Extra Credit: The Next Step

I attended the event "The Next Step" put on by Justin Avery and the UH Hilo staff. It was fantastic. There was community dialogue and fantastic communication. I knew a lot of people that attended the event, some playing in the band "Musama" and some from school in general, not from this class in particular. It was great to connect with a lot a different people in general.

In the beginning, after Justin's powerpoint presentation, I had a fellow peer talk to me about the importance of conserving energy. At that moment I knew she was serious about what she did in her daily life and how she lived to become sustainable. I enjoyed sharing with her how I did so myself. In the beginning, when people were encouraged to speak freely over the microphone about how they were contributing to a more sustainable living I began to think of how my personal business contributed to the same effort. I will speak freely now because I am not in person, but I wanted to let everyone know that my salon is reducing waste by choosing to use organic products in our hair care line. I felt that the communication done in public by fellow students and community members had a positive impact by putting in perspective how each individual was contributing how they were becoming more sustainable peoples.

Having state senator Gary Hoosier speak at this event was inspirational. He promoted self-responsibility as a major culture shift into a sustainable lifestyle because we are responsible for showing up to voting for major issues that effect our way of living. Our civil duties as democratic individuals need to be accounted for in the voting polls so our state governments know what "we the people" believe in and support. Senator Hoosier made it an important point to register to vote and take part in the democratic process, because he supports many grass roots objectives such as cultural sustainability.

At the end of the event, a Muramba band played African music. The majority of participants danced. The communication in dancing Muramba enabled people to feel a connection with one another. We all danced in accordance to what we had felt, but I am sure that we all felt connected by the unique inspiration of others. There is a special connection that occurs when community dancing takes place, it transcends those sharing a space to a platform of unity and understanding. The scene becomes a space of creativity and acceptance, and thats where a place of sustainability can be nourished and practiced.

5.6: Final Projects

Viewing my other classmates final projects was exciting! We all worked hard to ensure success and motivation for others outside our class to live more sustainable lives. Great job, everyone. The project I found most exciting was done by my classmate, Jesse. Jesse worked on and is submitting a proposal to the University of Hawai'i Hilo to compost waste that is used in dining facilities. The proposal would require facilities to use eco-friendly products (i.e. plates, forks, napkins etc) and also compost materials that are considered compost.

In terms of communication, students who use these facilities would become more mindful of products they consume at home, and also may feel motivated to create their own composting centers to feed nutrients to trees, plants, or gardens. This shift of responsibility within the UH Hilo system to promoting less waste and proper use of bio degradable matter is one that will bring eco-awareness to people who do not think sustainably. I dialogue created by this project will get people talking to each other, and will learn from each other of how to do things. This in itself would allow a community of sustainability to form on campus and eventually off campus as well.

I learned that this project will take time, but also to bring ideas and proposals such as Jesse's to UH administrators that promote social change. It could be anything, and it is worth being heard and how these ideas can have a positive impact on campus as well as off campus. I'm just curious, but Jesse said they have already looked at a possible site to do the composting, I'm wondering where that location would be? As for an improvement, Jesse could market this proposal on campus to students by making it more known, so that the project is backed up and supported by the very students who are consuming products within the UHH facilities. Maybe create a facebook and start marketing this "cause" to students attending UHH. Anyways, WONDERFUL project, my favorite one indeed.

Group Two: FInal Project

On November 30th, my group presented our project “Plant It Forward” at a booth in campus center plaza on-campus. We gave away free plants (beans, corn, tomatoes, chives and native trees that we grew) as well as a gardening starter kits. Inside the kit were seeds, information on how to plant and care for them, as well as composting tips and tricks, pete moss, information on risks of genetically modified plants, community resources and our mission statement and what we wanted to see happen with our project. The idea of “Plant It Forward” is to encourage members of our community to sustain an organic garden and passing on plants from their garden to people they know so they too can promote sustainability through gardening.

We gave away 25 kits and spoke to people who visited our booth about growing their own food and to help promote sustainability by encouraging them to “Plant It Forward” after starting their own gardens. We had students as well as faculty visit our booth who praised our goals as well as showed excitement about our idea and mission. We explained that we have a website (www.plantitforward.wetpaint.com) that discusses our mission and goals to start a discussion and to share their personal experiences with us about how their gardening experience has been since receiving their starter kits. We collected email addresses from all the visitors of our booth so in the future we can contact them to see how our project has impacted them, as well as to encourage them to continue gardening by showing our progress through our group website.

Our group was able to communicate with people on-campus interpersonally during our event to promote a cultural shift to live a more sustainable life. We also felt that by creating our website, that we could contact these people in the future to track their progress. At the same time, we thought we could reach out to a larger population that may stumble upon on our site to see how a group of university students can, and has made a change in our community and to encourage others in their location to do the same. Since we are living in a time where online communication is a cultural aspect and priority for many people, we thought to use it to our advantage by promoting social change on a large scale. I feel that our project was a total success and I am thrilled to have worked with ‘Alohi, Patrick, Robbie and Jessica. We utilized leadership skills from our “Beyond You & Me” readings, as well establishing conflict management strategies to ensure group success.

Extra Credit: Invisible Children

I attended the "Invisible Children" film showing last week at UH Hilo. The documentary was about African American children being kidnapped by gorilla fighters in Uganda. The civil war in Uganda has been the longest standing war in Africa, hundreds of thousands of people have and are still being displaced. Entire villages have and are still being massacred and young children are kidnapped and trained to fight in the gorilla army. A group of young southern Californian students have documented this war, and they are spreading the message to end the conflict in Uganda by using media and the internet to propose social change to affected regions, as well as educating the American public.

How does this relate to communication and sustainability? When people are affected by war (i.e. being displaced, murdered, forced to live in poor conditions, etc) their ways of sustaining their lives are forcefully changed. They can no longer harvest crops because they are in constant fear of their villages being invaded and destroyed. They live in over populated areas in poor living conditions. These people cannot settle down too long because of constantly moving to "safer" areas. Their idea of sustainability has shifted from living a sustainable life to trying to just sustain their actual lives.

It is important to make this issue known to the larger global community to stop the violence in Uganda and restoring peace. The global community has to do something about this social issue because the Ugandan government has tried to end the violence but the gorilla captain refuses to sign any peace treaties. Unfortunately, this may need to be done forcefully, but it needs to happen soon because the quality of peoples lives is being ruined.

After the film was over, we had a short discussion of how we can help here in Hilo. We were given a website www.invisiblechildren.com to look at, also to give donations and possibly starting up a foundation here in Hilo to help raise money to support education programs that are being built. The people involved in the "Invisible Children" effort are unpaid volunteers, who are willing to make the lives of these children visible to the global community. There were two individuals that had made some radical comments about how these efforts are useless and a waste of time. A lively debate ensued and resolved when they were asked to be respectful and listen to other peoples comments. I even wondered why they attended this event if they didn't believe in it, just to argue with people who want to help make a change. I later concluded that these two individuals were possibly frustrated with the situation, because they just wanted the man responsible for kidnapping children to be killed. Violence will never lead to peace and sustainability but rather keep the viscous cycle of hate and fear in place. Nonviolent communication has proven to be the key in this movement, and I believe in time, that the people in Uganda will be able to live in peace once again.

Extra Credit: Climate Pledge of Resistance

Some people are about to risk arrest on November 30th by demonstrating civil disobedience to ensure climate justice worldwide. In the first two weeks of December, world leaders will be meeting in Copenhagen to discuss carbon emissions and to set goals to reduce air pollution. Unfortunately, talking about it isn't going to cut it. People worldwide are acting NOW in grassroots movements to shut down coal factories and preventing talks on reducing emissions because justice for the climate is not being reinforced and actions are not taken. The message is that reducing carbon emissions needs to happen NOW and talking about it for several more years is not going to get anywhere.

The media is being used by providing information about grassroots movements worldwide. There are dates and places where they are going to occur. Also, there is downloadable media provided at the website http://www.beyondtalk.net/where people can obtain more information. Also, there is a place provided on the website where you can sign up for newsletters for future demonstrations and information on the status of climate justice.

I have not heard about this movement because it hasn't been published online by any large media organizations. Also, it may have been on national television but I don't watch t.v. so I could have missed it. In my opinion, I think that this event should be highly publicized so more people can be informed and choose to organize or attend events. Also, what is the Big Island community doing on November 30th to be a part of this worldwide movement? Now that I am aware of this event, I will begin to ask people in the community if they know of any demonstrations that will take place in town, or if they could direct me to more information regarding this matter. Hopefully, by talking with others, I might influence people to look up the CPR website so they could become aware of this movement and its purpose.

Extra Credit: Puna Sustainability Expo

A friend and I attended the Puna Sustainability Expo this past Saturday. Despite the down pour, strong winds and cold temperature, we enjoyed the vendors and their ideas on how to live a more sustainable life. As soon as we arrived, my friend and I had to help a vendor chase down one of his baby chickens that had escaped from its cage. I didn't imagine that the expo would have had so much excitement.

When my friend caught the chicken and returned it to the owner, he discussed the benefits of having chickens. First of all, you never have to purchase eggs from the supermarket. You can eat them when they are matured, and also use their manure as fertilizer for your garden. We also got information on composting (tables had brochures available), portable water filtration and purification, and a recycling guide made just for Hawa'i.

There were a few booths that promoted energy sustainability. One man had information on solar water heaters, another on the benefits of geothermal energy to simply changing your light bulbs in your home to LED lights. All of which use nature to provide energy and another just simply using less energy to operate.

One vendor in particular caught my attention. She was promoting sustainability through health (a section we had covered in one of our modules). She had a small sign that read "Unhealthy people cannot sustain themselves or their resources" which is very true! How can one possibly be conscious enough to live a sustainable life when they are leading a destructive, personal lifestyle to begin with? She had information on where to find AA groups, drug counseling, resources for quitting tobacco and how being healthy can lead to awareness and living a sustainable life.

The event was wonderful. It is important for our community to hold events such as this expo in particular. Through communication, people can meet and share their ideas and resources to show how the culture of sustainability is beneficial and possible. Relationships created at such functions promote community strength and networks for people to help guide one another through the challenges of becoming more socially responsible for living a sustainable life.

5.5: Podcast

After listening to the podcast, I found that living a sustainable life is a constant challenge. Given the culture we live in now, it does become difficult to do things that require less consumption because of time constraints. I would have to agree with Dr. Becker that giving up my vehicle would be the most difficult to do. I also am an independent person and I have a lot of energy, so when I feel like surfing, I need to drive there as quickly as possible then get back to either my work or school on time. I think by challenging ourselves to become more sustainable through communication, we can build relationships with people who think like us, and we as a group can make a change in our daily lives and hopefully influence the community that we live in.

This is the second online course that I have taken from UH Hilo, and I will admit that this experience has been the best. I also believe that we are beyond testing, so having the freedom to take responsibility for our assignments and posting our responses on a blog is more meaningful then a test. Since our blogs are not limited just to our class, people from anywhere in the world can access our ideas and thoughts and begin to question how they will have an impact on the world. Sustainability can be encouraged through this mass form of communication by allowing people to access and comment on our blogs, or to request further information. The age of the internet and it's function in education is only going to grow, and I am thankful for the opportunity to learn how to access and use this form of communication to express my thoughts.