Month: October 2018

CRIS Tree of Hope

On September 25th, I had the opportunity to participate in an event for the Columbus non-profit CRIS, or Community Refugee and Immigration Services. Some other IA members and I decorated colorful welcome cards and notes of encouragement for students at Columbus Global Academy. This was a fun event and I really enjoyed decorating cute little cards in English and Spanish for students, and I hope they enjoy my cards, or at the very least don’t laugh at my lack of artistic ability. The purpose of these cards on the “tree” at the school was to serve as a pick-me-up for students who are feeling down or for students who just need a little extra cheer in their day.

As great as this project sounds, it is sad to hear student’s sadness and negative feelings towards being at the school contributed to the creation of this project. Although a card with a cute pun or uplifting may not change everything, hopefully it can bring a smile to many and let them know how welcome and appreciated they are in Columbus.

To my knowledge, CRIS and IA are both closely connected. I actually became a CRIS mentor last semester because I heard about it in an IA meeting and was interested. At first I was really reluctant about my aptitude for mentoring, however I really have been enjoying it as of lately. Over the course of about ~10 months, my involvement in the organization has led me to be a mentor, be on their community connectors board, and most of all has led for me to develop an interest in working with people and volunteering in similar organizations. CRIS has been something I have been so grateful to be involved in, as it has taught me a lot about Columbus’ vibrant and diverse population and how much the amazing communities CRIS interacts with can contribute to our lives, Columbus, and more largely this country.

CRIS and IA have inspired me to branch out and look for more opportunities to be a companion and resource for others in my hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Previous to coming to OSU, I did some volunteering in predominantly Latino communities because I felt like I could be of most assistance due to my (almost)fluency in Spanish. However, after spending a year at OSU, I have felt inspired to break out of that little bubble and look for other communities to volunteer in. I actually spent seven weeks towards the end of the summer at a non profit called The Refugee Education Center in Grand Rapids and I loved it. Although I was a tiny bit scared to be a teaching assistant in a first grade classroom, I ended up loving it. I intend to return there next summer and be surrounded by the most energetic group of k-12 kids, hopefully with a little more knowledge of Swahili and with better jumprope turning techniques this time around. All in all, I never would have had such a great experience if CRIS hadn’t given me the tools and confidence that I was competent to do this. I also would not have been able to do this without the fresh perspective both CRIS and IA have given me in the last year.

Venezuelan Economic Crisis Event

For my first academic event of the year, I attended Sam’s talk on the Venezuelan economic crisis in the smith steeb glass classroom on August 26th. Coming in, I didn’t have much knowledge about economics, world crises, or even about Venezuela as a country. However, through the knowledge of others and through a couple of helpful videos, I came out of the meeting feeling a little more informed and aware of the crisis that seems to be having a ripple effect across the country, South America, and even the world in some aspects. This event’s relation to international affairs is prominent, as we all engaged in fruitful discussion and got educated on an event that has repercussions affecting diplomatic relations between Venezuela and other countries, and that has turned into a humanitarian crisis.

First, we learned about the history behind Venezuela’s current political and economic system that has led to the current state of affairs. We learned about Hugo Chavez assuming office and implementing a populist regime in Venezuela. We then learned about how the dependence and pricing of Venezuela’s single strongest export, oil, and many other mistakes such as overspending caused inflation and shortages of consumer goods. We then talked about how these conditions have worsened under Maduro and how these difficulties affect the everyday lives of citizens.

In this event we learned about the hardships that civilians are enduring under the current regime. These interruptions to daily life include but are not limited to: housing shortages, food shortages, and virtually no access to medical care and supplies. Venezuela currently has extremely high infant mortality rates due to the extremely low quality of care afforded in the hospitals. This difficult quality of life for many Venezuelans has led to protests, which are violently put down by the regime, or to leave, which is economically and legally unfeasible for most citizens.

Currently, Venezuela is experiencing record levels of inflation. I also learned how the Venezuelan government stopped even recording inflation levels into 2018 and how their new currency (Bolivar) is worth 1 Bolivar for 100,000 old Bolivars.  All this information might seem like common knowledge to those who are updated on international (economic) affairs but I really found the numbers shared at this meeting to be astonishing. I am a psychology major and tend to read literature that focuses more on behavioral sciences, so this meeting was definitely out of my knowledge zone. It was interesting to learn about something I would have never thought about looking into otherwise.

This talk inspired me to read more into international crises in areas that I usually would not read about, and to look for possible relations to other fields. I can only imagine all the other implications of the economic crisis that affect daily life, and Venezuelan life in the long-term. Unfortunately, it saddened me to learn that the United States is not helping ameliorate the situation. Trump has apparently included Venezuela as a country in his travel ban, which proves disastrous to many citizens trying to escape the situation in their country. Hopefully time will change things and the situation will improve, on a national scale for Venezuelans, and on a diplomatic scale worldwide.