Blog 26: Senior Project Reflection

1. I am most proud of the effort and creativity that went into my final presentation. I didn't think I would be able to pull it off but with the help of all my friends and people who I mentioned in my presentation, I was able to but I wouldn't have been able to do it without them.

2.

• I would say an AE+ due to all the effort that went into my final presentation, and for having a lot of research backed up with articles 
• P or P+ because I do think my final presentation did reflect how much knowledge and dedication I put into this presentation and topic. 

3. The final presentation worked SO much better than I thought it would, I thought the walls would break or there would be so many more complications, but regardless of grade I am really happy it turned out the way it did.

4. I would have started a lot earlier

5. I have such a deeper level of understanding for homeless youth, which is really helpful because I know my future will consist of finding ways to help them, even if its not my career. I will continue to volunteer for organizations that help the homeless in all regions that I will live in my future.

PARTY!

So to conclude my project, we all took down the cardboard and took it to Natalie's house to make forts and have a giant water balloon fight. I think it was a great way to make sure the project didn't go to waste after and wrap up my final presentation for iPoly.

Thank You So Much, I Couldn't Have Done it Without You!

I just wanted to thank everyone for helping me with this massive project, I know it was such a pain to put together but I love you so much for not even thinking twice about helping me, and giving me help even when I didn't ask for it.

Thank you Cheryl, Natalie O., Gohan, Ivy, Victoria, Joe, Jesse, Joey, Elijah, Priscilla, Xavier, Dominic, JD, Zhailah, Andy, Rene, Nicole D., Lucas, Jesus, Grandpa, Diego, & my Mom

I love you so much!

An Inside Look

Presenting outside had many pros and cons. A pro would be it really got to give my audience an authentic feel of what it was like to be a homeless youth- they had to sit on the floors and in some sections had no shade. A con however would be it was really hard to see my powerpoint off of the projector I had borrowed, and while I know we aren't getting graded on that, It would have been great if that would've worked also.

Making Space

For my sponge activity I had groups create makeshift shelters out of materials commonly used by homeless youth. I thought it was pretty funny and awesome at the creativity some of the groups used to create their shelters.

Handprint Wall

For my walkthrough, I decided to have some of the walls be hand prints of students who attend iPoly, in order to emphasize my 3rd answer, which is having a life mentor. The objective of the hand prints was to make your mark, and then write one person who you could not have made it to where you are today without. This helped my answer because, life mentors jobs are to believe in children and help them achieve their goals, much like the people next to hand prints have done for us.

2 Hour Presentation Inspiration

For my 2 hour I knew I really wanted to do something that would hopefully be memorable, so I started thinking of all different events or galleries I have attended that have left a huge impact on me. I immediately thought of the Museum of Tolerance because they really gave you the feel of what it is like to live during the Holocaust which made the topic more understandable and way more connectable. However, I didn't really know how I would pull this off, but just by chance I one day while I was volunteering at the URM I got to attend an art gallery on the homeless living on Skid Row. I fell in love with the way the gallery was set up as one huge room constructed out of cardboard and sheet metal. Also, the room had no roof and I thought this really added to the feel of living on the streets because we got to see the whole gallery under the stars. (See Second Thursday Blog Post)

Stand Up For Kids Orientation

On May 11th I went to the first SUFK orientation. SUFK is an organization that trains outreach counselors to go out on the street and counsel any homeless youth they come across. For the orientations we learned a lot of stats on Homeless Youth is the OC, and I learned that they also have homeless youth regulars who they meet with every Wednesday at a Starbucks and help plan their futures.

Last Day of Mentorship

May 13, 2013 marked the last day of my mentorship at URM. From meeting amazing people, to serving and  eating gourmet food (seriously the food was SO good), to just being apart of this amazing little kitchen family, I am just so thankful that I got to be a part of it. (& Natalie came with me on my last day so that was super fun)

Humphery & Ms. Sandy

The man to the left of me is Humphrey and the woman to the right of me is known around the kitchen as Ms. Sandy. These two people have had incredible impacts on my life and I am so lucky to have met them working here at the URM. Humphery is part of the men's program at the URM because he has just recently been released from jail after a 28 year long struggle with drugs. His outlook on life has changed drastically because he told me he is "Just to old for this sh**" He is a genuinely good person and has such a good demeanor whenever you enter the kitchen. His personality and stories can make your day and he treated me with such respect and trust I will never forget him.

Ms. Sandy is the head chef at the URM kitchen and after a few days of Elijah volunteering with me as well, she and Andre (the alternate head chef) started to nickname us as, "The Lovebirds". Her voice and laugh filled the halls of the URM's kitchen, and she always made sure you were fed (and fed the good stuff) when you were in her kitchen. She showed me such great kindness that I am so happy to have met her, and I was genuinely sad to leave the URM's kitchen 3 weeks ago. 

Blog 25: Mentorship

Literal

• Mentorship Log
• Union Rescue Mission
• Bethany Turner 
• email: bturner@urm.org
• phone: (213) 673-4814
• Standupforkids Orange County
• Main office
• email: orangecounty@standupforkids.org

Interpretive

• The most important thing that I learned from my experience at the URM is that all homeless youth really need is someone they could rely on, and someone to believe in them so they can learn to believe in themselves. 

Applied

• By working at the mission, I have come to form friendships with a lot of the people who work and live there. By doing so, many of them have opened up to me about their lives and have given me advice on how to help the youth in their current situation (there are actually a few people who are currently homeless youth). Their stories and advice have helped me come up with my last answer, because all their stories had the same thing in common- they had no guidance growing up, or no one they could trust and depend on. I then researched the importance of life mentors in a child's life, and found that them to be the best way to get homeless youth off the streets. 

Blog 24: Exit Interview Questions

1.  EQ:What is the best way to help homeless youth break the cycle of homelessness?

• Best Answer: The best way for homeless youth break the cycle of homelessness is to have find them a positive role model that will mentor them into adulthood because a life mentor will teach them how to truly become self sufficient and not regress back to living on the streets.

2. Well, due to my family being on the brink of homelessness, my perspective on the homeless changed a lot and I realized that not all homeless people are just lazy and want to freeload off the government, most of them have true horrors in their past that they didn't deal with properly because they didn't know how to or the economic downfall severely impacted them. My heart really went out the youth suffering from homelessness because they are the least equipped to deal with their situation and it saddened me greatly to think there were children younger than me sleeping on the streets at night. I then realized I wanted my senior project to be centralized on the ways homeless youth could get off the streets and never have to live there again. One of my possible answers was donating items that could ensure their survival and help them attain jobs (such as professional clothes, and hygiene products). By donating these items, a huge cost would be eliminated from homeless youths' budget, and they would have a higher chance of attaining a job. My second answer was to have homeless youth stay in school and attain a degree, because if they did so they would be exposed to stability and have a chance at a higher paying job. My third answer, however, was to have a positive life mentor, because it is not gaurenteed that if they stay in school and get a good job they will spend their money on a house (they could spend it on drugs and stay homeless), but according to http://www.volunteerguide.org/hours/service-projects/mentoring a child with a life mentor is, " 46% less likely to begin using drugs, 27% less likely to begin using alcohol, and 50% less likely to skip school. This decreases drug-related suspensions, drug-related crime, and the number of babies born drug-affected." Since these are all the main reasons as to why children end up homeless, I believed this would be the most effective way to stop them from living on the streets, or helps them the most to get off of them.

3. The first problem I faced was my first independent component did not reach the full 30 hours, but I am resolving this issue by launching a blanket drive to make up for my remaining hours. The second problem I faced was that I did not feel like my first answer really helped answer my EQ so I changed it from acquiring shelter to donations.

4. My first most important source is Kandice Taylor (the 4th floor coordinator of URM, Women and Children) because she helped me with my third interview which really solidified my ideas of what my third and fourth answers should be. She really enlightened me about why education is so important, not only because you get a higher paying job, but also because it provides stability in a homeless youth's life which is something I had never thought of before. My most important printed source was the National Coalition for the Homeless because they provided so many statistics of why homeless youth are homeless such as demographics, family life, mental stability, etc. This foundation showed me the root of homeless youths' homelessness, which in turn led me to come up with solutions.

5. My product is I have learned new ways to help get homeless youth off the streets and plan to continue to participate in these ways even after I leave Ipoly. For example, I have recently signed up with an organization called Stand Up for Kids in Orange County, which is an organization that counsels homeless youth and helps get them on the track to getting off the streets (I wish I wouldv'e found them earlier) and I plan on volunteering here until I leave for college (unfortunately this organization is not in San Francisco).One of the ways I have learned to get homeless youth off the streets is through my mentorship. While I would work in the kitchen, I would have conversations with many of the other homeless living in the shelter, and they would tell me their life stories of how they ended up where they are today. They also would tell me of ways to help the youth in the shelter or of ways the shelter already does so. Due to my experiences at the URM I have a much greater level of respect and compassion for homeless people of all ages, not just the youth.

Second Thursday (May 9, 2013)

Every second Thursday of the month, Los Angeles puts on an art walk where aspiring and professional artists can display their art on the streets. This month the URM played host to Jason Leith's Art exhibition called Sacred Streets. Jason Leith's exhibition was compiled of art pieces he drew and painted on cardboard boxes (and other like mediums) of 12 homeless individuals living on the streets of Skid Row. Once I was done with my dinner shift at URM's kitchen, Paul (one of the chef's at URM) invited me and Elijah to go see the gallery. It was amazing, the entire room was built out of cardboard boxes and sheet metal, and the ground was built out of layers of cardboard, cans, and insulation material (all items the homeless use to create their own shelters). Also, all the art pieces had a paragraph next to them which told a short biography of the subject's life. On top of that, the exhibition had no roof and it had began to sprinkle, so the gallery greatly encompassed the feeling of what it's like to live on the streets.

Blog 23: 2014 Interview

1. Lionel, West House

2. Lionel expressed that he wanted the topic of his senior project to be film. He said film was a career he was greatly interested in and that he wanted to focus on film instead of digital media, because he feels like digital media is becoming too powerful and leaving film to be an obsolete medium for creating movies.

3. Lionel said the ROP teacher has a friend who works with film, and they are coming by to screen a movie called, "The Power of Fear" and he is planning on asking if he could work with them when they do so.

4. To no surprise, he hopes to view film related presentations in order to get an idea of what he should do for his own 2 hour presentation. He also hopes the presentations he watches are very informative, that way if he finds them interesting, he leaves the presentations feeling very knowledgeable about what he just saw.

5. None

Blog 22: 3-Column Chart

Final 3 Column Chart

Blog 21: Independent Component 2

Literal

• I, Angel Campos, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work
• All the kitchen staff of URM, (especially Humphrey and Andre)
• Independent Component 2 Log

Interpretive

• My independent component shows 30 hours of work, because I volunteered at URM for an additional 30 hours. While working here I got very few opportunities to work with the children, but on the days I did, I got to play with them during free-play  Most of the children there are 7 years old or younger so we mostly just played with hula hoops or tag in the big gym which was really fun. On the days I worked in the kitchen; I got to help prepare, cook, and serve meals to all the men, women, and families in the shelter. Working in the kitchen has been amazing because everyone is so extremely good-hearted and we all treat each other like family.

Applied

• Working at the URM has helped me understand what better ways I could help homeless youth break the cycle of homelessness, by talking to the other volunteers in the kitchen who are also in the URM program. Hearing their stories and what struggles they faced growing up and living on the streets really enlightened me further as to how youth homelessness can be prevented or changed. For example, Mr. J* had been homeless since he was 16 because he was kicked out by his stepfather due to their constant fighting. Since he didn't legally have to go to school anymore, he decided to drop out but now says he regrets it because he believes if he stayed, he would have a strong sense of direction on life and probably would've been able to get at least a decent job to support himself. These conversations and more provided me with strong foundations as to why I chose my answers, because I had heard the suggestions from primary sources themselves.

*name changed

Blog 20: Three Column Chart

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvyNhJ5LSQ5AdHhQVXVQa2g1azBETzNyb1l4SzR6WkE&usp=sharing

Blog 19: Senior Project & ESLRs

1. Effective IPoly Citizen
2. I believe that throughout my senior project I have shown how to be an effective IPoly citizen at the Union Rescue Mission where I volunteer at. I make sure that I am always about half an hour early to the URM, since its in LA and I have to account for traffic. Also since I interact with people who are in difficult situations, I am respectful of whatever it is they are going through and try my best to make all the people I encounter during my dinner shifts feel welcome. I am also very attentive to the children and acknowledge every time they do something good (ex. share their toys, let other kids join in on their games, apologize, etc.).
3. Will provide the next time I am able to volunteer

Blog: 18 2-Hour Meeting Answer #3

1. What is the best way to help homeless youth break the cycle of homelessness?
2. In order for homeless youth to break the cycle of homelessness, I believe they should have a strong significant role model who has good character
3.

• It just takes one person to believe in a child in order for them to succeed
• Parents are a child's first role model. Children who have parents who show good morale such as never giving up, always do good to others, etc. almost always follow in their parent's footsteps
• If a parent seems do not meet these standards, children should not be completely alone either, they should have someone in their life to show that they care, and have faith that the child can turn their life around or make their situation better than it is

4. http://www.bigsnyc.org/a-history.php

5. I plan to study more cases of the "Big Brother, Big Sister" organization

Blog 17: Fourth Interview Questions

1. What is the best way to help homeless youth end the cycle of homelessness?
2. What do you believe are the main factors that lead children to become homeless?
3. What organizations are available to homeless youth to help them get back on their feet?
4. Why do you believe that children who have been on the street, but are able to get off of it for a period of time, have a higher or lower chance of living on the street again?
5. How effective do you believe transitional living programs are?
6. Please tell me of any stories of homeless youth who have undergone transitional living programs?
7. Why do you believe the homeless youth who undergo these transitional living programs either regress back to living on the streets, or are able to stay off of them?
8. What is your opinion on homeless youth attending counseling sessions? Why?
9. How do you believe homeless children are affected by having some form of shelter while they are living on the streets, regardless of the shelter's stability, durability, etc? Why?
10.  If a homeless child is placed in an environment where children who are not homeless are present (such as a school) how do you believe this will affect the homeless child?
11. Why do you believe that some people may say that there are some cases of children who would actually be better off living on the streets than trying to get off of them? What is your personal opinion about this statement?
12. How important do you believe it is for homeless youth to be in school?
13. What benefits can homeless youth gain from being in school?
14. How can we help homeless youth be less truant to school?
15. If a homeless child has missed school and social interactions due to moving around a lot, how hard do you believe it is to integrate the child back into school?
16. What special programs or organizations specifically geared towards helping homeless youth succeed in school do you know of? How do these programs help these children?
17. What struggles do you think homeless youth face in school as opposed to those who are not homeless?
18. How do you feel about homeless youth wanting to get off the street on their own (without enlisting the help of others to do so)?
19. How do you believe we can motivate homeless youth to want to get off the streets?
20. What do you believe is the number one thing homeless youth, or people who were once homeless youth, NOT do in order to not regress to living on the streets?