3rd World Farmer: The Real Experience.

The game is about how a third world farmer and how his family can survive and face the challenges. It’s about making the right decisions to help your family thrive for a sustainable future. In the game you are given a certain amount of money and expected to give medication, buy items, and crop so that for the next year you will have enough money to fulfill your basic need and more. You are given the chance to send your child to a school, for a better future, and knowledge to your future generations. You are also given the chance to medicate your family, but at a high cost. You have to consider the economic and environmental effect of your decisions. A short term decision is when you are spending or making a decision just for the time being, and not thinking of the side effects that might harm your future. Example of a short-term decision you might make in the game is providing you and your family food for the day or month, because eventually you run out of food and you aren’t thinking about the future but thinking about having a meal. Someone could be stuck in a cycle of poverty by not thinking about harvesting the right crops, that might help in the future, and buying the cheap crops that won’t give much income. With no income they can’t buy tools and send their kids for an education, to have a bright future. To get out of the cycle of poverty most people are helped with external investments like dancing for tourists, joining the army and planting illegal substances. Long- term decisions keep your future generations intact and help have sustenance. They are really good because they help insure your future, and guarantee you that your future is secure, and you might have money to educate, feed and work. When thinking long- term, you get to educate your children, have healthy food which increases the amount of work you do, which then leads to more income. I learned how hard it is for people living in a situation like the families in the game, how hard it is to make long- term decisions and for them to actually work. The SLR that best suites this game would be reasoning critically. This is so because you have to make the right decisions and reason critically to help the family to secure their future. This is a great game that you can really learn from, it shows the needs of people living in the third world, a way of living that normal people like us forget, a desperate need of basic needs that we don’t even think about in our day to day lives. We can’t know how hard an everyday life of people living in third world, but this game is a great way to connect and understand their situation.

3rd World Farmer Picture: http://ict4peace.files.wordpress.com/2006/05/Smaller.jpg

Playing for a change. Really changing?

As Mark Johnson says “We have to inspire each other, to come together as a human race and music is the best way to do this.” After listening to the songs on http://playingforchange.com/ , it made me realize how music can really bring together people and cultures. No matter what their language, no matter what their accent, they sound beautiful. People connect better with their likes and dislikes, for these people music is the way. People learn cultures, people learn about music and people start to respect each other. It is amazing how they go around the entire world, at different times record the music and merge it together to make it sound good. They organization opened their first ever music school, giving them more popularity and creating a bigger impact. I think this a great organization and a very good idea to help bring peace to the world.

24,000- 10,000= Change is Happening.

Finally, change is happening. As UNICEF said "And the efforts to keep children healthy are becoming more effective as time goes by, says the UN Children Fund (UNICEF), which released the latest numbers last week." Over 10, 000 fewer children are dying every day, because of the attempt and hard work UNICEF has put into this project, to create a change and decrease the number of infant mortality rates. This is great news. It means that we as a community, we as a world can stop child deaths, caused by preventable diseases. And the goal set, to end poverty and end child deaths by 2015 can be successfully accomplished. By holding vaccinations camps, giving out bed nets preventing malaria and installing water pumps around villages, less children are unhealthy and have a better and longer life to live. Obviously the country leaders had a huge part in letting UNICEF enter various countries and villages to hold different activities, but are all countries letting this happen? Are all country leaders taking under consideration the promise they made 9 years ago? After reading the article and giving it a little thought I realized how things are really changing. 24, 000 is a lot of children, but now 10, 000 of those survive, because we are trying, because we are helping. But is it enough? I think we need to end this completely, but what am I doing, saying this doesn’t change things, getting involved does. So try to help, cause it will change the world.

Response to film- What big ideas did I get from it? Why is peace so important?

This film left a big impact on me, and hopefully everyone whose watched it. He has a great message. His action changed the world, and I absolutely love what he said in the video "And that's what's important, every human being, because if you can find it in yourself to do something for peace day, September 21st no matter how big or small then together we can create a day of global unity, and that unity will save lives." – Jeremy Gilley. I too think all it takes is one little step, even as small as making a commitment on their website. I think peace is important because it’ll save millions of lives. It’ll change people drastically, making them think about their actions. It’s astonishing how the Taliban’s actually said they wouldn’t interrupt the day and go with the flow, making peace with everyone, at least for one day. The film left me with goose bumps all over my arms, making me think about the importance of making peace.