~Rigoberta Menchú es una mujer de Guatemala quien lucha por los derechos humanos. Ella ganó el Nobel de la paz. Ella nació en pobreza y sus padres fue asesinatos.  

~Los dos fue exilió. No usan violencia, y luchan por los derechos humanos.

-Se tomaron en Guatemala.

¿Cuándo se tomaron?

-Se tomaron cuando fue un ocupación de la militaría. 

-No hay personas en el ciudad.

¿Qué pasa en la segunda imágen? ¿Quiénes son?

-La militaría es en control de los mujeres. Creo que el fotos son sus hijos.

-Ellos caminan en un montaña y son amigos.

-Es caliente, hay arboles.

2) Si fueras Venezolan@, ¿votarías por él? Explica tu respuesta.

Votaría por él por qué creo que el gobierno de Hugo Chávez esta trabajando. No necesitas arregle que no es roto.

Everybody knows that a rich single guy wants to get married. So if one of these guys moves into a neighborhood, the families living nearby usually consider this poor guy the rightful property of their daughter.

"Honey," Mr. Bennet's wife said to him one day, "did you hear- somebody's finally rented out Netherfield Park!" 

Mr. Bennet answered that no, he hadn't heard.

"It's true!" she said, "Mrs. Long was just here and she told me all about it."

Mr. Bennet took another sip of his soda.

"Don't you want to know who's renting it?" whined Mrs. Bennet.

"Well you obviously want to tell me so go ahead."

Mr. Bennet's reply was just the amount of prodding his wife needed, and she went on.

"Okay, so Mrs. Long told me that Netherfield was just rented by this rich young guy from Northern England. He came down on monday in a fancy car to see the place and he loved it so much that he agreed with Mr. Morris that very day. He's going to move in by Michaelmas, and some of his servants are going to be here by the end of next week!"

"What's his name?"

"Bingley."

"Is he married or single?"

"Oh, he's single all right! A single man with a large fortune; four or five thousand a year. Oh, what a wonderful thing for our girls…" Mrs. Bennet smiled excitedly.

"How so? What does he have to do with them?"

"Oh honey," his wife answered, "how can you be so stupid! Obviously I mean that he should marry one of them."

"Oh, is that why he moved here?" Mr. Bennet replied sarcastically.

The queen decided to leave the castle and go to a quiet place in the woods where there was a stream. This place had a cottage that had been built many years ago. She brought with her another woman, her best friend, to help her. The plan was for the woman to raise the young princess or prince away from all the pressures of the castle. The queen would spend as much time at the cottage as she could and the child would have everything she had wished for- the right to play, to cry, to sing and laugh and not be forced into a life someone else had set up.

The day finally came for the baby to be born. It was a baby girl, the kingdom's only princess. She grew up to have thick blonde hair that she would tie up into braids to keep out of her face. The queen named her Anna. The little girl was often sad because she couldn't understand why her mother had to leave so much but she was very, very happy whenever they could be together. Her nana, who did live at the cottage all the time, taught her such wonderful things like how to be a lady, to have good manners, but also taught her to read and about all the different kinds of wildlife in the forest.

One day, the queen came back to the cottage after a whole week. It was the Anna's 16th birthday and they were so excited. They had a party and Nana made the Anna a beautiful new dress. The queen gave her a single rose petal. Anna was confused, and asked her what it was. The time had come for her to be told who she really was. The queen said that the petal was from a rose in the Royal Rose Garden. Anna was so excited. She had heard about the castle from other girls in the village nearby but she had never visited. Then the queen explained everything to her. She said where she went when she left the cottage, that she had to help rule the kingdom. She told Anna that she was a queen, and that she had a father who was a king. She explained why she was raised in the forest, and asked for her forgiveness for keeping such a secret from her. Anna cried.

She ran to her room and locked herself away. The queen and her best friend were so worried. Could they have made the wrong choice? The queen had never intended to hurt her daughter. She just wanted a better life for her. Finally, Anna came downstairs. She was still crying a little, but she had made her choice. She ran to her mother and as they hugged, she told her she wanted to know her Daddy. And they all lived happily ever after in the castle, a family who loved each other and loved their people. Anna grew up to be the best queen there had been in two centuries. Her combined understanding of the hardships of peasant life and the ways to serve as a royal made her a kind and understanding ruler. Her people loved her, and she made her little corner of the world a better place. The End.

For our bureaucracy project, Kristina and I decided to research the process of obtaining a building permit for a house in Philadelphia. This flowchart outlines what you need to submit your application for a permit. Here's the link to the real version of the flowchart, which contains some links to websites with the paperwork.

http://www.lucidchart.com/documents/view/4d08c727-33f0-41dc-ab32-7f0f0afcbe04

We did our research by finding the application online, and then searching for the supplemental paperwork as we came across it. Also, we used this site as a guide:

http://www.100khouse.com/2008/12/04/how-to-build-a-house-in-philadelphia-building-permits/

The paperwork that we filled out for this was really complicated. We think this is because a lot of registered professionals are required, so we just didn't understand a lot of the language. It was also difficult because there are tons of different forms to fill out, and you have to figure out which ones are required for your individual building.

If i could change one thing about this bureaucratic process, it would be the availability of information. We had to go around in circles looking for this stuff because it's not outlined clearly anywhere on the city's website. I think that the city should have an easy-to-understand guide to make the building permit process more accesible to average people in Philadelphia.

I think that one reason this process has become so complicated is that there are more regulations than there were when the city was first formed. As regulations are added, more paperwork comes along with it so the organization of the process is a bit confusing.

Overall, I think that researching this process gave me a good glimpse of the inner workings of the city. I never realized it was so hard to just get permission to build something!

I had a hard time researching my topic much further than I had before. I just couldn't find anything about the funding for drug and alcohol recovery programs. But with some help from Ms. Laufenberg, I found that there is a division of the Philadelphia city government called the Office of Addiction Services<http://www.dbhmrs.org/office-of-addiction-services>, a part of the Department of Behavioral Health and Mental Retardation Services<http://www.dbhmrs.org/about-us/>. The Office of Addiction Services (OAS) does actually fund many programs dealing with drug and alcohol issues. 

This was a big deal for me. Now that I knew where the existing funding for these programs was coming from, I could start to find out whether it was enough. We found a list of mental health and substance abuse resources on the website for the Mayor's Office of Reintegration Services for Ex-Offenders<http://www.phila.gov/reentry/SA_MH.html>. I formulated some questions and went down the list, calling each relevant program. These are the questions I decided to ask the recovery programs after I explained who I was and why I was calling:

1. Have you been able to sustain your program using the funding that you are receiving from the government?

2. What are some of the other funding sources you have?

3. How would you benefit from more government funding? (Would you be able to provide more holistic treatment?)

4. Is there anyone you could recommend me to talk to who is also concerned about this funding?

Most of the numbers I called were actually out of service. However, I did end up speaking with a few people. I first spoke with someone from CATCH Inc. and from Interim House. Both of those conversations left me with a sense of frustration. When I asked what they could do with more funding, I heard ideas of community integration activities, education and job skills, safe housing, parenting help and better therapy and counseling. Holistic treatment seemed to be a luxury, to expensive to be attainable. 

It was nearing the end of the day when I received a call back from the director of social services at an organization called CORA<http://www.coraservices.com/>, where I had left a message with a secretary. CORA focuses on children and family, an area where addiction prevention is equally important as treatment. I spoke with this woman for a while and learned a lot about some of the needs of programs like CORA. While the government does provide funding, it is most definitely not enough. They only fund certain things, and many things that are crucial to holistic treatment are not included in the funding. After speaking with me for quite some time, she told me that she would like to invite me to a meeting about the topic the next day! She told me her name, Mary Doherty, and told me that she is a member of the advisory board of the Office of Addiction Services. I still can't believe how this worked out. I got permission from my teachers, made the confirmation call, and found myself at CORA services at 2pm thursday afternoon.

Of course I didn't know what to expect, but I never could've imagined the next few hours. It turns out that the meeting was a government committee of about six women who are in the process of writing a document to request increased funding for intervention services for Philadelphia's children and youth. They are working on exactly what I am interested in lobbying for. I listened to them discuss the issues and key people for about two hours, taking copious notes and soaking in the information. I was just amazed that I had the opportunity to witness firsthand exactly what I had tried so hard to understand. Then, as the meeting was coming to a close, I was surprised even further. 

Ms. Mary Doherty asked me if I could shed some light on the topic. (I still don't quite know how to address her, because all the women treated me with such respect that I felt like an equal.) All of a sudden, I found myself the center of attention, being asked question after question that I wasn't sure I had the answer to. They wanted to hear from me, a high school student, the member of the population they are trying so desperately to reach. They wanted to know why do teenagers go get help? Why don't they? Who do they feel safe talking to? Where to they feel safe asking for help? If they have gone through an addiction, what worked? What didn't? I didn't have a clue. But I told them, I could ask. So Ms. Doherty is going to email me a bunch of questions and I'll post a survey on SLA talk, or maybe even on facebook or something. Hopefully we'll get a lot of responses. :] As far as lobbying goes, I'm going to ask the committee specifically what direction I should take with it, who I should contact and what I should ask for. I've been invited back to the next meeting, which will be in January. I'm so excited for where this is going to go, and thankful for this amazing opportunity I've been given.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

        So, part two of the lobbying project has come up. This time, I researched about specific legislators and/or bills that are involved with my topic. I spent a lot of time searching for bills that had been passed or are in the works, and came up empty. Well, except for the National Drug and Alcohol Addiction Recovery month. So I decided to direct my research towards specific places that have holistic recovery programs and the people who run them.

        The first organization that I found is called the Public Health Management Corporation, or PHMC and, mainly through their affiliate organization, The Bridge, runs many recovery centers in the philadelphia area. The people who run these centers would be good contact points for me to find out what the needs of these programs are, and what the government can do to help promote the growth of these centers and the creation of new ones.

        Another organization I can contact is the Whosoever Gospel Mission in Philadelphia. This is a religious organization, so they don’t recieve federal or state funding, but it would be interesting to think about what the government can do to help out all recovery centers, for example, tax breaks. It’s something to think about.