Many Countries, One World

My trip to the Philippines 

When I was ten years old in 2011, I went to the Philippines for my grandma's funeral. I was there for two weeks. Throughout the time I was there, I noticed there was so much pollution there. For example, the streets were filled with piles of trash. The homes were built out of unstable wood. Whenever we passed by a small lake, there was trash floating in it. 

Life in the Philippines seems hard for people. There were many little kids who had no clothing on or had homes. The jobs there don’t seem to really pay much. My trip made me realized that I want to do something about it. I want to help them by helping clean the place. Also, I want to help the homeless people by helping them out with some money, a new place, and food. When Christmas comes, that is what I hope to do.

Christmas in El Salvador

When I was five years old I went to El Salvador with my family. I went there to visit my very sick grandmother. I even got to see my cousins that I never knew of. When I got off the plane it was about 4 am, and I really didn't get a glimpse of where I was. At about 10 am when I woke up, I was dizzy and didn't remember where I was. I saw a lot of people that I didn't recognize. It was also around the holidays. When I got to know everyone I saw a Christmas tree with little presents. 

My cousins invited me to go to play soccer at the park with their friends. As soon as I walked outside, all I saw was garbage and a huge mess. I wanted to help! Me and a few other kids around the neighborhood grabbed garbage bags and picked up A LOT of garbage. We picked up 6 bags of garbage. 

The Philippines and El Salvador seem to be very similar in that they have very bad poverty. We should really help them out!

~A & F

To learn more about global poverty:

http://www.dosomething.org/cause/homelessness-and-poverty

You can also check out Kiva, non-profit aiming to alleviate poverty and empower individuals in low-income countries through loans. http://www.kiva.org/

Animals, Us, and The Environment

To pet owners: Care and Responsibility

Humans should not take their pets for granted. Animals can help you when you’re in need and be your buddy when you’re down. Pets should be taken care of and should be loved. They deserved to be treated like humans, because they have feelings just like us. If you bring an animal into your home, you should feed, shower, and walk them; giving them love and attention. Moreover, we should not abuse and neglect animals, such as not feeding them, not giving them freedom to go outside, or leaving them alone on long trips; sometimes people hit them. This is wrong!

People can get attached to animals really fast, and vice versa. For example, in January of 2012, a 3 year old male labrador dog traveled 500 miles from Virginia to South Carolina to find his owner. The man must have been a good owner for the dog to go look for him. It took 2 weeks for someone to find the labrador. Imagine the runaways dogs who are abused and choose to wander off, but never finding a new owner.

To Everyone: How our environment affects animals (and us, too)

With many factories and power plants around, animal’s environment need to get better. Even within miles of reach of human made items, animals can be affected, such as garbage or harmful chemicals traveling by air. Some animal types such as scavengers find what they can to survive and if they see plastic, or just something that looks tasty to them they might eat it, which will cause internal damage.

And what about that oil pollution? They affect millions of marine life and can mutate them, making them harmful to others. Especially those great white sharks, they are becoming extinct. We should stop all this nonsense and stop polluting plastic items. Unless we stop we will cause the end of the world ourselves; and all of those innocent animals swimming or running around not knowing anything about the world around them. Next time you see garbage on the floor make sure to pick it up and dispose of it. It will do us good as well as the animal world!

~C, M, & S

To find out ways you can help fight animal cruelty and how your actions can help the environment, check out: http://www.aspca.org/ & http://www.earthecho.org/

Images from http://www.cereplast.com/ & http://abcn.ws/Ri3j4B