For my first MDG project, my assignment was to study and do research on a local issue. MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) are eight goals, created by the United Nations in 2000, that they are hoping to accomplish by the year of 2015. The idea behind this Local Profile was to become aware of issues going on locally and learn about them, so that we can make a difference on an individual level. I chose to focus on MDG 1.2, which speaks to poverty and education, or the lack thereof. I spoke to Leah Day about her company “World Bicycle Relief” and learned about the steps she was taking toward my MDG. I was very satisfied with the ending results of our interview, and I gained information about poverty not only in Chicago, but in other places around the world.
Check out my report below!
For my Local Profile, I chose to focus on Target 2.1: “Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling”.
For my local profile interview, I decided to talk to Leah Day. She is one of the founders of World Bicycle Relief (WBR), a program that builds bikes and, through donations, is able to ship them to different places around the world and in doing so, provides a much faster route to school for children who would usually be walking 2-3 hours to and from school. Leah informed me that people who want to make a difference don’t have to be local in order to help out. You can donate from anywhere and even hold your own fundraiser! I asked Leah what the benefits of having WBR based in Chicago were. She explained, “My husband FK works closely with a company called SRAM (that builds bike parts) and they’re also based in Chicago and very generous to us.” But other than that, she reiterates, “it really doesn’t matter where you are, you can always help out!” When I asked her, in terms of my MDG, where she wanted to be by 2015, she told me excitedly that she hopes everyone will be using wheels, from major corporations, to the government, and even World Bank group. She finishes, “Our bikes are only a little more expensive than the $100 ones they sell in Africa and they are groundbreakingly, earth-shatteringly better. I want everyoneto know that.”
The article I chose, published on September 20th, 2012, gives inside information on the teachers strike currently happening in Chicago. Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, a Chicago Tribune reporter, wrote the article I chose to write about. The article is about the CPS teacher’s strike, and more importantly, why there is a strike in the first place. A couple reasons are as follows: teachers feel like they aren’t receiving the proper payment for their actions, and the teaches and the bored of education disagree about how to measure whether a kid is educated or not. This subject relates to my MDG because the whole country is watching for the outcome of this strike. It seems that there will be a new way to measure a child’s intelligence. The rest of world usually follows the Untied States in terms of education and all eyes are on Chicago at this moment, as we try to figure out a better way of educating this generation’s children.
When choosing my graphs, I went with something to show the increase of intelligence that’s been slowly rising in the past years. This relates to my MDG because it shows that by 2015, it is possible that boys and girls will have a better access to education.
This specific graph shows that the education level in Chicago seems to be increasing, along with the level of education for the national public. Form this graph, we can see that it seems we are going in the right direction.