Visual Aids and Current Event Connection: Kelsey Schweibert

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I chose this picture of a person holding the globe, because often times I think that we forget to zoom out of our own bubble, whether it is in our community, our schools, or even in our own countries. We often forget to look at the large picture and implications of our actions. Our citizenship does not just stop with our hometown or our nationality, it reaches globally and change does not need to stop/ignored just because we cannot see it. 

 

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For this image, it reminded me of the idea in the book where it mentions, “that to actively participate in community endeavors, people have opportunities to practice Collaborating with others, reaching a Common Purpose and learning to work through Controversy and Civility.” No one person is the same, and embracing people’s differences and coming together to work towards the same common goal is key to its success. 

Current Event: 

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     For my current event I chose a show that airs on ABC, called Secret Millionaires. The concept of the show is for these millionaires to leave their well-off lifestyles, and for one week they are thrown into an environment of complete poverty. They eat on a next to nothing budget, they live in bad neighborhoods, and most importantly, they spend the week volunteering in these run down cities, of which no one knows they are millionaires. After the week is up, they have a completely new outlook on money and life, and they donate large checks to their favorite organizations they spent time at during their week visit.

     This show immediately connected me to multiple Forms of Individual Civic Engagement. However two of them really stuck out to me. The first of which, was Community Research, these millionaires go into cities that they know nothing about and for one week they emerge themselves to try and understand and become part of the community as to gain knowledge about what can/needs to be done to help the current social problems. The other is the more obvious of the two, Philanthropic Giving, the giving of money to organizations within the community that are honestly making a full-fledged effort to create a change is something that sadly, is hard to come by in today’s economy, this show promotes people to make a conscious effort to give more than they receive, and help those that need it most.

     Secret Millionaires is a show that promotes people from stepping outside of their comfort zone, and joining in communities to become citizens to help make a difference. It is easy to get caught up in our own lifestyles, it is much harder to step out and open our eyes to the world around us when it needs help. 

http://abc.go.com/shows/secret-millionaire/episode-detail/sean-belnick-new-york/993429

and

http://abc.go.com/shows/secret-millionaire