The Group action projects were an eventful, sometimes hard, yet worthwhile exercise. The thing that was most beneficial was learning about the local public health organizations and what they did, “Healthy King County” and “Food Coalition Washington” were two great organizations. Food Coalition of Washington even had a legislative agenda and goals that will be useful for enacting and advocating for precise laws. Another thing I was able to learn throughout doing this group action project was how hard collective action can be. First off there was the difficulty of organizing as a team which as a team we were able to overcome with group messaging. However, there was the problem with coordinating with other outside groups, specifically the groups we reached out to come to talk. Some replied late, some couldn’t make it on the dates were available. Also coordinating with UW to get a room proved difficult as well. This insight into collective action really helped me appreciate how hard it can be to move as a group for a common goal.
Despite some issues were able to come together and provide a project. Our project ended up being screening a movie and giving out informational pamphlets. The movie we showed was “Fed Up” a movie about obesity and public health in the United States. The movie touches on stuff were talked about in class such as lobbying and how that can play a large roll in a countries diet. On top of showing a documentary, we were also able to create a pamphlet with public health facts. The pamphlets were a way to convey important local public health facts such as the fact that “In King County, some 122,000 households fall into the “food security gap”: they earn a living wage but are unable to afford healthy food due to the rising cost of rent and other expenses. These families’ incomes are at 200 percent of the poverty level, so they do not qualify for Food Stamps benefits”. Reflecting on the whole experience I think our project was able to relate to the class well. We were able to learn about collection action problems and how to overcome them. We were able to learn about several different public health organizations in our area that are doing good work. We were also able to educate others through our documentary showing and pamphlet distribution. In conclusion, the action project was a valuable learning tool for me and a worthwhile part of the class.