Its almost March????

Well, this week I woke up and realized its almost March, which means I have just over 2 weeks until my event. I have gone into overdrive to knockout what I need to get done. Again, I have gotten into a communication stump. I have been reaching out to about 8 organizations in the Charlotte area about providing information on getting involved, and not a single one has gotten back to me. Gotta love people and their communication skills. Not gonna lie, stress is starting to set in. I haven't done a lot of work the past month or so as I have been busy with other projects, but no I think I can finally get to work. I have a flyer done, and am waiting for the promotional video to get approved by the school. I hope to get officially announcements out to the school this week.I'm really excited to see how this turns out!


In other news----
This past week in DigCit we have been working on a video project on population growth. Fortunately, I had a good bit of knowledge in the area due to another class I have taken. I connected my video back to passion for women's rights. I talked about the accessibility of reproductive health to women in less developed countries and the effect it has on population growth. It was really interesting to learn about the lack of access in the countries. I have really been liking the video projects, even though they are so much work.  It was really cool that I had the ability to connect my video back to my passion project!

Service Via Video Project

This week we have worked on our video projects, and yesterday my group went to visit the Ada Jenkins center to learn more about it. It was really cool to talk to some of the volunteers and see how passionate they are about working with the people there. I am hoping that the interviews we got works well. My only worry is that last time I was there, I had used my camera camera to get some B-Roll footage, but unfortunately my sister needed my camera so we had to use the iPad's yesterday, and I don't want the footage to look that different between two types of footage. I should be able to make it work but we will see.

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten that much work done on my Genius Time project, because most of my focus has been on scheduling for the Service Via Video project, and have been spending a lot of time on producing our schools's talent show. Hopefully towards the end of February I can try to get into the nitty gritty details. I am really looking forward to the event and am excited to watch it come to life!

Puppies and People

For an upcoming project in class, we are partnering with local organizations, to create promotional videos, to try and get more support and awareness for their causes. The organization I am working with personally is the Ada Jenkins Center. Ada Jenkins is a place where people of low incomes can go for health services, after school care, counseling, food and other various services. Yesterday, we went on a field trip to all of the organizations we are working with, and we took a tour of Ada Jenkins. I was shocked at how much they provide. I have worked with Ada Jenkins previously, and already knew a good bit about what they do, but it was cool to take a full tour and learn even more. I'm hoping in our video to really focus on the amount of services, and specifically I would like to focus on the "Two-Generational Learning" that they focus on. I am very excited to work with Ada Jenkins considering it is something I have grown up helping with, and is a big part of the community.

One of the other organizations we visited was the Cornelius Animal Shelter. This was a good way to lighten the day, but at the same time it broke my heart. One of the dogs there was called "Bam-Bam", and is part pitbull. He is 5 months old and as sweet as can be, and it breaks my heart that so many people would turn him down because of the pitbull in him. We were able to play with the dogs, and being very  much a dog person, this was the highlight of my day. While I was there I brought my camera, and I was able to get some really good pictures of the dogs. I am thinking about reaching out to the shelter and seeing if they would like any of the pictures to use for the adoption page or anything else. I will include some of the pictures below. I really hope that these dogs go to good families, considering they are absolute sweet hearts.

All in all, it was a very enlightening day, from seeing places where people go for hope, such as Ada Jenkins and I can't wait to work on this video!!

Donald Trump vs. Pope Francis

When it comes to women's rights, two people that have completely opposing views are Donald Trump, and the greatest Pope of all time, Pope Francis. In order to compare these two I am going to use REAL quotes.

Donald Trump:
“Women have one of the great acts of all time. The smart ones act very feminine and needy, but inside they are real killers. The person who came up with the expression ‘the weaker sex’ was either very naive or had to be kidding. I have seen women manipulate men with just a twitch of their eye — or perhaps another body part.”-Donald Trump in "Trump: The Art of the Comeback"

Pope Francis
"Women of strength, fighters, with that spirit of courage which puts you on the front lines in the proclamation of the Gospel, I wish to say 'thank you,' a big thank you... and to tell you that I love you very much."

As you can see here, Donald Trump, accused women of being manipulative, and "real killers", Where as Pope Francis says that Women are strong and courageous  and appreciates all they do for the Church and our Families. 

Donald Trump
"It's certainly not groundbreaking news that the early victories by the women on 'The Apprentice' were, to a very large extent, dependent on their sex appeal." 

Pope Francis
"Women are too often looked upon in the Church as servants and not as sisters, who are as much in charge as brothers,"

Donald Trump believes that in order to get success, women need to be dependent on their sex appeal. Pope Francis however, believes that women's role, in the Church and outside the Church is to be supportive, and equal to their male counterparts, rather than a slave to their male counterparts.


To wrap it up, I would like to share a REAL tweet by Donald Trump

Donald Trump:
26,000 unreported sexual assults in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?

Donald Trump assumes that when you put men and women together, it is human nature that there will be sexual assault, when in reality, the way society sexualizes EVERYTHING, leads to Rape and Sexual Assault.

In conclusion, Pope Francis for President.

PSAs and Passion Project Progression

This week has been pretty productive! Last week I reached out to the Gender Studies department at UNCC to look for a speaker, and the response I got was incredible! I had one of the professors email me, just to tell me about the importance of my project and how she was impressed by it, and that really meant a lot to me. I was able to find a speaker, and will be meeting with her in the next week or so, to discuss my plans, and intent with my project.
In class this week, we have been working on Public Service Announcements, and my group was assigned online safety, I think the video came out really well and I hope people get the message from it. They will be published next week, and so I will like the video to my blog. It was cool working with software such as iMovie and Garage Band more to create the project, and I am starting to feel more and more competent with the software.

I also am in the process of working on the video, and have finished interviews and I think the material I have will work really well.

This week I found a campaign and organization that I'm really interested in. The organization is called The Representation Project. They produced a couple of documentaries, including Miss Representation, a very popular movie on the representation of women in media, and how women view themselves as powerful from their beauty and sexuality rather than their ability to be a leader. Not only does the campaign work with women's portrayal, but they talk a lot about the mask that men wear to seem "manly" and "strong". Here are two videos by Representation Project!!!

The Mask You Live In (Trailer)

Demand Better Media in 2015

I recommend you check out those videos, and take a look at The Representation Project website at the link below!!

The Representation Project

Peace and Love!
Kate

Character Building

This week was a character building week. At the community pitch, there were some people whom you could tell didn't quite want to to be seen as a feminist or have their picture taken. Then, that evening and into this morning I had a twitter debate about "meninism" and what it stands for. With all this in mind, it made me scared for the day of the girl. I don't want to make a fool of myself by spreading awareness of a movement, but at the same time, that cowardliness is what I'm trying to fix. So often women feel incompetent and aren't willing to stand up for what they believe. If I were to bow out, I would just emphasis that feeling. I am going to find people who don't agree with me, and I can try  my hardest to try and change that, but some are so stubborn, they won't even think about changing. Women need to know that they are strong, and defending an opinion doesn't make them annoying, or whiny, it makes them strong. If no women had ever stood up for what they believed, we would still be objectified, and owned by males. We wouldn't be able to vote, and we would all still be wearing skirts. Feminism has come a long way, but we are still far from equality. While it is not quite as visible with individuals, the institutionalization of sexism can be blatantly seen with sex trafficking and the necessity of laws such as Title IX.

I have to support this through and through. I will not back down. Without strong women, the movement would be nothing. I may be opinionated, but I am well informed, and that's what this movement needs. People won't take anyones opinion seriously unless they are well informed, and even some won't take informed people seriously.

I could write about this for years and years, as I am beginning to feel how passionate I am about this. This is the thing though. These are the points I want to get across:

-Feminism is not a joke
-Feminism supports both male and female rights, and there is a movement to eliminate the amendment stating that females are guaranteed parental custody, started by feminist.
-If I were to back down, I would be opening a door for people to continue to see women as weak
-Feminism is a unified movement, and while there are different types of feminists, anyone and everyone can be a feminist
-Feminism supports equality all people, any race, any gender, any sex, any sexual orientation, any religion.
-While conversation isn't always the most fun, it is the only way to get people to think about the issues at hand

-Silence is never the answer.


Peace and Love,

Kate

Glitter....everywhere

Unfortunately this week I missed Monday and Tuesday of school for the Golf State Championship. When I came back, we were working on our Passion Project community pitches. Fortunately, this week I was able to track down many more interviewees, and I have a date picked out to interview. This week I came up with an idea to get media for the video easily. I am going to have people at our community pitch take a picture with a sign that says this is what a feminist looks like, and put them in the video and have it flash through and stuff. Hopefully this week goes well and I get some good footage. Even with everything going on, I can see my project starting to come together!!

My community pitch poster is finished and I am really proud of the product. I included some information about feminism and some of the misconceptions, hopefully to get my point across to the people. I also included some quotes, including the one below, that shows the point of view I am taking. To add some eye-catching stuff I glittered a couple of things on the poster, and I keep finding glitter in all my clothes, and even in my hair. Fortunately, the glitter serves as a reminder that I need to prepare for tomorrow, and I need to finish my digital portion of my set up. I'm excited to get some feedback from the community this week!