NGO Mission Statement

3/12/24

Who does your NGO serves? (I.e. who does it help?)

The Japanese citizen without formal homes to go home to.

What does your NGO do? (I.e. what are its primary activities?)

My organization collects donations from people who also advocate for homeless Japanese people. And using the money from donations we create houses using cheap and yet durable materials, for example, Plastic, Aluminum, and Styrofoam.

Why does your NGO do what it does? (I.e. what is its purpose?)

My NGO finds it unfair that although there are very little people who live on the streets in Japan, there are still many people who don’t have permanent housing. So we strive to reduce the amount of these people who are not recognized by the government as homeless.

What does your NGO stand for? (I.e. what are its values?)

The values my NGO stand for help us stay focused on our goal, to keep pushing. Which includes persistence, hope, determination, and patience.

What does the NGO accomplish for its target audience? (I.e. If it achieves its goals, what happens?) 

If we find the solutions to our goals, and accomplish them, then many more people in Japan will have suitable, and permanent homes for free until they are able get back on their own feet. (The name of my NGO is HOUSE which is a acronym for: Homes Of Unhoused Society Entities)

NEW POLICY PROPOSAL

for REDUCING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE WITH THERAPY.

23/1/25

1. Background/reason for policy proposal.

After doing substantial research I have found that lots of violence that happens in Vietnam is perpetrated by a husband against wives. According to the news site, Saigoneer,  63% of Vietnamese women are abused by their husbands at least once in their life. After doing this research, I have determined that a good solution for this problem could be increased funding and training for therapists that can speak fluent Vietnamese. There is already a domestic violence law in Vietnam but after the government wasn’t seeing the results that they wanted from said law, the enforcement on the law wavered and weakened. I strongly think the government should continue to implement this law again with stronger protections to increase the potential for the success of this law.

2. Overview of policy proposal.

There is a possibility that if the woman and children who are being tormented by domestic violence, achieve more accessible therapy treatment it might help these survivors to either stand up to their abuser or find the courage to tell someone else about the person who is causing them harm. This is a possible solution because, according to a victim of domestic violence that has healed “Victims of domestic violence are often women because many believe that household matters should be ‘kept behind closed doors’ or that discussing them is shameful… so they compromise and hide their abuse. More dangerously, many women believe it is their fault, that they are not good enough, lack value, and do not deserve respect and love,”  this proves that if the woman who are experiencing domestic violence by their husbands hands get therapeutic treatment then there is a high possibility that this will show these victims that they don’t deserve the abuse that is happening to them, and that it’s okay to express their feelings. And on the other side of things the abusers/the husbands who are hurting their wives and children, if they acquire the right treatments to help them express their anger and other emotions in more positive and peaceful ways, there is a high possibility that they will find themselves not hurting their loved ones anymore, this could easily decrease the amount of domestic violence by a high percentage.

3. Stakeholders.

If this policy is to be implemented then the stakeholders listed below must engage in this undertaking:

• The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) in the government of Vietnam.

• The Vietnamese parliament.

• The NGO Beautiful Mind Vietnam.

• The NGO BasicNeeds Vietnam.

• The NGO Medical Committee Netherlands-Vietnam (MCNV).

• International Union of Psychological Science (Vietnam).

4. Costs/Resource Requirements. 

Estimated list of potential resources:

• Universities for training therapists.

• Teaching foreign therapists to speak Vietnamese.

• Public education campaign for accepting mental health\ treatment.

• Doctor, police, and social worker training in Vietnam.

5. Conclusion.

In all, if we are able to make therapy more accessible to the people of Vietnam then it’s probable the workforce will become stronger, making the economy stronger in the process and this will pay back the costs of the policy implementation. The more money and financial support put into this policy the more pay back there can be. Domestic violence in Vietnam is hurting the economy to the point that it has cost the government and economy 100,507 billion VND which is almost 4 million USD. This is such an absurd amount of money, and is damaging the country. The cost of domestic violence in Vietnam is 1.81% of the country’s GDP. If we are able to decrease the amount of domestic violence in Vietnam, it could be such a huge boost to its economic strength and could help the country in more ways than one. And in addition to the increased economic help, it can also lift up the country’s reputation and bring in even more tourism than before. This would be good because of how tourism based the economy in Vietnam is. The tourism industry gives 6 to 8% of the country's GDP and uplifting the reputation could increase this percentage even further.

How Did China Influence Thailands Traditional Clothing

27/2/25

China first introduced many types of fabrics to Siamese people, such as Silk. Including this the Siamese use patterns and embroidery styles that are inspired and copied from Chinese clothing. And Chinese elements are still seen today in clothing like the Thai “Sinh” which translates to Wrapped Skirt, and some blouses.

Not only was China a big influence on Thailand's traditional clothing but so was ancient India, specifically during the Dvaravati period, and the Khmer civilization, and even western societies impacted Thailand’s traditional clothing.

Transgender in Thailand

5/3/25

About 0.3% of Thailand people are Transgender and almost all of the transgender people in Thailand are trans women. Which is surprisingly less than in Japan which has 0.7% of their people who have transitioned. But even though Thailand is so progressive when it comes to LGBTQ+, transgender people still don’t have legal rights when it comes to changing their gender, and although they can change their names they can not change their sex on legal documents like their passports. And even outside of legal discussion, transgender people are still discriminated against and are treated poorly by people around them in Thailand.

Chiang Mai global studies scavenger  round 1.

25/3/25

Government (2)

• What is the form of government in Thailand - ie democracy, monarchy, etc

Thailand has been a Constitutional Monarchy since 2007, according to U.S Department of state (.gov).

• How is Chiang Mai represented in the national government body (ie Parliament or Congress)

Gender Equality (3)

• How does gender equality seem in Chiang Mai?

  • What is the women’s labor force rate? 

Thailand has a surprisingly low female workforce with only 48.7% of woman having paying jobs.

• What is the rate of domestic violence? 

After the pandemic the domestic violence rate went from 34.6% to 42.2% in Thailand according to BMC women's health.

• Are women represented in elected and appointed government?  And, if so, at what rate?

According to Nation Thailand, the 2019 general election had a total of 76 people, or 14% were woman.

Economics (1)

• Black market

  • What is the government doing to counter the proliferation of the opium trade? 

The government has made multiple actions to prevent the spread of drugs such as opium, these actions consist of law enforcement agencies trying to find counter-trafficking strategies, education programs for drug awareness-raising, and health treatment services, according to United Nations in Thailand.

History (2)

• What was the Lanna Kingdom and what role did Chiang Mai play in it? 

 Chiang Mai was made by King Mangrai for political, economic, social, cultural, etc center for his kingdom called Lanna Kingdom according to UNESCO World Heritage Center.

• How long did the Lanna Kingdom last? 

It lasted from 1292 to 1775.

Culture (4)

• What is a holiday that is celebrated in Chiang Mai that reflects its culture? 

The Songkran festival, the Thai new year.

• Is there food that is special to the region around Chiang Mai? 

Khao Soi is a rich coconut curry noodle soup, according to Theakra.com. 

• Why is Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple considered to be so important to Thai people? 

It’s relic and is believed to be the center of the Lanna Kingdom back in the 14th century.

• What is sihuhata? 

Geography (6)

• Look on a map 

  • What is noteworthy about Chiang Mai’s geographic location? 

I noticed how flat it is. (According to google maps I guess)

• Impact of Geography

  • How are the citizens of Chiang Mai impacted by the environment?

Well because of how hot, green, flat, and open everything is it’s a great place to grow crops, so because of this there’s a lot of cheap, but extremely fresh produce here that is easily accessible.

• Are the main economic areas impacted by Chiang Mai’s geography? I.e. a big logging sector or solar panel usage, etc. 

due to the extensive sun exposure, a lot of jobs are done outside, such as farming.

• Human intervention

  • Has Chiang Mai’s geography been impacted by human intervention? 

• Does climate change impact Chiang Mai and, if so, how? 

Climate change is present in Chiang Mai and many other southwestern countries in Asian, especially from February to April, because this is the time ‘ smoke season’ rises up. At this time, Chiang Mai gets unbearably hot, and the air quality drops dramatically.

• Are there other environmental impacts of humans on the geography? (ie deforestation, soil erosion, water depletion)

Flattened earth, forests, mountains.

Chiang Mai global studies scavenger  round 2.

27/3/25

Civics Workshop Idea project:

8/4/25

Music:

Everyone is assigned a random country, once assigned said country you find one song from that country. When you find a song and listen to it by yourself, you take ten minutes give or take to find out as much information about the song as you can, and especially research about how that song relates back to the country it’s from. When everyone is done, everyone shares the song they found, and then tells everyone about the information they found out about the song.

The goal of this activity is for everyone to find out more about music and songs from different countries and be able to see the contrast in culture from place to place just from listening to music.

This activity will take from 20-30 minutes.

The materials needed are devices for everyone, and a random country generator.

LGBTQ+ equality:

Role play/improv activity: Two random pairs will be made. Once each pair is made, each pair gets their own fake scenario, this scenario will correlate with real homophobic scenes that could happen in real life. For example, one person in one of the pairs will be playing a homophobic or transphobic character, and the other person in the group will play as an ally or a part of the LGBTQ+ community depending on the person. Then this group will be given a fake scenario and will have to improve the lines as the story goes on, the ally will have to play as an ally the whole time and the homophob/transphob will play as that the whole time. Each group has 10 minutes to play out their fake scenario.

The goal of this activity is to see how different people with different perspectives/opinions would interact and handle that interaction.

This activity will take from 20-25 minutes.

Materials needed are the fake scenarios.

Food:

Using a random food dish generator, someone gets a random food, then they have to guess where that food originated from. Once they guess then they find out where it’s really from, they research about how the dish was first made, and then how the dish plays a part in the culture of the country it’s from. After finding out this information they tell it aloud for everyone to hear, then it’s the next person's turn.

The goal for this activity is for everyone to find out how food correlates with culture.

This activity will take from 10-15 minutes.

Material needed is a random food dish generator.

Aspects of a well run country:

Everyone will draw a drawing representation of what they think a well run country should look like, this can be anything from a clean looking street to a diagram. And then we all take turns going around and showing each other our drawings, and explaining how they represent well run countries. Everyone will get fifteen minutes to draw, and it’s okay if you’re not done by the time it’s over because you’ll be explaining it anyways.

The goal for this is to see other people’s perspectives on what a well run country looks like.

This activity will take between 20-25 minutes.

Materials needed are pieces of paper, and drawing utensils.

Anti-Democracy Debate

10/4/25

#1: Money is so powerful, this power that comes with money can be detrimental to the structure of democracy. This is because if one of the candidates were to interfere with the voting process money could be taken advantage of and used to bribe or influence the results of the election. 

#2: Some people’s jobs are to make sure that the election is 100% completely fair, but even those people have opinions. How are we to know that the people counting the votes, or the people guarding outside of the voting booths don’t interfere with anything? How can we be sure that no one who is deeper into the voting system is tarnishing the outcome? Of course this doesn’t always happen, but it has. An example of this is in the 2016. US election Russian workers interfere with the election to bolster Donald Trump's campaign.

#3: There are a lot of stupid people in the world. People who think that gay people came from the devil. People who think black people are bad. People who think women should stay in the kitchen. And these people are not a minority in our world, nor are they a minority in America or other democratic countries. Due to the majority of conservative people they will obviously elect… other conservative people as their leaders. And when conservative people vote for conservative leaders that country then becomes under conservative dictatorship. When this happens people lose their rights, their freedom, some even lose their homes, and all for stupid things like being born from a different country. And all the good people who are just fighting for their rights get banished and beaten down. And since 1860 the Republican Party has won 25 times, and the Democratic Party has won 17 times. So out of 42 times Republicans have in fact won far over half of the times.

What determines a developed country? And how can we know that a developed country is a good one?

If the citizens chose the leader then the people who were against that leader lose rights, and will probably leave the country, even some are forced to leave.

Even if some of the most developed countries have democracies, some of the most dangerous, powerful, and strict countries do as well.

And democracy is flawed, so in some democracies it’s not the people who get to choose but the old, already in power people, who are not giving people their rights. 

Some of these countries, like Japan, and South Korea, may be extremely developed but they’re also very conservative and binding, and not very racially diverse.

And because of this South Korea is losing population because the women feel too shut down by the society and leadership, that they are refusing to have children. This could pose as detrimental to South Korea as a country.

If you don’t see bribery as a big problem in a democracy, then how do you think we can reduce the amount of bribery that does still happen in our modern day to 0% in a democracy?

All in all, government as a construct, is a flawed notion, so is democracy, monarchy, and other forms of government. And I think if we want to achieve fairness and justice, then we need to trash the corrupt, unfair, unjust idea of government as a total, and start over not as voters, or republicans, or democrats, but as humans, and work together to make a better world where all of us can live. Democracy is flawed and so are we. Democracy is not human, but we are.

Pro democracy:

14/4/25

#1: 

Without a democracy then you’re just stuck with the same people, and the same laws, and so the citizens get much less freedom of choice, and less fair options.

#2:

In democracy the citizens can benefit more from the economic policies than in other forms of government, and this helps the citizens and the economy.

#3:

Democracies protect the human rights for specific minorities, like people with disabilities, and mental illnesses.

Fundraising Activity

May 2025

We raised $50 each for our cause - Lulu is donating to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and Mona to the Crisis Text Line. 

Fundraising Message:

Everyone has causes that they feel very strongly about and want to protect. Us too. We think mental health awareness and healing is worth knowing about and worth caring for. 

In school, we were assigned a fundraising project and we took it to heart to help people in need. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network and the Crisis Text Line are organizations that we picked to support. 

Please visit our fundraiser pop up store to show your support and awareness.  The fundraiser will last until May 25. Thank you for caring!

Brainstorming list of causes:

Gaza

Orphanages 

LGBTQI+ funds 

Women's rights

Abortion rights

Animal rights

Accessibility

Mental illness awareness

Domestic violence removal

Environmental issues

Refugee rights

Racial rights

Uyghur rights

Native people rights

Ukrainian rights

Pro peace

Conflict resolution

Human rights

Civil society

Rape awareness 

Suicide awareness

Self harm awareness

Sexual assault awareness

PTSD awareness

Protesting

Therapy for Khmer people that lived through the 1970s

Activism

Depression awareness

Jared Diamond believes that geography is the answer to inequality in the world, and that the reason some places are richer than others is because of where they are located in the world. While watching the three episodes of Jared Diamond’s documentary, Guns Germs And Steel, I found multiple factors I agree with, and also some that I disagree with. So I will be listing five things about Jared Diamond’s research that I find to be correct, and five reasons I think he could revise.

Pros:

1: The first point Diamond makes that I agree with is that he states that a lot of the time when an area has a lot of natural resources they can more easily gain power above other regions. Why I agree with this is because, if a place has a surplus of resources then there won’t be as much of a need to keep restocking just to survive, so there is more time to build on other things, such as architecture, irrigation, and technology. Using this extra time people can also focus on growing their population, area, and power.

2: Diamond talks about how the reason Europe wasn’t able to colonize central Africa at first was because of the difference in latitude. This means that because central Africa had such a different environment than what the Europeans were used to, they weren’t as immune to the new diseases, and they couldn’t grow crops, so they weren’t able to survive for very long due to the lack of food, clean water, and the new diseases.

3: I agree with Diamond when he talked about how the domestication of crops and animals was a complete game changer in human evolution. Being able to make our own food instead of relying on other animals, or wild plants made it so much easier for us to grow bigger civilizations. With a surplus of edible goods we were able to use the extra time we now had to learn new things that made our life easier. We learned how to make durable clothing that could protect our bodies more, and so many other things like weapons.

4: Diamond says that having a surplus of food is important just as much as the food being nutritious is. If you have enough food, but it’s not very nutritious, then there needs to be more than needed so that people can get the right amount of nutrients. This can lead to there being too much harvest, which can cause the food to not be able to replenish in time, and so you can go from a surplus of food to a drought of food in too short of time. This might result in many people starving from lack of nutrients and food.

5: Guns are powerful, and Diamond knows this. Guns can sometimes be more powerful than words. Guns can also be more confusing, controlling, and dangerous than words. I believe that this kind of power, in the form of steel swords, is one strong reason as to why the Spanish conquistadors were able to conquer so much of South America. The Spaniards were outnumbered by thousands, but they prevailed nonetheless. I think their victories also were tied to the fact that they were exposing  new, deadly viruses and diseases to people with much weaker immune systems than them. 

Cons:

1: I do not believe that the reason some regions are stronger than others is just because of guns. Guns cause harm and never have done any good for anyone outside of self defense. But 99% of how people use guns, weapons, and other violence intended objects are not used for self defense, but they are used to harm others with malicious intentions. And I understand this is a heavy simplification of Diamonds theory, but I’m specifically talking about the “Guns” and “Steel” part. I strongly disagree with the belief that violence makes us stronger in any way. Violence is a plea from the weak to make the strong weaker so that the weak can feel strong.

2: At the beginning of the documentary, Diamond talks about Papua New Guinea, and how it is a very poor country. He states that the reason this could be is because Papua New Guinea doesn’t have many natural resources, almost zero. Having lots of natural resources means you have, what Diamond calls, Geographic Luck, and if you have Geographic Luck then your chances of success, in the terms of power, skyrocket. But then Africa, it had so many amazing natural resources, and such great Geographic Luck, but now, it has been stripped of almost everything it once had. I think that Diamond failed to explain this enough, and he just left with the contradicting thought that if you have Geographic Luck then you’ll probably succeed and be super powerful, but at the same time, the chances are slim?

3: This theory is obviously a very Capitalist view on things, saying that the more resources, money, and weaponry you have the more powerful you are. I think that true power in a nation, country, state, etc. is the impact you have on not only those around you but also globally. Almost everyone in the whole world knows what America is, and not only because of how rich it is, or how big the military is, but because of its culture, inclusivity, open mindedness, and so many other factors that people think of before they think of America's wealth, and I believe that this is what gives America true power.

4: In Diamond's theory, I find that there is a clear Eurocentric bias. He says that the Spanish conquistadors mainly won their battles due to the fact that they had more advanced weaponry. This is the same with his analysis on Europe invading Africa. He talks about how, the reason they were able to defeat so much of Southern Africa. And in all the episodes where he gives examples of his Guns Germs And Steel theory it’s always examples of European colonizers defeating other parts of the world with their big weapons.

5: Diamond's whole theory heavily downplays the influence of culture and agency. According to Kashf Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, “Metallurgy and Weapons Access to iron ore fuels technological dominance. Emphasis on geography and environmental determinism downplays the importance of human agency, culture, and social structures.” This is saying that Diamond talks so much about how important our environments and geography are that he completely leaves out how much culture and our human actions molded the world we live in now too.

There are always two sides to a coin, and I agree with Diamond that geography has played an important role in human evolution. However Diamond’s theory overemphasizes the role of capitalism and ignores culture and agency as significant factors. The decisions that we’ve made over the centuries of our human evolution have greatly impacted our cultures, understanding of this world, languages, perspectives, questions, and experiences far beyond how Geography has changed our world. In Guns Germs And Steel episode three, Diamond talks about how the Europeans went down into Southern Africa, and took it over, he says that the reason the Europeans were able to do it was because of their advanced weaponry and guns, and then when the Europeans traveled farther into Central Africa, they were not able to survive due to the different ecosystem. This all may be true, but the reasons the Europeans decided to point their guns at the Africans was solely based on human agency and culture. If the African people were white, spoke the same language as the Europeans, and believed in the same religion as the Europeans, then the Europeans would not have even thought about killing the African people to begin with. (Of course I can never know this for sure, but I think it’s a high possibility.) This is why I think that, while Diamond's theory makes a lot of good points, there are always more views that we can look from, and no idea is 100% right, or wrong.