my experience of making a change #2
Rajan Dhaliwal
What social action have you completed so far?
I have completed 3 social action projects so far. the first one I completed was a in class food drive. While I was doing this action i was worried because before we started this food drive we had award for the class if they raised 30 cans and if they did, we would have to give them a pizza party. we were a group of 3 people who worked together for this food drive and the money was also coming out of our pocket so that's why I was worried.This was a really good experience for me because this was the first time I ever did this type of activity.Even though the class wasn't successful in this activity, all of the food that was collected was donated to the salvation army. I was welcomed and thanked when i went to the salvation army food bank to donate the items that were collected.I was proud of my self because I felt good about what I am doing and they were going to send me appreciation letter regarding the donations. The second social action I did was a twitter page. This is a social media action which is done on twitter. I created a page called @poverty_Canada and I followed organization so they can get a review about what I am about to do. Everyday I posted pictures regarding poverty or tweets with real information and re-tweeted other tweets by big organizations. By the days went on I started getting more followers and started getting notification about how organizations are re-tweeting your original tweets and how the salvation army likes your tweets. when I started this social action I was scared and worried that if it doesn't work out I am going to fail my project. I thought negatively because I didn't know how to use twitter that well and I thought how no one will support my page. After making awareness through my twitter page for a month I got a lot of support from big organization and from friends. This was a great experience because I learned a lot out of this such as social media isn't only for texting or following people , it can be also used to make awareness and help people. I feel proud about my self because big organizations are thanking me for what I am doing. The final social action I did is writing a letter to the salvation army regarding poverty and how they and we can make awareness and help people who are in poverty. One request I asked them to do is that they should run more fundraisers by which they collect basic needs of collect money and give it to the people who are need.After I emailed this wonderful long I received a thank you email and it said how we will take this request in and hand it over to the right person.
what future social action are you planning ( either during winter break or when you come back ) ?
I am not planning anything now except for to make a power point but otherwise I was done 2 of my social actions projects before the winter break and one during the winter break. so far I am done 3 social action projects and I did one over the requirement , as extra so I am going to put a stop on it.
What other ways can you think to create change related to your topic ?
Best three strategies or ways to create change related to my topic is , volunteering, fundraisers, website. The first way to create a change is to volunteer with organization which deals with poverty and homelessness. The second way to create a related change is to run a fundraiser in your school or in city or area where all lot of people come. By doing this fundraiser I will raise money which will be donated to organization that deal with poverty and there will be no commission for me. The third best way I thought of is a website. By creating a website I will be able to track who's in poverty and what we need to do to prevent poverty and also this will be a open website so who ever goes on it can take information off it , this website will also raise money. Each person who goes on it will make me 10 cents.The money that is raised will be donated.
what struggles have you encounterd so far? what has been easier/harder than you expected?
The struggles I faced through out this project were all lot such as planning dates and contacting organization like the Salvation army. I had to contact the Salvation army in order to go to the food bank to donate food. This was a struggle because the Salvation army closed at 4:00 and my school ended at 3:15, every time I tried to get a ride they would close but after a week I asked Rishib to ask his mom if she can take us to the Brampton food bank, so we can donate the food in time before they close. we were successful in going to the food bank and donating it .After all the other social actions were pretty easy to do but I wasn't really expecting this. I didn't really know what we were actually suppose to do it until it was time. This was a interesting project but there were some difficulties such as doing the social action project. This was a great experience for me because I got try something new. I thought this would be a easy project and it wouldn't be that long but doing all of it , it was actually pretty hard to everything together and it was a long project. Now I am almost done except for my presentation and I hope that it will be easy. The most struggle I had was that it was hard to get followers on twitter.