photoessay

My internship is at a non-profit organization called WiLDCOAST, located in Imperial Beach. Their mission statement says what they are hoping to accomplish; “WiLDCOAST protects and preserves coastal ecosystems and wildlife in the Californias and Latin America by building grassroots support, conducting Media Campaigns and establishing protected areas.” This organization and the people who work in it want to protect the environment as well as wildlife. It is a pleasure to work with this organization trying to do everything possible to keep our environment because all of this affects us in the long run. WiLDCOAST has many campaigns to show the people what they are trying to do and get the community involved in the work they are trying to accomplish. The Tijuana River is three fourths in Tijuana but one fourth of the TJ River is in San Diego, and the water flow from the river affects the public trails are no longer available for people to enjoy.



My mentor Ben McCue is a project manager at WiLDCOAST working on the trash flow from the Tijuana River into the Pacific Ocean. After rain, San Diego and Tijuana are impacted the trash washed down the TJ River, thousands of bottles, tires, and other kinds of trash travel down into the public trails in the estuary. We are three hundred feet below Tijuana so all of their Trash comes down to our side of town. Currently we are working on a campaign to persuade Officials to establish an incentive program in Tijuana that will make people want to recycle their plastic bottles, which is one of the major things that travels down with the river. Mexico uses more PET bottles than any other country, for the people to be able to recycle these items would be a great help and would reduce the amount of bottles that come down. “Deposit laws significantly reduce container litter and other types of litter”, before the deposit laws were made her in California, container litter was also a problem but as we can see today these laws do work and that is something that is needed in Mexico in order for things to get better we need to start at the root of the problem.



To get entire systems established in a different country a lot of research needs to be done on the US side to show a good argument on how things are run in the other country. Stephanie, Ben and I traveled into Tijuana for additional research; we talked to a woman who runs a recycling program and plant in Tijuana. We wanted to see what exactly they were doing over there to try and prevent al of these litter problems, and to see if we could help them in any way. We learned that they are trying to get the recycling programs in Tijuana to function but they do not have enough promotion, not a lot of people know that they can recycle, and Tijuana’s trash collection system is not fully in place either so it is hard for them to get people to recycle. The trash collectors and recycling companies do not have the sufficient funds to establish an effective recycling system in Mexico the way we have it here in California. We went to Tijuana to find out what the problem is over there so that we could then accurately brainstorm what needs to be done in order for them to have something completely new set up in their country.



WiLDCOAST reaches out to people through the media they are trying to show people that there are problems that could affect the health of the environment and also their own; they might not even know this is happening. WiLDCOAST is featured in news stories for different newscasters. What I think they try to do is show that there is a problem, and they want people to participate in their fight to a healthier safer environment. Very recently they had a story on Fox 5 San Diego news where they were warning people about the contamination of the water in IB, which could contain Hepatitis A. WiLDCOAST gave free vaccinations to anyone who goes into the water to prevent them from getting ill. WiLDCOAST is not just trying to promote their organization; they are actually trying to help people by telling the public about the harm that they face and what that they can do about it through media sources.

As intern at WiLDCOAST I have seen first hand how bad things are at the Tijuana River Valley. I experience the different methods they use to reach out to people or educate the public on problems that we are facing. Stephanie and I went out on Imperial Beach and conducted surveys with surfers or other people who had any water contact. The surveys attempted to find out how many people get sick from having direct contact with the water in IB, and what kind of illnesses they had. This information helps train nurses to look for specific symptoms in surfers or people with direct water contact who come in to report these illnesses; it also trains them to treat these illnesses. I found that this internship is all about communicating to the public the dangers that our environment as well as people face. My mentor Ben is already very good at doing this and with this internship my communication skills are getting better because we are sent out into the field to talk to people we have never seen before and we just have to go for it. You may not know the person but the information that we have could be very valuable to them.


Through surveys we conducted on the beaches in Tijuana, we found that of people do not know where to recycle plastic bottles. Through conducting surveys like these we find out how much the public knows about the problem or solutions to the problem. Many people don’t even know where to recycle their plastic bottles in Tijuana, and if they don’t recycle these bottles the problem will continue. Like My mentor Ben says, “Our ocean and environment have no borders”, they border fence will not keep things from Mexico coming into San Diego. The Border Patrol is not sitting around waiting to collect every piece of trash that crosses over, the ocean and anything that travels through it cannot be stopped or boarded out with this fence it is shared all around.

The two countries need to work together in solving this problem, because they are both affected by it. Mexico does not have the resources needed to establish a recycling system in their country, but we do have those resources here in California. The governments from both sides need to work together and help each other out; it is not benefiting one place more than the other because it is needed by both. First we will start of with educating the people, then we will ask for their help, WiLDCOAST is non-profit so a lot of people who help are volunteers. With many people being aware of the problems the better the chance is to fix it. The US has enough resources to help others, which in turn is we are actually helping ourselves. Working hand in hand to take care of this problem which is affecting the health of the environment, the wildlife, and the public.

Honors blog FDR!

FDR became president in some very hard times the The Great Depression was something that he had to deal with in his time in office. Not an easy task for anyone let alone a president. FDR and his administration had a lot on their hands they ,had to do a lot of planning on what they were going to do in order to change the status of the country. Banks were crashing many, many people lost their jobs and they could barely get any money for them and their family to survive. Coming into this FDR knew his was in for a challenge, he made a promise coming into presidency according to the nation of Nations FDR says. " I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people..". He had to prove that once he had become president, the challenge was going to be great with, "more than 12 million unemployed, 30 banks a week failing, factories idle, farms on the auction block, and prices plummeting..." according to Nation of Nations , he was in for a big one. Through this New Deal FDR was able to do many thing to change the economic system, help the people, and the prevention of future depressions.

FDR had to work fast on getting the economic system back up. The very next day after his inauguration he closed all of the nations banks for four days called the "bank holiday". He wanted to reform the economic crisis the nation was in. The government became involved with the banks under FDR's presidency. The banks that were doing ok would reopen with government support, the banks that were having trouble would be handed over, " to the federal conservators, who would guide them to solvency." So basically the government was becoming more involved with the handling of money, they did not want this to happen again. The financial reforms gave the government more authority to manage the currency and regulate the exchange of stocks transactions. The Glass-Steagall Banking act created federal insurance for banks deposits " up to 2,500". Under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) fewer banks failed for the rest of the decade. FDR and his administration had to make plans and this one worked it helped all of the failing banks, Th FDIC was a great thing that was made through the New deal. Now he just had to find ways to better the state of the rest of the problems.

FDR was able to save the banks and the financial markets but this was of no help the the people who were suffering because they could not find a job anywhere. At first FDR and the government were basically giving things away to the people through FERA, (Federal Emergency Relief Administration). Then he felt that instead of just giving things away he could create jobs for the people, the "Civil Works Administration (CWA) employed 4 million Americans." That program was to costly so FDR disbanded it in 1934 . Many other work relief programs were then created, to give many of the unemployed Americans jobs. Another example would be the CCC ( Civilian Conservation Corps). This program gave them jobs to basically conserve the youth, it took unmarried 18-25 year olds, to do work int he woods ,and fields, they would have to ,"plant trees, build parks, and fight soil erosion." This program gave 2.5 million young men jobs. This was a great advance to help relieve the unemployed. in the year 1935 the Social Security act was passed to help the elderly, poor, the infirm, and dependent children. It was liek a "new social contract" between the people and the government, they would get insurance in the work place, and the unemployed would get pension, if they had lost their job. There were many programs that were developed in the time FDR was president in order to make things right in the nation and for the nation, he also planned ahead making things that would hep now and in the future so that this would not happen again.

Some of the things that FDR and his administration had come up with were meant to prevent the another depression. The FDIC gave insurance to the people who deposited their money into the banks. This would help not only the people but also the economy neither of them would loose the money because the deposit was insured. The Securities Exchange act (1934) "established a new federal agency, the securities and exchange commission" would over see the stock. The Social Security gave the people a great amount of help and these are some things that are still here today, helping when we need it. These acts were very well thought out they help the people and the economy.

FDR and his administration came up with he New Deal to establish some order into the nation. With the New Deal the government got to play a bigger role, " according to the Nation Of Nations, "it made lasting reforms in the nation's economic system and committed the federal government to a more active role in managing the ups and downs of the business cycle." The government became more involved in the business world and they had more control over the management of the currency. The New Deal brought many new programs into the nation, many of which fell through after some time, a lot of them were effective but "The welfare state had limits, most of the relief measures were designed to last no longer than the crisis." according to the Nation Of Nations. Even thought a lot of the programs did no last they did help the nation in a hard time, and some of these programs are still here today like the FDIC, FCIC, FHA, and also social security. FDR and his administration where able to help the country then and keep it going into the future they left their mark, and if you know about he New deal you can see what it still does today.


Sources:

Davidson, James West, Brian Delay, William E Gienapp, Christine Leigh Heyrman, Mark H Lytle, and Michael B Stoff. Nation of Nations, Volume 2: Since 1865. New York City: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2007.