Welcome back everyone,
When completing the values activity at the beginning of the first semester, I learned that 3 of my most important values are helping, reliability and family. As well as my 3 least important values are belonging, equality and innovation. I am satisfied with these results as I think they represent my true values in life. I think being reliable is the most important thing to learn at a young age. Without the expectation of being reliable, we have no discipline and no rewards. That feeling of having to do something and then having done it is one of the best feelings we can get. Helping others and myself are things I value because without them we would.
Belonging is not always the most important or suitable thing in certain situations. Equality is not important to me the way equity is. Equity is more important because it meets everyone’s needs. For example, suppose there is a free resource accessible to anyone in Vancouver, but someone from Port Alberni needs it and doesn’t have transportation to get to Vancouver for it. In that case, it is not an equal opportunity for anyone who may need it. Innovation can be helpful but not always necessary.
I think some of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals that align the most with some of my values are #1, no poverty, #3, good health and well-being, and #11, sustainable cities and communities. #1 aligns with family for me not because you need money to build a happy family, but because it is so hard to build healthy habits for relationships when everyone is struggling. #3 is very much my value of helping to come through but I also struggled to choose which goals aligned best with me because of that. Good health and well-being are so important so we can continue to grow as a community and change for the better. #11 is sustainable cities and communities settles well with me as many places on our beautiful planet will be filled with cities and skyscrapers in the coming years, if we try just a little bit harder to be more sustainable with our buildings even starting now, we could make such a huge difference for the future generations and the future of our planet. However, education around the planet is my #1 goal because with good education we can better so much more than just one or two things. The more people that are educated the more help we can get for solving bigger problems. I believe my biggest passion is education around the world by far.
In North America, funding is one of the primary reasons for limited education, but it can vary around the world depending on the different societies and laws. In today’s society, it is very hard to get a good job without an education. Not because it makes that much of a difference in your performance for all jobs, but the competition from someone who had the opportunity versus those who didn’t. To help this goal, I would like to do something out of the ordinary but make a big impact on the problem.
After completing a full semester with this project, I am choosing to continue to pursue my action. My initial action was primarily about the funding of education. It has now morphed into bettering the non-educational aspect of elementary school, the extracurricular activities. Having a social life while young is so important to build social skills for the future and I find this easier and more appealing. I am now able to do this through volunteering for school events for elementary school students like movie nights and holiday-themed events.
Thanks for reading my post and I hope to hear from you all!