Thursday, August 12, 2010

If the World were a Village of 100

Yesterday was a mission accomplished day for me as I set out to renew my PRC Teacher License, reactivate my student's account in DLSU-Manila for my master's classes, meet CSB School of Design and Arts Counseling Services Director Ms. Sonia and meet some students of St. Scholastica's College Special Ed major, all in one day.

First, the City of Manila is really a big mess with almost every Filipino wanting to get a piece of life in the city. Air pollution made me puke, pedestrian traffic is way too much and the temperature just made me sweat like the tap has been left open. The positive side of my day was that it only took me 20 minutes inside the PRC Office to renew my license. The office is located near FEU-Manila and UE Manila so I expected pedestrian congestion.

After this I went to La Salle and met Ms. Tina in the Educational Leadership and Management Department of the College of Education. Since the last time I was there was in 2003, I erred on going to the Vito Cruz gate because the department is now located in the Brother Gonzales building which meant I'd have to ride the jeep or walk for about 2 blocks.

It felt like forever using the university elevators as each floor meant a stop because of the students going here and there. I had to go to the 16th floor and that meant 15 stops going up and 15 stops going down. After the ELMD inquiry I had to go to the Office of the Registrar for my account reactivation. Had to wait for awhile for my turn which meant a time for me relax.

It was during this time that I recalled my younger, carefree days in my master's classes. I remembered I was given a book by one of my Taiwanese classmates which was called "If the world were a village of 100". Here is the summary of the book:

IF THE WORLD WERE A VILLAGE OF 100 PEOPLE

In the world today, more than 6 billion people live.
If this world were shrunk to the size of a village of 100 people, what would it look like?

59 would be Asian
14 would be American (North, Central and South)
14 would be African
12 would be European
1 would be from the South Pacific

50 would be women, 50 would be men
30 would be children, 70 would be adults.
70 would be nonwhite, 30 would be white
90 would be heterosexual, 10 would be homosexual

33 would be Christians
21 would be Muslims
15 would be Hindus
6 would be Buddhists
5 would be Animists
6 would believe in other religions
14 would be without any religion or atheist.

15 would speak Chinese, Mandarin
7 English
6 Hindi
6 Spanish
5 Russian
4 Arabic
3 Bengali
3 Portuguese
The other would speak Indonesian, Japanese,
German, French, or some other language.

In such a village with so many sorts of folks, it would be very important to learn to understand people different from yourself and to accept others as they are. Of the 100 people in this village:

20 are undernourished
1 is dying of starvation, while 15 are overweight.
Of the wealth in this village, 6 people own 59% (all of them from the United States), 74 people own 39%, and 20 people share the remaining 2%.
Of the energy of this village, 20 people consume 80%, and 80 people share the remaining 20%.
20 have no clean, safe water to drink.
56 have access to sanitation
15 adults are illiterate.
1 has an university degree.
7 have computers.

In one year, 1 person in the village will die, but in the same year, 2 babies will be born, so that at the year's end the number of villagers will be 101.

If you do not live in fear of death by bombardment, armed attack, landmines, or of rape or kidnapping by armed groups, then you are more fortunate than 20, who do.

If you can speak and act according to your faith and your conscience without harassment, imprisonment, torture or death, then you are more fortunate than 48, who can not.

If you have money in the bank, money in your wallet and spare change somewhere around the house, then you are among the richest 8.

If you can read this message, that means you are probably lucky!
(The statistics were derived from Donella Meadows "State of the Village Report" first published in 1990)

This could be a very good opener for class topics on awareness on global citizenship, tolerance, development and peace process.      

I met the 4 Kolasas yesterday who majors in Special Education. Was so glad to have shared almost two hours of discussion about special needs education, the unseen and the ethereal. I had the chance to promote and invite the young ladies to my upcoming seminar-lecture which will be on September 19, 2010. For details, please check out my Events and Announcements page or visit this post: Seminar/Lecture Learn More About Special Education.  

My last stop was College of St. Benilde's School of Design and Arts. What can I say? The structure of the building itself is a marvelous creation. I checked out the programs offered and the facilities inside, simply the best in the country!

Oh well, 'till next time.

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