Please select and answer TWO (or more) of the following questions following the film:
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
2. Who makes the decisions that affect your community?
Who’s missing? How can community members gain access to power? How would you change the process? What decisions would you make differently?
3. What compelling stories do you want to tell about your community?
How would you reshape the media coverage that exists? Which voices are missing? What messages and ideas? Who are your audiences? What images and symbols would you use in communicating with media?
4. How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
5. What initiatives are already underway that can improve health outcomes on the local, state or federal level (e.g. living wage campaign; a drive for universal preschool; mandated paid sick leave)?
(1) The elements that were depicted in the film that represent my community is the work that the people have to do to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. In my community people wake early and are out the door to get to work, they arrive home late only to do it all over again. It simply means that they have little time to rest, and even then there is this added stress because the homes are not always secure as most people pay rent and when there is a problem financial they might get a notice of eviction. Another aspect is also the ability to buy healthy food. most people settle for unhealthy food because it can feed all the family but it is less nutritious.
(4) I think that I can make a difference in my community by being more involved, or planning activities that will benefit the entire community. So far there is not much that I see going on and I have lived there for a few years. We have a park that is very close by and there are people of all different ages, maybe a group exercise would benefit the heath of those living in the community.
(1) The element that effects our community the most is income. Income in today’s world is one of the key factors to the survival of the human being. People with a better income tend to live a better lifestyle as they have a better chance at owning a house, getting a good education, eating healthy and providing their future generation with the same resources. Owning a house relieves a lot of the stress but to buy a house you should have a good income to begin with. Income also effects the type of food you eat. people with a higher income would tend to make healthier choices while people with a low income would go for unhealthier choices as they are cheap and would feed a family in a very less price as compared to a healthy meal.
(3) Media, today has the greatest influence in how the community see different races and situations but the media is missing many things that the community needs to know of. Media needs to show how minorities are struggling and performing if not better,then equal to the white community. Media needs to convey the message that we are not in competition with each other but we are a single nation striving to grow and be recognized in the world. Racism is going to take us nowhere.
Liz Card
2. Who makes the decisions that affect your community?
Who’s missing? How can community members gain access to power? How would you change the process? What decisions would you make differently?
I live in Woodside Queens where community members makes decisions. In this particular area there is a lot of violence, overcrowded schools, no insurance , and nothing its taken care. I think parents and the people who live in the area should protest and make their voices to be hear.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action? Many four years old have to wait for a long period of time before they get accepted to start pre-k . Education is the key for this country to succeed therefore NYC should focus to provide better education. The shortage of school supplies makes it difficult for children to do better academically. I would write a letter to the senator and notify him of the current situation and how can we make changes.
3). One of the most important compelling stories I would want to tell about my community on Staten Island, is the increasing rates of heroin use. The drug epidemic on Staten Island first started with painkillers. When stricter laws became made, making it harder for prescription drugs, that is when heroin became the drug of choice. It is easy and cheap to get. I would reshape the media coverage, by having more awareness not just through newspapers, but having actual stories told by people who are survivors, and families who lost someone to this terrible epidemic. The younger generations needs to hear these stories. If the people in my community continue the awareness of this issue, by coming out, just maybe we as a community, can get a handle on this devastating problem that is growing on Staten Island.
4). I can make things better in my community by volunteering, participating in donations, and fund raisers. A challenge would be to get a volunteer group of people to help the elderly in my community. It would be beneficial for their health to have someone check in on them regularly to talk to, or even take a walk with. If this group can even assist by cutting their grass, or helping them with groceries, this could help their mental health. If someone is widowed or do not have family, this could help their depression. Nowadays people keep to themselves more. Another volunteer group that would help my community would be a cleanup crew. There is a lot of liter around my community, because of new shopping centers being built by me. For donations I could donate food, clothes, and toys. Regarding fund raisers, there sometimes are families with special needs children, or families who need the additional help. My townspeople as a community could pitch in to help.
What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
I would say where I live, my community is vastly diverse, but also very much safe. I currently live in a house in a very nice quiet neighborhood. I am able to walk outside my house any time of day without worry. Everyone in the neighborhood knows me and I know them because we are all friendly individuals willing to help each other out. I have a Jewish family who lives to the left of me and I have an Indian family to my right. Both families are very nice and humble. They are always ready to help. There is a sense of trust. Income plays a huge role as well because if I did not live in this surrounding community, then I don’t believe I could find myself living in an environment where I would feel safe or have the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. At the end of the day it makes me feel confident walking home in my community, knowing that everything is just fine. This is why they call New York the melting pot of the big apple.
How can you make things better in your community?
I don’t really know if there is anything major I would try to rectify in my community as of now. The only thing I can think of is donating blood by organizing people together to have a blood drive and also a canned food drive on separate occasions and even a coat drive. The point here is to be charitable and give, donate what you can in your community.
1) The issues that mostly affect health in my community in relation to film, for better and worse would be housing, jobs, and income. It depends on person to person. Rents are pretty high in my area. Also, not everyone will be having high income jobs to afford such housing. Since, its nearby transportation and a lot of shops are near too so it’s pretty expensive. Also, in New York most people rely on subways and buses. Not everyone has their own car so they prefer to take housing near subway stations. Even if they have a car but since, traffic is a lot during office hours they prefer to live where transportation is easily available. In the film, they said that it depends on an individual’s access to education, income and whether they belong from a working class, middle class family or not. It depends how their life expectancy will be and researchers have long wondered about the correlation between health and wealth. They also said in the film that, lower employment rate can lead to higher rate of heart diseases. For instance, if a poor person is smoking then he has a high rate of heart disease than a rich person smoking. In relation to the film, those people are more likely to suffer who have recently lost their jobs due to some other circumstances or have retired from their jobs who live in my area unless they have a home ownership to rely on or some other savings. It will negatively affect their health causing stress and they might need to rely on social security money and find a new housing that’s in their range. I will say it depends if someone is lucky enough to own a house in my area then he probably gets a lot from it. He will get the financial security for sure and will lead a healthy, happy life just like the family in District 16 but are unlikely and are going to lack the advantage of country lifestyle since its New York. However, as rent payers we suffer. We suffer to pay extremely high rents comparatively to other states. My brothers live in other states and from what we pay as rents in New York City we can really get a great apartment with a lot more in other states than what we are living in.
3) I think the way I would like to reshape the media coverage that exists is not to hold a very strong opinion for either rich people’s side, for either the poor people’s side or for either the middle class people’s side. There should be a middle ground. The problem that media needs to address is that rich are getting richer, poor are getting poorer and middle class are getting squeezed. The voices of poorer and middle class are getting missed. Media needs to make action to address issues in providing free Medicare and education systems for all. Whether it relates to high school education to college education. However, every year students fight back to either lower prices because they have raised the tuition costs. Even in the film, Louisville they showed that in last five years prices of colleges increased. Not the least, in the film they also said that those countries where wealth is equitably distributed are more successful. Also, voices of African Americans are missing. There are educated people from a good social class who are racially discriminated causing them to get used to chronic diseases. I think voices of hard workers are also missing where they work so much that it can affect them chronically causing them harm their immune system, aging and so on. My audience are majority of people living in America who are either discriminated, who don’t have access to proper education, who are minorities, who are hard workers but still neglected. The images and symbols I would use is children because they will be our next generation who will be highly affected by these problems and we need aware people that we need to leave a better society for our coming generations.
1. In my community, I have access to a lot of resources without needing to go out into the city. There is a local school, supermarkets within walking distance, houses being the main complex around here aside from a few apartments. Transportation is awesome, I live right next to the train station. Im not sure about jobs but I think there are jobs available at retail and fast food around here. All these affect the community in a positive way because it increases the quality of living. Everything is very convenient. There also parks to play basketball, handball, or a playground for little ones. As far as issues that negatively affect my community, there are people that vandalize and although my family and I do our best to counteract what they do ie. graffiti on the wall or destroy front lawns, it still impacts us.
4. I consider my neighborhood pretty well off but there are still improvements. Ways i can help my community is give to the homeless. The greatest challenges are from oneself. Im not the only one but i was taught that giving back, backfires. There are many stories of people pan handling for no cause. They just want money and the people in my community are too used to not giving. They automatically assume the worse and although sometimes a good thing, we are missing out on helping the people who really need it. Making clubs that spread awareness or coordinate food drives or just giving back individually would help my community.
3. My neighborhood has changed drastically over the past two years. I have witnessed many people move out and many people move into the neighborhood. Along with the change in diversity in the neighborhood there has been an increase in marijuana and alcohol abuse. ICE has even showed up and taken people from their homes. Sunday mornings my parents have to wake up early so as to avoid getting a ticket due to the fact that people that were out partying the night before throw their beer cans and bottles in our front yard as well as on the streets. Recently there was an incident where a white van was stopped by police and $40,000 worth of heroine was retrieved by this white van. My family and I have never seen anything like this. There has been an increase in slashing in my neighborhood. It was not until two days ago that I finally saw many police officers even in helicopters patrolling the neighborhood. My parents used to call the police when there was something going on and not one officer showed up to check out what was going on therefore my parents stopped dialing 9-1-1 and lost trust in our police officers. All this has happened in the past two years and the way I would go about this is showing this on news channels. I don’t know if it is because my community is mostly latino but I rarely ever see anything on the news, besides Univision, mentioning much about my community. The voices missing are the people of my community, they have been shut down by many police officers and feel that they cannot trust them therefore allowing for more crime in the neighborhood. There needs to be more equality, it does not make sense to call the police and have to lie about one’s race just to get them to check the situation out. Although I feel that the police has not done much to help my community out the news should not only show police brutality but they should also show the good police officers have done because this is the reason why people have lost respect for law enforcement.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
In order for my community to get back to the way we want it to be we need the help of our police officers. One specific challenge that would be faced is having the people of my community trust police officers, without trust nothing can be resolved. I believe if rent were not going up people would not feel the need to sell drugs or even use them to make themselves feel better, which is something happening in my community. My main priority for action would be police surveillance without the police brutality. Officers should patrol the neighborhood so as to keep the peace, but without pointing a gun at someone. The people in my neighborhood feel they do not have a voice and that is something I would like to change. Every voice should be heard. My community should be able to live without fear.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
The community I live in I would say are mixed community where you will find rich and middle class both categories. The community I live in is very nice, and it’s certainly quite and friendly. When you get back home after work you don’t really feel stressed since my community has a very peaceful environment. Neighbors are very helpful and sometimes we share our food with each other as well. That’s what makes our community safe since we are watching each other back. In my community you need to have car since there is no subway around our community; however, in grocery point of view my community is very convenient, and you can do your grocery by walking. This is also another indication of my community being safe. Furthermore, Income plays a major role in your community. The reason behind my community being so peaceful and safe is because of people income. It may have been different if people living there have either very low or high income. Schools around my community are also very decent that effects towards children’s behavior and environment. Moreover, around my community there are many clinics opened. For instance, in case of an emergency people don’t have to wait to get treated quickly since there are many and easily accessible. The community I live in is not bad at all it makes me feel safe and happy every time i come home.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
There are couples of things that can be helpful for my community. The first thing I would like to change in my community is transportation. The reason I would want to do it because not everybody owns a car it could be because not many can afford one, or people working in City don’t want to take their car with them since it’s hard to find a parking. The action can be taken to fix that to contact the transportation organization like MTA. I can contact them by email or visiting their main branch to make them aware of the issue of our community. This can help my community members to travel easily without getting stressed for reaching on time in places they need to go. The second thing that I would like to have in my community is bigger play grounds. This can be used for exercise and for playing sports like, cricket, baseball or hockey which can make our community people stay healthy and fit. Not that we don’t have one around my community but they are either small for kids or little far. I can help my community by contacting community organizers to help me open one. This obviously cannot be easy since you must find enough land to open one like that first, and then either get a permit and do all the paper work that will be require too much time regardless. This is not going to be one man job but I can volunteer myself as much as I can and get my few neighbors’ to help me as well. This can be beneficial for my community including elders and youngster to maintain their health and stay in shape.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse
The elements of health that has an affect on my community is Housing, Income/Jobs and the type of stores in my neighborhood. My neighborhood is a middle-class neighborhood, in this neighborhood you have to have a certain amount of income to be able to afford the rent. Most people with homes in my neighborhood either have extra family members living in the home or they rent out a room to make ends meet. Also the stores that are located in my neighborhood are useful but are pretty typical. For Example In my neighborhood there are 3 corner stores on 1 block, a liquor store, and White Castle. These stores contribute to some of the issues such as obesity in the community and substance abuse. But it is very easy because they are all in close reach.
3. What compelling stories do you want to tell about your community?
The media coverage that exist in my neighborhood is none. Social media plays a big role in today’s society. I do think social media can help with as far as letting the people of the community know whats going on in the neighborhood and how we can make a change. My neighborhood needs the grocery store back that was closed down. We need better food choices in our neighborhood instead of the deli, Chinese food and White Castle. As a neighborhood we do not have many options and we never really had a lot of options but we did have a few and they were taken away from the people. No one really knows why the grocery closed but it was rumored to become a gym and nothing is there yet and it is almost a year since the place has closed down.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
My neighborhood is considered as working-class somewhat middle-class. My community is very convenient. Transportation is accessible a few blocks away, there are a few convenience stores and a supermarket, you can find a some restaurants around. But, as you walk further down the streets you will find the community to change from middle to upper middle-class. You will see more houses, some bigger than others, each house there is a car, you will also see a huge park with golf, tennis court, basketball court, children’s playground. Looking around my communities reminded me of the different districts in the film. I believe that the issues that affects the health of my community are housing, jobs, and income. People that has a good job and earn well will tend to move and buy a new house to a community that is quiet and more neighborhood friendly. I wouldn’t blame those people for wanting to live a better quality of life. However, I am pleased of where me and my family live because we got to know some our neighbors and we feel safe looking out for each other.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
I believe that having an active Community Board will make things better in my community. However, I think that the biggest challenge to have a Community Board are language barriers and lack of interest from neighbors. First of all to take matter into action, I will gather a few volunteers to questions people that live in the community, ask them what type of changes would they like to see. Then I will gather these information and write a letter to the Brooklyn Borough President to appoint a Community Board to improve things in my community.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community? Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
Comparing my community to others in my point of view, is far way better than the one’s I have been to. In my community there are good school, clinics, urgent care centers, small parks, well maintained sidewalks, grocery stores. In fact, one of the best thing I like about my community is its’ greenery environment. My community is also safer in case of hurricanes. Only problem I don’t like are transportation and roads are broken to some extent. If the roads were not broken, then my community would’ve have been a lot better. Health wise, I think people in my community have easy access to health care, clinics and 24 hours’ pharmacies. My community is diverse with people living across the world. For instance, my neighborhood is Spanish as well as Pakistani, they are very nice even though their background and religion is different than us. Whenever any Muslim festival comes my neighbors share their delicious food along with us. Likewise, when our festival comes so, we also do the same. Lastly, I would say since health Is wealth, which can make nation wealthy.
2. Who makes the decisions that affect your community? Who’s missing? How can community members gain access to power? How would you change the process? What decisions would you make differently?
I believe the district council are the people that represent the community, they are supposed to help create a better living environment for the people in the community. The people that live in the neighborhood should always seek district council help from the regarding in their community. In addition, I live in a community where each street and avenue have their own race. For example, certain areas are all Russians living there, and in certain areas there are mainly people from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. When a person moves in from another race/ethnicity it’s very strange for them because the blocks have their own community or people who speak the same language. For instance, there are many Asian grocery stores and restaurants in my community, since there are mostly south Asian people live around. If someone is Hispanic and moved to the community which is surrounded by Asian culture, it would be very hard for them to adopt the culture of different society for same time. Consequently, I feel like other cultures are missing from the community because they are being dominated by whoever established in those areas to be predominantly people from their race. When it comes to talk about who is missing I would say president of the country. When the vote comes closer they tend to behave like they will try their best possible to make the community better, but its other way around in reality. I would change it by making the community more diverse in terms of the types of people who can move in so they wouldn’t be intimidated by the other cultures that are in their own clan.
4. How can you make things better in your community? What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
In my perspective anyone can improve things better in their community if they are enthusiastic to put efforts toward their community. I currently live in Belle rose, Queens and I believe it is a great community to reside in. There are many helpful people in my community. Since we moved to Belle rose from Queens’s village, I have seen a huge change in lifestyle such as, transportation, and roads. The greatest challenges in my community is that our community needs more transportation services or commute since there are many people going to work and coming home from work simultaneously. It gets really crowded and the roads aren’t as good compare to other communities such as, long island.
I believe that in Queens’s village, everyone kept more to themselves. Although, I did interact with neighbors and I was in good terms with all of them, nonetheless there was a clear distance between all of us. Since moving to Belle rose, I have noticed that it is a friendly community, mainly in my block. Everyone on the block support each other, even if someone is from another country or can’t speak any English. We all check up on each other’s, Whether it is getting mail or keeping an eye on the house when the families are on vacation, When winter rolls around, everyone is usually helps each other with plowing of the snow. For example, I remember a few years ago, I was driving to work while it was snowing and all of a sudden, I saw an old lady whose car was stuck in the snow. It seemed she was desperately looking for someone to get her car out from the heavy snow. Although, I didn’t even know her; however, i stopped and helped her remove her car from the heavy snow. If I had not helped her at that time her car would have been damaged. Similarly, during a blood drive, our neighborhood must be able to gathers in order to make the blood drive happen. It helps those who are in need of others blood in a serious situation.
1.What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
The elements that were depicted in the film that reflect my community most affect health for better and worse is incomes, jobs and transportation. My community is a middle working class neighborhood, people are always moving early there always on a time frame to get to where they need to get to especially for work. Due to the expensive rent in my community people have jobs that are in others boroughs,since a middle wage job will not cut it. The people in my community work really early and come home late in order to make sure all bills are paid, other than just the rent which is a crazy bill on its own. Income also affects my community because people need to have a good income in order to make sure all bills are paid and never get evicted, I really don’t socialize with the people in my community since everyone is on the move. The apartments are really nice but they also charge for new home improvements we do to the apartments as well to for using the elevators. Transportation is accessible to all of us, just walking a few blocks past the mall, as well people who work in other boroughs need to get work. My community is accessible to a lot things like food bazaar, the mall and restaurants so it is always busy but still the reality always hits because people who live in my community needs to always make sure the rent is paid because it gets higher every year, but overall my community everything is convenient and close to everything.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
In order to make things better in my community is having a better communication with the landlord, since we never see him. I believe if everyone in my community comes together to put are needs first and try to make rent a possibility of going down and associating more with the landlord are issues will go down and get better. The greatest challenges will be getting a lot people in community who probably feels the same, as well get the landlord to see our perspectives of how we can make our community a lot better. The resources we will need is mostly support and volunteers to make sure we bring these issues that affect our community into place. My natural allies is all the tenants that live in my neighborhood who see that these issue are affecting our way of living. My actions that will make my community better is raise a huge awareness that we are having issues to landlord and the building owners , having the support of all the tenants from all of community to make sure all the issues we are having get improve in order to make my community a better place.
1) one issue that affect my community and i’m in the same coin is about health insure. One of the problems that i assume people have is the higher payment of health insure. In my experience i have a decent job,i don’t make a big income but I have a regular style life until I find a job according to my career. Now i’m can’t cover the payment of health insure because is way to much that i have to pay monthly. Thus, i decide to cancel my health insure because I can’t really effort it. Besides, as i have that issue i believe there is thousand more people with the same problems. Therefore, I can’t visit the doctor and can’t go for general test or to check if my health is in good condition only because I do not have the resource to cover it. Secondly, The job also put to many restriction in order to be hire. They ask for so many years of experience in order to gain the position you are looking for. Besides, even when you try to do an internship is kind of hard to find a real job opportunity at least to gain some experience. Maybe because they are racism, I’m in Computer Information System, and they seek more for Asian people because they have good history in computer.
4) Maybe one of the challenge in our community is about people cooperate to each other, and don’t be individualistic and unfriendly. In my community people tend to be rude and to have bad manner with no morals. However if people were to work in group and to have great manners, and to be empathetic will change the face of my community.
1) My neighbor hood is pretty diverse but i would say that the more economically stable live in my neighborhood. There is the problem, however that more and more buildings and condos are being built up in my neighborhood which is increasing the property value and making it more difficult to afford the expense of living.
4) Making things better in a community starts with making an attempt to change what little you could change by yourself. Eventually you would need to influence others to join your cause. Most often, changes can not be made unless you possess a large amount of people who are willing to partake in your cause. Your natural allies in this case would be other people who live in you community who have the same ideals as you. To create alliances and create a following you must express your feelings on the topic to others who are willing to participate. Ideally you want to prioritize things that are easy to do but will have a big impact on the community; this way you build confidence by making a large impact very quickly.
1. The film focuses on the differences and inequalities in communities and how they affect the health of individuals. Living in the Bronx, I am fairly acquainted to the different kinds of neighborhoods in the city. I live in an area near many housing projects and schools with bad reputations. The jobs near where I live are nothing too out of the ordinary, mostly retail (as the area is mostly filled with small stores and supermarkets). When I go to certain parts of Manhattan, I can really see the difference in the communities. Certain areas of Manhattan have barely any housing projects near them, just regular apartments with more prestigious entrances and balconies. The schools are far more reputable and are considered some of the hardest schools to get into in the city whether it would be a high school or a college. I feel like where I live it is just an accumulation of the same architecture as far as buildings and schools go. My neighborhood just recently got a new mall and new stores added to it, which is a rarity. I believe my community is built to just to place people in decent homes near education and some transportation, whereas other parts are more luxurious with better schools, better neighborhoods, better architecture because it is built for those that can afford it, which is why neighborhoods like mine and other areas are incorporating the elements of the better neighborhoods by adding shopping centers and rehabilitating old community components. I feel like neighborhoods like mine have much catching up to do compared to others.
3. I would change how media directs its attention to politics and events happening in other countries (not including tragedies). I believe the media focuses too much on the bigger people and does not focus much on the minority. News 12 is a perfect example of coverage in struggling areas. It shows the community struggles and advances through its people. Even though News 12 is not as big as other news channels, I believe other channels should focus more on the struggling communities, showing the struggles in homes, crimes, education.
3. What compelling stories do you want to tell about your community?
I have lived in the Bronx for eleven years now, but still, everytime someone new asks, 8 out of 10 times, I would notice a slight grimace on their faces. I mean I get it–the Bronx has always received a bad rap for various reasons–but pretty much like any place on Earth, there will always be good areas and bad neighborhoods, and people tend to forget that. I guess, just like what News12 (our local news) does, we shouldn’t forget to highlight the good parts of the Bronx, like Pelham Bay Park (which is the largest park in New York City) or the Bronx Zoo and Botanical Garden. We also have good affluent neighborhoods like Riverdale, Pelham Gardens, Fieldston and Schuylerville, just to name a few. The point is to show that the Bronx is as diverse and vivacious as the other boroughs, and that we are our own community with our economy, style and culture.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
Decreasing my scale into my immediate community, I think my neighborhood has already started to make things better by being more cohesive. My family has moved into our current neighborhood about five years ago (still in the Bronx), and I must say that the environment is so much different because the people in this new area are more welcoming and receptive to building a community. To make things even better, I think forming relationships is key, and this can be developed by helping one another in times of need. I have mentioned that once before our community suffered from suspicious individuals lurking about, thankfully, my neighbors helped each other that in the end, the perpetrators were caught. This communal action can be extended to other instances as well, like watching over each other’s children, exchanging dinners (this was awesome) and helping each other tend one’s garden/shrubbery. I believe that by helping my neighbor with these tiny tasks, I can give them the opportunity to relax a bit and even concentrate better on more stressful responsibilities. This way, if everybody does their part, the stress in the community is lowered, and we can be more productive in our own individual lives.
1. The area around my neighborhood in Bath Avenue is mostly middle class and has an Asian, Hispanic, Italian and Russian population. Recently over the last decades, single or double family houses are being overtaken by condominiums being built with Chinese or Asian developers and are hiking up the price of living here. I don’t see any racism in my neighborhood, but I suppose we’re a little wary around the Italians. My next door neighbor is a cop and the 62th Police Precinct isn’t too far away, but security wise everyone has cameras everywhere. Most of the population go to either Staten Island or Manhattan for work, some even in New Jersey. I guess its safe to say that my neighborhood is one of the ‘good’ ones.I suppose it would run close to the film’s middle class because a lot of my neighbors went to or going to college
5. I know that currently, Mayor De Blasio is trying to implement affordable housing in New York. Recently, the City Council hit a deal with de Blasio to lower the rent in New York City. It might help the lower income people with a place to live in the exceedingly increasing price of living here.
2.
I think everyone in the community makes a decision and those decisions affect the community. Each individual living in the community makes a decision for themselves (selfish decision) most of the time. And those decisions have consequences. A positive or negative consequence on everyone. For example, if a neighbor decides to adopt a dog, yes it’s a positive for this person because now her son has a pet and that way the little son can learn responsibility, but the negative side is the dog barks all day and night long, the neighbors can’t get enough sleep.
4. How can I make things better in your community? Well, in my opinion, a community can only improve with communications with neighbors. like with my previous dog example, the neighbors can come together and have a meeting with the newly dog owner and explain that it’s great that they have a pet but because of the barking they are not getting enough sleep. Maybe then the dog owner will come up with a solution that they all can benefit from.
Sometimes the simplest way is the perfect way to solve a problem and come up with a solution everyone can benefit from.
3. The lack of media coverage covering Muslim perspective here in the U.S is sad. I believe even in my community if a Muslim was to involved in a incident, there will be a question of terrorist and bombings. It would be all over media. Even if a kid was to rob a store, he would somehow be portrayed to something as big as a terrorist. I don’t find this very fair. The voices of the Muslims are missing. Many fear to speak out because of the hate that is already being implemented towards them by media and false propaganda that it shows. My audiences is the American people. I need them to wake up and realize what media is doing to out communities and country as a whole. I need every support I can get. I would symbolize the amendments and what they mean to our country and how they should be applied to every group. Media should not be biased and should cover the full story. The fear of hate and the hate of fear begins with the media.
4. I would need people to collaborate. I would need people to see what is really going on in places like Syria and all that has happened to Muslims since 9/11. My allies would be anyone who seeks the truth. I’m not looking for only Muslim supporters but also the American people who are not Muslims and truly Want to take a stand against such blasphemy. I would need to get a lot of people , all sorts of races to gather as one and stay united. That is what America is about. We cannot make Our community great by get rid of things and attacking people that make our country great.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
I think some things that can make things better in my community is make the roads better, because there are a lots of pot holes and bumps in my community. I think in my community there is a lot of commuter that walks to work or to the train station and also a lots of elderly that likes to take daily walk on the block. I sometimes see them trip or almost trip on the bumps on the street. My greatest challenge would be even able to start a big goal. My natural allies would be the people in my community that is also experiencing the same problem. I would being creating alliances and partnerships be reaching out to the locals. My priorities for action is to make it successful, and have a better community where everyone is safe and happy.
5. What initiatives are already underway that can improve health outcomes on the local, state or federal level (e.g. living wage campaign; a drive for universal preschool; mandated paid sick leave)?
The initiatives that are already underway that can improve health outcomes on the local is that more trees are being planted on every blocks and the parks are being renovated so that everyone is safe and having fun. Also the minimum wages are slowly raising therefore people will earn a bit more income where they can spend extra on maybe healthier food, so they can live a healthier lifestyle.
How can you make things better in your community? What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for actions?
My neighborhood is experiencing gentrification very quickly. Poor families are being pushed out of their homes quickly because they can’t keep up with the rising cost of rent. People in my community are also affected significantly by high crime rates in pockets of the neighborhood. Poor, uneducated people are being crammed to a couple of blocks of housing projects that lack resources. The greatest challenge is the lack of jobs and quality, affordable housing. I believe that creating free training programs that lead to real jobs with health and vacation benefits is the key to lifting my community. My natural ally is a local community organization dedicated to empowering communities of color through the development of financial planning. I believe that I could partner with this organizations as well as the NY City Housing Authority and create paid internship and paid training programs to help community resident gain the skills they need to obtain and maintain jobs that will allow people to love above the poverty line. By creating programs that allow people to learn trades and skills they can use to be competitive in the current workforce we allow entire groups of people to become self-sufficient and have a real chance at contributing positively to their communities.