WORLD WE IMAGINE Part 3

Gardening with Our Elders


Mission

To provide an interactive opportunity for the senior citizens of the community to engage with nature and other people across all ages through their mutual interest in gardening. The program aims to foster personal connections amongst the senior citizens and the rest of the community, one where the Elders will be able to provide educational knowledge and life wisdom. 


Opportunity

In our current Angeleno society, there is a great disregard for people of elderly age. Often put into nursing homes and forgotten about by their families. In a society where someone is only valued for what they bring to the table, senior citizens seem to be disparaged. What society fails to recognize is that those people contain a lot more wisdom about life and socio-economic problems than the average person. They are bursting with stories and memories from the past that can help us understand the present and prepare for the future. I seek to provide the Elders with an opportunity to share that knowledge with others through a community gardening program. 


Our Solution

The community garden will act as a community center where the Elders and people of all generations can get together and talk. As people start to form familiar bonds, that's when the Elders will be able to truly teach the younglings more about gardening, and through it, life. In doing so, the sense of respect towards Elders will be restored and they will be able to feel like they are part of the community again. This will also serve as a form of exercise and mobility engagement, as they will be able to walk around and sit down when needed, thus improving not only their physical health, but mental health as well. The food that is grown from the garden will be sold at the local farmers market, that way the community garden will be able to sustain itself, not depending solely on donations.


What makes us unique?

The focus of this community garden is truly on the Elders. This is their space. The community members will learn to approach it with respect and a sort of reverence. The program will also be designed to create a community for people of all ages, one where everyone can feel welcomed and connected to some sort of family. 


Why Invest?

We will all be elderly one day. We will all face the effects of time. Investing in this project is not just investing into a physical community garden, you are investing into your future, you are investing to change the average American societal attitudes of elderly people and their place in society. You are investing into a better tomorrow for people of all ages.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Assignment 1: WHO YOU ARE MATTERS

  I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I moved to the Bay Area for high school and came back to LA for university. So I was very fortunate to grow up in a multicultural city like Los Angeles and to also develop in a small town like Portola Valley. I am graduating this semester and foresee myself working in a financial institution. A goal of mine is to get my Captain's license in the near future, depending on how fast I can collect my sea hours. I would also like to travel to Latin American and Eastern European countries to further my language development skills and cultural knowledge. All of these goals require time and dedication, and that's what I plan on doing. Even after graduation, I plan on attending language and sailing school, all in efforts to get closer to my goals. I am similar to my parents in that we are constantly planning for the future and looking/ preparing for potential obstacles and noting how we can overcome them. I am unlike my parents in that they possess...
Read more

Assignment 2: JOB DESCRIPTION

  Sailing Teaching Assistant As I’m floating in the bay, completely soaked in water and taking the accidental sips of salt water, and with an FJ (13ft two person boat) rolled on its side, also laying on the water, I ask myself, “What did I get myself into?” More intriguingly, “Why do I do this to myself?” To answer the first question, I got myself into a capsize situation that was mainly caused because the student did not ease the main sail in time, but he doesn't know that, yet. Not to worry though, we’ll get the boat right side up in no time and debrief after a warm shower.  These are some occurrences that I manage as a Teaching Assistant for the USC Nautical Science Program. The program takes USC students, both new and experienced sailors, through a unique world where we learn about different types of dinghies (small boats) and keelboats (bigger boats), the rules of the water, and how to be “one with the boat”. I have been fortunate enough to help different classes of stude...
Read more

WORLD WE IMAGINE Part 1

A world I dare to imagine. In 1952, a Russian linguist named Yuri Knorozov was able to crack the indecipherable Mayan glyphs, the Mayan writing system that was used by ancient Mayans for centuries. There was debate as to what the glyphs read and how one should read them. Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson, a British archaeologist and leading Mayan scholar at the time, had a staunch view on the Mayan glyphs and nobody dared to contradict his hypothesis, as he was seen as the authority in this scholarly field. Yuri, being behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, was not greatly influenced by Sir John and didn't care about his authoritative ideas, he was in search of the truth. Yuri dared to go based on his intuition and came up with his own hypothesis on how to read the Mayan glyphs, one that was correct and is still used today. Why am I saying this? I think it's great that we are becoming an ever connected world, one where trade and mutual cooperation is fostered. However, more o...
Read more