 and counted 583 people in the nighttime were homeless. There were 50 volunteers, and they counted the homeless. That was just yesterday, but on any given day people can become homeless. I feel as though the citizens of Philadelphia could help the shelters, so that we can prevent some people from being homeless or becoming homeless. 

     My opinion on homelessness is that it can be prevented, or that the city can help some of these people. The only people or organizations that are helping the homeless are groups like Project HOME, SREHUP, the Office of Supportive Housing, and all homeless shelters. There are people who give the homeless food, and I applaud that, but the homeless need safe places to rest at night. I feel that all these abandoned building that are big enough can be turned into shelters, and places that are affordable for homeless people. 

     One thing that I didn’t like was the ban against feeding the homeless. Mayor Nutter was wrong for doing that, because everyone has the right to eat wherever they want. I am not homeless, but I can eat in public. So why is it that if you are homeless you only can get food from a shelter. That makes no sense to me. I feel that people should be able to share with anyone, even if they don’t have a home of their own. The reason there are so many homeless people alive, is because how generous other people are. So why would the Mayor make people, not help out others in need.

     Homelessness can affect anyone, men, women, children, and families. It doesn’t just happen to the lower class, it can happen to anyone. Now people can complain about homelessness, or the citizens can take action. Me personally, I am going to take action. I am going to help people in need not because it is the right thing to do, but because I would want someone to do the same for me. Homelessness is defined as not having a set place to sleep in the nighttime.

Welcome back! In the previous blog, I talked about all different kinds of bullying and how it can affect other people. If you didn’t read my first blog, click here. You wonder why you are reading the next set of the blog. Well in this blog, it will launch into a new journey. In this journey of blog 2, there will be more information, my perspective on bullying, and the understanding of the issue. Don’t hesitate and prepare yourself for the next adventure of massive bullying.

After all the researching of bullying, it had struck me because many students were criticized from all types of bullying. Many people don’t take things seriously, but it can cause other people into a serious problems. Dealing with bullying, there is no ending to what will happen next when hate is building up because the bully is hard when children and adults are being foolishness.

Gathering all new information about bullying, children who had been bullied change their personalities. The victims usually;

: Shy and quiet
: Will lose relationship with friends
: Bring weapons to school for vengeance
: Commit suicide

They rather end the anguish of being tortured everyday at school where they think it is easier for them to rest in peace.

Bullying is extremely wrong when the victims are being torture. The ones who bullied the victims are also hurting themselves because it shows how much they care about people. The fact when they don’t think how it can affect other people. I saw my friends, and other students in my school were bullied by verbal. Students talk trash to each other especially girls who gossips a lot about the clothes they wear. Also boys who thinks they are better than each other. It’s crucial for young children to die because family members will be really struck to the story of their child committing suicide. They only want their child to have a wonderful life for fulfilling their dreams in the future. The ones who are friends with the bullied are afraid to stand up for their friend who had been bullied because the next they will get bullied next, but it is important that standing up for themselves or their friends will might stop them from preventing bullying.

I always talked to people why they aren’t friendly. When they don’t listen and continue to threaten you, ignore them. Life is very precious where people can’t just end their life. I always think words can’t hurt me because there is a lot of things I want to experience instead of being depressed what people had said. I don’t care what kind of bully occurs in the show because there is no right where children hurt each other’s feelings for being better than others. Children come to school are being created equally with all respects. No matter what ethnicity, where you come from, the language you speak, personalities, etc, we are all human beings who are like each other’s.

 created a Google doc about bullying. On May17th, 2012 I had amass all the responses with multiple choices with short answers. The results shows how many people had been bullied, and if bully matters in the society.

“ I'll stand up for the weaker person. I don't care how that makes me look to other people, because at the end of the day I could've saved a life. What happens most of the time is people see it, think it's wrong, but never speak up.” This shows how deeply when people wanted to stand up for someone when he/she feels accomplish of helping the ones who get tease.” - Anonymous, age 15.

Please click on this survey and take couple minutes to respond. Remember, once you submit it will be anonymous. Thank you for your patients.

For more information, there will a website about signs of how people can identify of bullying.

Click here for a commercial  of bullying.  

For my sources, click here!

Stephen White Blog 2: 

My opinion on child sex trafficking is that it’s unacceptable. Honestly trafficking anyone is wrong. What joy do you get from taking advantage of a child? As they’re raping a child do they think that someone could be doing the same to theirs? Taking a child or an adult and using them for your own benefit is unjust. I learned that the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) is a federal law that criminalizes the act of human trafficking and was first signed into action in early 2000. In the U.S. the top 10 states that have the most children taken into the industry are: California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New York, District of Columbia, Ohio, New Jersey, Washington, and Virginia. 

Some new information I found was that an estimated $9.5 billion is generated in annual revenue from trafficking activities. Between 50 and 60 percent of children who are trafficked are under the age of 16. In Thailand it was found that 60 to 70% of child prostitutes are found to be HIV positive. The child sex trade is happening all around the world. The child sex trafficking is mostly in Cambodia, Moldova, Asia, Russia, Middle East, and rural parts of Brazil.

To add to my research I researched child sex trafficking more abroad. In my first blog I mainly focused on the child sex trade in America but in this blog I talked about where it’s mostly happening and my opinion on the subject. I’ve also found more charities that are here to help end the child sex trade that can be found here. Some things I’m still left wondering about is how the government plans on protecting children and adolescents from being traded internationally. I haven’t found the answer yet but I’ve been looking around.

My research has added to the understanding of my issue in many ways. I’ve noticed that people really are trying to stop this growing industry. It caught the attention of the White House and the world. MSNBC Dateline took a trip to Cambodia to find out more about the child sex trade. They found out that some children are born into poverty and their parents sold them into the child sex trade in exchange for money. Children as young as 5 years old are being traded. In Cambodia children as young as 12 years old are considered old in this industry. In Cambodia children are sold because of family struggles. Some are lured and kidnapped. 
If a child’s a virgin they can be worth as much as $600 because they’re pure. You’re allowed to keep the child for up to 3 days.

Here is the video of MSNBC Dateline’s trip to Cambodia to uncover the child sex industry.

Here is my the link to my bibliography

     About 20 to 30 percent of cats and dogs are adopted from shelters and rescues. 26 percent of dogs are bought from breeders. At least one-third of cats are acquired as strays, and more than 20 percent of people who leave dogs in shelters adopted them from a shelter.  There are about 5,000 animal shelter nation wide. Why can’t people understand that instead of going out and buying a dog from a pet store for hundreds to thousands of dollars you can just go to a shelter and adopted a pet that needs a home for only about hundred dollars.

   The top 10 reasons people in America get pets are to Teach kids about selflessness, Pets can increase your sense of security — personal, private, and psychological, Personal growth,  Need an excuse to get physical, Preparing for parenthood, Looking for a constant companion, It's a great way to meet people, Getting and giving unconditional love, Take a stand on a humanitarian cause, and the number one reason Pets are a prescription for good health. People don’t understand that you don’t have to go to a pet store and spend a lot of money to get this. You can go right to a shelter and get a dog or cat that can do the same things as if you bought one from a pet store.

   When you adopt from a shelter your giving a cat of dog a second chance. There are an estimated 3.7 million unwanted pets wanted pets must be euthanized at animal shelters every year, many because they could not find families to adopt them. Some people choose not to adopt animals because they think the animal they adopt will have bad behavior. This is not the case there are a number of reasons why pets arrive in a shelter, from losing their owner to being abused and rescued.

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