Advocacy Tools

As I am putting the finishing touches on my PSA, I came to my blog only to realize I must not have officially "published" my Advocacy Tools assignment from last week.  

While researching for my policy brief, I found out about the campaign through End Hunger CT! called the "Outreach Blitz" that would take place on July 8.  As I continued to read about the need for volunteers, both virtually and on foot, I thought about how I could help.  Due to work commitments, I was unable to "pound the pavement" and handout fliers in Hartford like I would have liked to do.  However, I did participate in the "virtual blitz" which entailed the use of social media, Facebook, Twitter, (and I even used Pinterest!) to spread the word about the summer meal programs for children 18 and younger in CT.  

What I learned is that participation in this program is vital to is existence.  Federal funding may be pulled for next year if we do not get a better turn out for this meal program.  It i

s vital for the program, and for the children and families to take advantage.  Families who during the school year rely on free and reduced lunches, often turn to he food pantry during the summer to feed their family, but the food banks do not necessarily have the supplies to sustain the increase in consumption.  With education and awareness, families could take advantage of this program. The best avenue for me to spread the word, and where I think I could be most useful, is through social media.  Some of my "friends" on Facebook are local news anchors, and I have "liked" many pages about CT and others localities where you can post about happenings.  Utilizing these avenues, it would be my goal to remind those in the media to get the word out to the public about the program throughout the summer...not just now...but throughout the summer.

Policy Brief Topic

After consideration over the past couple of days, I have decided to narrow the focus for my policy brief to wellness programs in schools, with a particular emphasis on nutrition.  Historically, this topic has political connections as, for example, the government interjected at the state and national levels to see to it that students where receiving adequate nutrition throughout their school day and would supplement lunches (and breakfasts where available) with free and reduced meals.

I will also seek to reveal the gaps in the education process of wellness programs within school systems as the school systems.  In my own school community, there are several different departments that teach nutritional wellness, including Family-Consumer Science, Health, Physical Education, and the Cafeteria itself has a campaign for wellness...but I am curious what the crossover is.  How often do these departments talk with each other and do their standards and objectives about nutritional wellness align? Are we as a school community, who is governed ultimately by the state and national Board of Education sending mixed messages to America's youth about nutritional wellness? If so, what policies would ameliorate this?

Module 2: Rights Based Approach

    As I began to think about and consider the specific challenges and strengths that I and other women in my community face, I found it interesting that my first reaction was "I feel like there is gender equality".  I take pause and examine this reaction of mine, because the truth of the matter is that, although I may feel that there is gender equality, my baseline for gender equality is recent history where gender inequality was rampant and the social norm.  Women today, in 2013, still only make 77 cents to the dollar that men make in the same or similar fields...this cannot represent equality, in fact mathematically it does not.  

     I also found it interesting that I could not think of any other "challenges" that I face as a woman in my community, and then I thought about what Ife referred to as "structural disadvantage" where people do not necessarily know or understand that they are victims of oppression because it is so interwoven in the structure of society.  I wonder if I as a woman simply accept some of the challenges that I face on a daily basis, not as challenges but as life and "how it is".  Perhaps in the future, I will look back at this as "history" and be able to compare the advancements that our society has made.

    In the summer of 2007, I travelled to Peru and spent the summer volunteering in schools and orphanages.  I speak Spanish, and I was able to gain a great understanding of the culture, especially the gender inequality that is still quite pervasive.  Although no man in the community would come forth and admit that they treat women differently, or poorly (structural disadvantage) there is a dark cloud of machoism that hangs heavy over the society and culture.  Women are expected to cook, clean, and care for the the children.  In conversation with a man one day in Trujillo, a city eight hours north of Lima, told me, "a university education is wasted on a woman if she is going to have children"  meaning that her life would become solely about raising her family and taking care of her children.  

    On a whole, the government and society in Peru is trying to realize a greater good for women.  There are campaigns getting started to raise awareness about feminism and equality rights for women, but like Ife describes, there is going to need to be a shift in thinking for generations and for the society as a whole in order for real change to occur. These social campaigns, are to raise awareness and educate women of their rights as individuals so as to protect themselves.  The Peruvian government has dedicated a special group to women so as to address the issues of gender inequality that are gaining world-wide infamy.  MIMP, which stands for Ministerio de la Mujer y Poblaciones Vulnerables (Ministry for Women and Vulnerable Populations) is responsible for reaching out to the public and creating campaigns, and ultimately policy that will protect the rights of women. 

    In my community, I feel fortunate that such blatant gender inequity is not a problem, or at least I do feel that my rights as an individual woman are protected by the laws that govern our country.  I feel that those laws, however, were not always in place and I am reverent to the women that came before me that worked hard in the name of feminism and equality.  These women, my family members included, acted as agents of change by involving themselves in the process.  It is difficult to recognize that one is or has been made a victim of some wrong-doing.  However, once one realizes that the wrong-doing is going on on a large scale, it is one's duty to empower themselves and future generations in order to ensure that change is created.  

   Women on a whole can act as agents of change every single day.  It is as Ghandi has taught, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."  

References

Estado del Peru. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.peru.gob.pe/directorio/pep_directorio_ent_busq.asp

Ife, J. (2008). Human Rights and Social Work: Towards Rights-Based Practice (rev. edition). Cambridge

Module 1 Think Tank: Minimum Wage

1. How will each choice (to raise the MW or to keep it the same) serve the higher order principles of our society? 

2. Which option will be the best result for the most people?

3. Is there a way in which we can have more than one right answer to appease various perspectives and still serve those that depend on the minimum wage for survival?

It is vitally important that policy makers consider the Ethical Principles Screen as they create social policy at the macro level that stands to affect and influence millions of lives.  It is crucial to examine how each choice, raising or maintaining the minimum wage, will affect the lives of constituents in all of the ways outlined in the Ethical Principles Screen.  With that information and detailed, bipartisan discussion, lawmakers can hopefully come to an agreement about what will serve the people in the most holistic manner possible, rather than serve their own political interests.  

This brings me to my next question, sparked by Rawls's Distributive Justice Theory.  Policy makers must figure out which choice will yield the best result for the most people.  One way of figuring this out is to answer question one honestly, and another way of doing this is looking at hard data, so there is no emotion or politics involved.  

My third question is asked as a compromise of sorts.  Can there be more than one right answer? Of course you must draw a line in the sand and say decide to raise or maintain the minimum wage, however policy makers could also choose to do so in a certain time frame, like at the beginning of the next fiscal year.  Or perhaps there could be an amendment to this bill that states that for all people working at a job for over 90 days, the minimum wages increases.  There are options, and policy makers should always consider everything so as to serve their constituents in the most holistic manner possible. 

Introduction

Hi Social Policy II Cohort Members!
Welcome to my blog! I Hope that we are able to learn a lot from each other through this course and affect change in a meaningful way.
Peace,
Amy