For our group action project in terms of new skills I have learned that having a means of communication through text messages is the best way rather than using internet messaging platform. Having been an RSO’s President for the past four years, I am well experienced in terms of putting up and event and knowing the logistics of promoting for an event. I know a great deal of collective action before the group action project since I am used to putting up large events for my RSO every quarter so I did contribute to my group by using my knowhow skills in helping reserving rooms and what not. Other than that, I am quite surprised at the fact that classic text message is what keeps our team members to respond to each other rather than using Facebook messenger or email as a means of communication. I am saying this becaues I use Facebook messenger for my RSO and it is hard for members to communicate me right away but through text messages, my group action members are on top of their replies. Going on forward, I am going to incorporate text message as a primary form of communication within my RSO as well. I feel like it was this form of communication that made us develop a good group mindset right from the beginning as we all did a group meeting even before it was required to have one. We also right away discuss on our schedule and admit that we all are busy students so sometimes we might not be able to make it to a group meeting so through this understanding we have developed a healthy group mind right away.
In terms of our group action project making a contribution to the larger community, I would say that I have successfully changed my friends’ mind to be more aware of the unfair global trade system. This is because I invited a lot of my friends to attend my documentary viewing. Most of us that comes from the global north, Thailand, Indonesia, and Myanmar we weren’t aware of how the global north keep inducing these industralized argriculture practices on our home land while food dependency occurs. So having my friends come and watch the documentary makes them really surprise that such problems exist. I am glad that I could teach something to my friends as they attended the event.
My experience with the group project relates to the theme of our course in terms of making us think in a system way and connect the local to the global aspect. The documentary showed comparison between local fish farmers versus industry fish farmer in the EU. Also they showed a comparison between local soy bean farmers and industralized farm sector. While also showing us the production process of how chicken is made all the way from being an egg to a full grown adult chicken. This shows the connection between local and global in terms of the unfairness of how chicken in the farms can eat more than those that are living on the farms of South American rain forest where soy beans are being planted. The chicken eat the soy while the farmers that farm them barely have enough food or clean water to drink. While it ends on the note of the CEO of Nestle giving a talk on how he thinks that it’s the global food chain system that is doing good for the world. So this bottom up view from the local farmers to the biggest food company CEO showed a contrast in how the global north is really messing up the global south. So everything is connected systemically and how a lot of the profits are being kept by those on the top while those at the bottom suffers. This makes me more concern about Michael Pollan’s ideas of the Western Diet and how it will be everywhere as developing nations start to adopt such food culture similar to the west. So I suggest those that are very privilege enough to travel out to the global north and see for themselves on what being consumers of this global food system while they sit on their comfortable couches in the Western Hemisphere is doing detrimental damage to those in the global south.