campus engagement log #2

Today, I attended a presentation called "Taking Up Space: Middle School Girls' Responses to (Cyber) Bullying". It was presented by Dr. Santana of the College of Arts and Humanities in pursuit of a research grant. It is structured around interviews and direct observation. This research project aims to examine the relationship between anti-bullying education and mentoring services and how young girls' involvement in these programs affects how they address bullying on their school campus. Dr. Santana and the others involved in this project feel that self-confidence in young girls is imperative to future leadership.

Four hypotheses were established for this research project: in schools where over 40% of students are economically disadvantaged, harassment is more likely to be physical; when public school officials ignore bullying issues, girls are more likely to "take matters into their own hands"; with leadership instruction, girls are more likely to take safe and rational action against bullying; and when girls lead anti-bullying campaigns in their schools, school personnel will take more initiative to curb bullying. Out of eight interview participants, four students reported that they had been or were currently bullied, or knew someone who was being bullied. It was found that there were weak associations between race and more instances of physical bullying, as was there a weak association between prescription drug use in the last 30 days and bullying. An association between risky behaviors, such as drug use and sex, and bullying was not found.

As a victim of fairly serious bullying in my elementary and middle school years, this presentation hit home with me. Of her past being sex trafficked and the young trafficking victims she works with today, Rachel Lloyd says "I hunger to understand more about the girls' lives in order to understand mine. If I could figure out what had happened to them, perhaps I had a better chance of explaining it all to myself" (Lloyd 27). I felt this way when watching the presentation today, and am eager to hear more about the results found. Although I was in middle school slightly before social networking became popular, it is interesting and saddening to see how "cyber bullying" now effects young girls. I am a bit too old to have encountered much cyber bullying myself, but have seen examples of it in the media that are horrifying. I believe strongly in the work that has gone into this research project, mentoring, and leadership programs for girls, and I hope to hear more about it, or perhaps find opportunities for involvement, in the future.

Word count: 420

service learning/activism log #2

Activism: This week has been stressful for our Global and Transnational Feminisms class, as we wrap up our service learning project and prepare for our presentations this Tuesday and Thursday. On Sunday, I attended a YAYA meeting along with a few of my classmates. During the meeting we discussed possible future trips, activism opportunities, and a YAYA benefit show that Patricia, a few other classmates and I are coordinating for June. I did a bit of research and communication with venues for the benefit show today, and participated in tabling for Navdanya, our global partner, at UCF with Emily and Kelly. We were very successful in getting people interested in Navdanya and facilitating conversations with them. I know that everyone is very stressed about the presentations due this week and communication has not been the easiest, so that is one pitfall we've faced. Overall I think that our planning the fundraising event with YAYA and the intelligent people we contacted through tabling for Navdanya this week are great examples of the opportunities granted to us through global feminist efforts.

Reflection: In Melinda Adams' essay, "Regional Women's Activism: African Women's Networks and the African Union", part of the anthology "Global Feminism: Transnational Women's Activism, Organizing and Human Rights", it's mentioned that "transnational women's activism is not always global in scope; sometimes it is regional in character" (Adams 187). YAYA is a fine example of local/regional activism. Events like our trip to Fellsmere are beneficial locally, but help diffuse issues across national and global boundaries by spreading knowledge and mobilizing. When attending a YAYA meeting, I gain a better understanding of how democratic organizing works in this way. Navdanya's work also extends across and among borders, as we were able to take the regional work that they've done and apply it internationally by tabling and spreading the word about food sustainability, seed sharing and organic food.

Reciprocity: Attending the YAYA meeting this week, I was granted many opportunities for future involvement, trips, and fundraising events. An organizing education event that would be very beneficial to me and my classmates was offered for next month. YAYA has been very gracious with including and embracing our class. While we have offered our time, they have offered us endless educational and team-building opportunities. In this way, it is important to be mindful that in global feminist work, we (Western feminists) may possess time or resources that our partners do not, but they can teach and offer us many things.

Word count: 414

campus engagement log #1

This past Friday I attended "Let's Talk about Sex, Baby!", an event sponsored by VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood. According to their Facebook page, VOX at UCF "exists to educate the university community about reproductive health and rights, to translate increased awareness into pro-choice activism on campus, and to serve as a coalition partner to state, national, and international reproductive rights efforts." Their event, which took place at Paradise (a local bar in Orlando) boasted sex toy raffles, free condoms, a dildo ring toss and other games. Events such as these may on the surface seem silly, but they are important in that they link entertainment (fake orgasm contests) to heavier topics: safe sex, for example. While much fun was to be had, sex education trivia, pamphlets and presentations about VOX's work made the event moreover educational in nature.

"Third wave" feminist culture has allowed for more fun to seep into learning about reproductive health, and added a youthful aspect to women's rights that hadn't existed previously. Magazines like BUST and Bitch publish lesbian sex stories, advocate eco-friendly menstrual cups and review pornographic films. Jezebel.com's "Lady Business" section publishes tongue-in-cheek articles like "This Is How Much It Costs to Own a Vagina: An Itemized List." Male-dominated social news website Reddit has multiple feminist-related boards that boast hundreds of thousands of readers. Through Facebook, VOX was able to invite over 800 guests to "Let's Talk about Sex, Baby!" at once, add updates and information about the event as it grew closer, and easily communicate with attendees. With the assistance of the Internet and other modern media, feminism, as well as sexual health, has become not just widely received, but popular.

Some feminists may argue that events such as "Let's Talk about Sex, Baby!", BUST Magazine, and other events and media that take a lighthearted approach to women's issues aren't productive or serious enough, but what makes them important is that they open up dialogue in a way which does not alienate, allowing for discussion and consideration of more critically important topics. With events such as "Let's Talk about Sex", those who may have shied away from an austere feminist rally or an STD testing event have the opportunity to learn more about reproductive health in an enjoyable environment, free from judgement. "Let's Talk about Sex, Baby!" was an altogether successful, entertaining and educational event, one which I am glad I had the opportunity to attend regardless of campus engagement requirements!

girls like us: reading response

In Girls Like Us, Rachel Lloyd, a former sex trafficking victim and activist, argues in favor of girls and women involved in sex trafficking being considered victims or survivors, rather than criminals. Of these girls and women she states,

"Their pathway into the commercial sex industry is facilitated through seduction, promises, and the belief that the abuser is actually their boyfriend. Statistics show that the majority of commercially sexually exploited children are homeless, runaways, or the distastefully termed 'throwaways.' These girls and young women have a tougher time in the court of public opinion and in the real courts of the criminal and juvenile justice systems. It is presumed that somewhere along the line they 'chose' this life, and this damns them to be seen as willing participants in their own abuse" (Lloyd 74).

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 82.8% of human trafficking in the United States between 2007 and 2008 was forced prostitution, 31.8% of which involved minors (Kyckelhahn, Beck, and Cohen). With these figures available to us, it is inaccurate to assume that these girls and women are somehow "choosing" to be trafficked, whether they are American 'throwaways' or the girl next door.

A recent Vanity Fair article, titled "Sex Trafficking in America: the Girls Next Door" claims that influences such as video games and reality TV have played a role in the normalization of sexual harm and drastically declining age of sex trafficking victims. The article also gives a detailed account of Gwen and Alicia, two "pale, blonde, docile" girls who were sold as prostitutes in the affluent West Hartford, Connecticut area. Their pimp took Visa and Mastercard in payment, and they were often sold to upper-class white businessmen (Collins). This certainly doesn't fit the description of "typical" in global trafficking discourses, but does that make these girls more or less victims than their poorer, inner-city peers who are also trafficked by pimps? Rachel Lloyd argues that "discussions about true 'choice' are erroneous and unhelpful" to the larger discussion of trafficked girls and women being prosecuted (Lloyd 78).

Works Cited:

Lloyd, Rachel. Girls Like Us: Fighting for a world where girls are not for sale, an activist finds her calling and heals herself. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. 74. Print.

Kyckelhahn, Tracey, Allen Beck, and Thomas Cohen. United States. Department of Justice. Characteristics of Suspected Human Trafficking Incidents, 2007-08. 2009. Print.

Collins, Amy. "Sex Trafficking of Americans: The Girls Next Door." Vanity Fair. 24 May 2011: n. page. Web. 8 Apr. 2012.

Word Count: 407

service learning/activism log #1

Activism: Now that our proposal is done, our group is getting into the nitty-gritty of planning the community garden event. I worked with Emily on our part of revising the proposal last week, and later helped donate to and publicize a yard sale benefit that Andy and Sara arranged on Sunday. I attended a potluck meeting on Wednesday with the class where we talked about how communication has been very difficult for us as a class, as has coordinating all our different schedules. We successfully decided on our project and revised our proposal, but communication and coordination have been pitfalls. I think we have started to improve on this, but working with a large group of many different kinds of people is definitely an example of something challenging experienced in global feminism on a larger scale. Our goal right now is to finish the service learning showcase application and compile all our money and tool donations. I have plans to do tabling with YAYA tomorrow (Thursday) at school.

Reflection: Our activism and challenges faced recently with regard to making group decisions, communicating effectively and having adequate participation relates to what we are learning in class, especially the readings on coming together effectively and creating working activism groups. I learned about these challenges on an international scale in Sarah Swider's piece, ""Working Women of the World Unite?" in "Global Feminism: Transnational Women's Activism, Organizing and Human Rights". She writes about how domestic workers are sometimes difficult to organize due to stigma and dynamics of the job, division among sexes, classes and races, and state regulations that remove power from immigrant women. However, the domestic workers in Hong Kong successfully come together to form a "women's alternative economic organization" (Swider 117). By using some of the tactics we've learned in class (looking at alternate ways of organizing, joining instead of leading, cultivating sustainable relationships with our community partner) our activism may also be successful.

Reciprocity: YAYA has served as a driving force to motivate many of us, as they continue to be knowledgeable, helpful, and motivated to create change for migrant farm workers. In return for my help on this project, I am inspired by people who continually make a difference in this area. I've also gotten the opportunity to learn more about working in activism with large groups, communicating and organizing with like-minded people. I look forward to continued participation and learning opportunities within this project, especially at our community garden event on Saturday!

Word Count: 416

service learning proposal- revised

Mission Statement:
To fight for agricultural justice and improvement of women’s rights in the farmworker community through fundraising and volunteering with YAYA and communication and cooperation with our [to be determined] global partner.

Organizational Structure:
Secretary: record keeping (includes tracking attendance), maintenance of Google group
Scheduler: maintains Google calendar and plans attendance to events

Task-based committees:
Headed by a Committee Chairperson who acts as the liaison for the committee and ensures efficiency of meetings
Community partner liaisons (2): communicate with community partners and attend YAYA meetings
Global partner liaisons (2): work with fundraising committee
Ethics Committee (3): ensures mindful action, implements “three strike” policy

Three Strike Policy:
Failure to complete a task or attend a designated event results in one strike
First and second strikes result in voting restrictions
Three strikes results in a meeting with the ethics committee and Professor Tweed

Fundraising Organizers (4): responsible for coordinating an event and/or delegating responsibilities to other members to ensure that we are able to provide at least $190 (for food), 19 rakes and 19 shovels to YAYA for the community garden project.

Every member is accountable for their own attendance and participation. If a member is unable to attend an event, they must notify the scheduler. The Ethics Committee and “three strike” policy were conceived to deal with situations in which a member fails to be accountable for themselves.

Our group is democratically structured and focuses on working with, rather than for, our community. We have chosen this organizational strategy because, based on the NGOs that have come before us, operating through task-based committees (where personal accountability and leadership can foster) promotes efficiency in goal achievement. Women, Food, and Agriculture Network (WFAN), as discussed in Women’s Activism and Globalization, have a similar mission. One of their goals is to “instigate change” by building community and sustaining relationships with farmworkers (144).

We also have an ethics committee to monitor our progress. In “Unlikely Godmother,” Margaret Snyder characterizes the United Nations as a “godmother,” which acted as a guardian and advocate for women’s issues (25). Our ethics committee is cognate to the UN, in that it will monitor the efficacy and ethical compliance of our project.
We are facing the global challenge of migrant farmworker rights based on local realities, specifically the lack of resources to farmworkers in the community of Fellsmere, FL. We will be participating in discussion that takes place on a global level with our global partner. By building solidarity between our local and global partners, and ourselves, we will either discover or develop new ideas to cater to the needs of the farmworker population.

Group effectiveness will be measured by involvement of the majority of class members at each event, as well as our ability to fulfill each of the goals we have set. We are also considering the individual gains of each class member, outside of the group as a whole, to be an accomplishment of overall group effectiveness. This includes phone banking with YAYA, fundraising, and planning. We will also strive to maintain sincere communication and ethical interactions with each other and our community partners. We will assess ourselves via individual surveys on group effectiveness.

Community Partner/Global Theme Profile:
We propose to address the larger systemic issues of the treatment and unfair conditions of farmworkers, focusing specifically on women farmworkers. We know that "women produce 70% of the food on earth but they are marginalized and oppressed by neoliberalism and patriarchy" (What Is 1). These systems of oppression often deny those who produce the food basic, equal access to the products they produce. As the price of food increases and becomes more scarce, women become malnourished, "as they eat last after providing for their children and family members" (Desai 21). One possible way of addressing this issue is to "produce food for local consumption" (Desai 24). To lay a foundation for both environmental and production sustainability, it is key that the community eats the food it grows. Local production and consumption can also indirectly address situations of "unsustainable exploitation of workers," who are denied not only equal access to food, but also other resources, such as safe housing and acceptable working conditions (Two Years 1). By establishing themselves as producers of their own food and giving value and recognition to both the unpaid and poorly paid labor, farmworkers can pave the way for change in regard to equal access and fair treatment.
We have not yet been able to contact a global partner. However, when we do, we will be able to find out more about their needs and goals as they relate to our own and therefore participate in both shared learning and activism.

By working in solidarity with YAYA, we are supporting activism enacted “to change the oppressive social, political and economic conditions of farmworkers” (“About”). Human rights violations, such as those our local farmworkers face, are worldwide issues and are experienced in many forms across many communities. While YAYA is “[i]nspired by the principles of nonviolence of the farmworker movement,” we are inspired by the efforts of YAYA and the organization’s slant towards working with, not simply for farmworker communities (“About”). As we work with each other and with YAYA, we will cultivate ethical activism through focusing on our communicative and social interactions.

We experience many obstacles surrounding the politics of internal organization, and strive to overcome our individual walls with the understanding that we are all part of a greater struggle, a struggle that does not belong to any of us but in which we are all intricately implicated. Through a class-wide dialogue we are able to unpack many of our assumptions about the needs and desires of the community we plan to work with, thus revealing our own privileges as well as exposing our roles in perpetuating inequality by constantly recreating and reaffirming its existence (Trinh 54). Our goal is to experience knowledge from course texts by applying it in our community with regard to issues from a global perspective. If we achieve our goal, we will have worked together to gain new knowledge, insight, and perspective from women and men in a local farmworker community and organized with them in solidarity against a global women’s issue.

3. The Project Proposal:
Our intentions for this project are to forge relationships with farmworker communities on a local to global level, with a focus on women and how their lives are impacted by the work they do. We will accomplish ours goals by dividing them up between the various committees we have created. We will begin to develop a relationship with our local community partner, YAYA, by attending meetings and fulfilling their requested needs for gardening tools and long sleeve shirts. We will also be participating in the Fellsmere Community Garden Event, where we will be gardening, sharing, and preparing a meal, while also learning from one another. We will determine the needs of our global partners through email and meet whatever need(s) that they express at that time.

We will complete our service learning project via the combined resources of each of us as individuals, the resources we have available as UCF students, and the resources of our greater Orlando community. Through the expertise of YAYA and FWAF, we will be able to better understand the ways in which we can use our resources to best serve the needs of the farmworker community. Simultaneously, we will be continuously communicating as a group in order to reevaluate (and therefore possibly alter) our initial methodology, resources, and group organizational structure, in order to best serve our goals.

One of our immediate goals in supporting YAYA and FWAF in the Fellsmere community gardening day is to fundraise one shovel and one rake per student. Another goal is to fundraise the cost per person for our visit, which includes meals and transportation. We believe that these immediate goals are feasible because we have access to different types of resources that will help our fundraising efforts. For example, on-campus technology to make and print materials to advertise fundraising, as well as access to various campus organizations that may support our fundraising events. Our most important goal is to support our community partner and their sustainable relationship building with farmworker communities. Our fundraising efforts will provide the Fellsmere community with the tools that they currently need and will use in the future. We will also be providing labor within the Fellsmere community garden and helping with the upkeep of the plots, a service that FWAF has asked YAYA and our Global class to provide. We hope that through this project we help YAYA strengthen their already established relationship with the Fellsmere community, and that through our collaborative efforts, we also

create a sustainable relationship with our community partner.

Word count: 1452

Project timeline:

3/12- 3/16: reworking of project proposal, search for global partner with group

TBD: fundraising events/meetings

3/31: community garden project with Fellsmere

Works cited:

Desai, Manisha. "Transnational Solidarity: Women's Agency, Structural Adjustment, and Globalization."

Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. By

Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. 15-33. Print.

Minh-ha, Trinh T. Woman, Native, Other. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Print.

Naples, Nancy A. "The Challenges and Possibilities of Transnational Feminist Praxis.” Women's Activism

and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. By Nancy A. Naples and

Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. 267-81. Print.

“What is La Via Campesina?” La Via Campesina: International Peasant’s Movement. La Via Campesina

International Peasant’s Voice. 9 February 2011. Web. 23 February 2012.

YAYA- Justice for Farmworkers. YAYA, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2012. .

service learning proposal

Explain how your service project addresses these larger systemic global issues and what steps your group will take toward this goal.

"Our local issue relates to lack of resources and tools available to migrant farmworkers. We will take steps toward providing resources and tools to them by working with our CP, YAYA, the Youth and Young Adult Network of the National Farm Worker Ministry, on a community garden project, garden tool donation and long-sleeve t-shirt drive. Through this we hope to address the larger systemic global issue of unfair treatment and working conditions of those farm workers that are not from the United States."

edit:
"We propose to address the larger systemic issues of the treatment and unfair conditions of farm workers, focusing on women farm workers. We know that “women produce 70% of the food on earth but they are marginalized and oppressed by neoliberalism and patriarchy” (What Is 1). These systems of oppression often deny farm workers and food producers basic and equal access to the food they produce. As the price of food increases and food is scarcer, women become malnourished, “as they eat last after providing for their children and family members” (Desai 21). One possible way of addressing this issue is to “produce food for local consumption” (Desai 24). To lay a foundation for both environmental and production sustainability, it is crucial that the community eats the food it grows.

In joining YAYA’s Community Garden Project in Fellsmere, we will work side by side with the local farm worker community to create not just a source of pesticide-free food for the community, but, more importantly, to collaborate in developing a space for the community to interact. Through our group’s involvement in the Project we are also working toward the goal of fostering solidarity between the Orlando and Fellsmere communities, setting the foundation for a connection which will hopefully outlast this project.

We seek to engage and collaborate with our global partner, La Via Campesina, and to effectively connect our local work with global efforts toward agricultural justice and solidarity among multiple communities. Throughout this project, weekly email with the La Via Campesina will clarify how our progress works in accord with the organization’s needs."