Ayiti – The Cost of Life
Plenary Questions (Reflection on our experiences)
1. What was it like playing the game?
The game was interesting. It was mainly about strategy. You had to find the best way to keep your family alive. It was sad at times, you knew that when they got sick the chances of them dying where very high. You feel a bit of sadness when they die because it happens in life.
2. What was the game about and how would you describe it to a friend?
The game is about a family of 5 in poverty. It is mainly about chance and luck. You have to guide them through 4 years. In each year there are 4 seasons in each season you have to choose which path they go to – school, hospital (if you are sick), work, family farm or stay at home and rest. You have to think about your choices carefully as you guide the family through highs and lows.
3. Which primary objective did you choose, and why?
First I chose health, because if you are healthy then you can go to school and to work. This means that there are less chances you will get sick and die. Then I chose money because without money they cant eat, go to school or go to the hospital to treat their sicknesses.
4. What types of decisions did you have to make about the family members while playing the game and trying to achieve your objective?
I made the choices of where they should go. I made them go to work and school. I decided if they could risk their sickness and stay at home or work. I knew that education was important but I moved around the education to a different child every season.
5. What strategies did you use? For example, did you combine work and school, or did you send anyone to school? Which worked? Which did not?
Yes I did send them all to atleast one season of work and schooling. Mainly the parents and the boys worked and the daughter went to school. It was hard making some choices but you get put in hard situations that you cant imagine any family being put into.
6. Why would parents choose to devote so much effort sending their children to school?
Parents would choose to devote so much effort in sending their children because all they can believe in is that the children will have a great life. To have a great life they must have had an excellent education to get a good job. To have a wonderful pay you need the best job. To get enough food you need enough money.
7. How many of you were able to keep the children in school?
I was able to keep my child in school for about 1-2 years but then my family went into extreme poverty. L
8. What obstacles did you face in trying to keep them in school?
My obstacles – depression, sickness and extreme poverty. If they got depressed they wouldn’t want to go to school and they wouldn’t do so well at school. If they got sick there would be more chances of them to die. The reason they got sick most of the time was because of their depression. Extreme poverty meant they couldn’t go to school at all.
9. How do the situations and options in the game compare with those in your own community?
They are completely different because we aren’t put in those challenges and choices. We don’t have to go to work to earn a living for our families. We don’t get bloody diarrhea or cholera and then die at a very young age. Well some of us do but it isn’t that common. There are more chances we will stay healthy. They are stuck in a poverty circle.
10.Why might access to education be a challenge in another country?
Their challenge is sending their children to school! It might be too expensive to afford or just the challenge of them getting there to school!
11.What factors would make it easier for the children in the game to gain access to education? What conditions could be changed and how?
It would be easier if the family had more money or the schooling was cheaper, also not as tiring making the children sick. The conditions could be changed by either the parents going to a higher paid job or the children go to a cheaper school.
12.Find out more information about Haiti using your notes from class and the Haiti Country Profile Sheet. Write a short description (but factually based) paragraph explaining you think it feels, what you think it sounds like, what you think it looks like in Haiti. Give it a suitable title and add a sourced image.
Upload the answers to these questions to your blog. Write in this document first so that your spelling and mechanics are easily corrected. Please don’t include the questions – embed them in your responses as we have been doing in class. This response should be ‘formal’ in voice and use the presentation guidelines for Global Issues class. It will be graded according to the blog rubric.
Haiti is a very poor country. Imagine all the natural disasters that could possibly happen to any country in the world. This is my description of Haiti. Haiti is the poorest country in the northern hemisphere and has experienced political violence throughout its history. Quite recently Haiti suffered a massive earthquake leaving thousands dead and even more homeless and starving. It seems nothing good is going to happen to them. Sadly it seems nothing great is EVER going to happen to them. The Haitian citizens suffer what it seems like all the most horrible thoughts you could think of. If I were to walk on the streets of Haiti this very day, I would hear the silent movements of the homeless. The begging of the poor, the crying of those children that have lost their parents and have nothing. I would see people with ragged clothing simply wearing nothing. I would see destroyed houses on both sides of the street. We need to realize how lucky we are to be able to type on a computer, to be in a nice house and being able to eat and go to school.
PLEASE HELP HAITI
:D !! A++
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