Summer Learning Journey//A Long Walk to Freedom//Week 2//Day 2//Taking Action

DAY 2: TAKING ACTION


Activity 1: A Long Walk to Freedom [4 points]

Nelson Mandela was an activist and civil rights leader who was born and raised in South Africa. For over 40 years (1948-1991), the country of South Africa had a political system called ‘apartheid’. This meant that there were different rules for people who had white skin than for those who didn’t. Nelson Mandela felt that this was very wrong and he fought for many years to change the law. Eventually he became the President of South Africa and ended apartheid, but not before spending 27 years in prison.

In Robben Island prison (where Mandela spent 18 years), life was very tough. Mandela had a tiny, damp, concrete cell, with only a straw mat to sleep on. During the day he was forced to work in a quarry, breaking rocks into gravel. He was only allowed to see one visitor and receive one letter every six months. At night, Nelson read and studied to be a lawyer.

For this activity, please imagine that you are Mr Mandela and that you are living at Robben Island prison. You have been given a journal and each night you write in it.

On your blog, write a journal entry imagining that you are Mr Mandela. What do you think he did each day? How did he feel? Include as much detail as you can in the journal entry.

It's another day in prison I'm proud that I manged to help the black community fight back for their rights. I wonder what the next chapter of my life is gonna be like and also I'm looking forward for my family to visit me I haven't seen them in a long time. I have uncomfortable beds and everything but at least it's not something worse. I feel lonely staying in the cell so I try to make conversation with other prisoners. 


Photo by South Africa Good News (CC.BY.2.0)


Activity 2: School Strike for Climate [4 points]

You may have heard people talking about an issue called ‘Climate change’. Climate change refers to an increase in the temperature of our planet. Warmer temperatures can cause natural disasters (floods, storms, droughts, bushfires, hurricanes, etc), rising sea levels, and the extinction (disappearance) of plants and animals.

Many people in New Zealand (and overseas) are worried about climate change, including Greta Thunberg, a 16 year old girl from Sweden. She believes that climate change is not only real, but that it is a “crisis”. She is upset that adults, particularly governments and powerful people, are not taking climate change seriously. In 2018 she began protesting outside the Swedish government buildings every Friday instead of going to school. She inspired the School Strike for Climate protests and, in 2019, spoke to the United Nations about her concerns. Not everyone, however, is convinced that climate change is really happening.

For this activity, we would like you to explore the School Strike for Climate Australia website.

On your blog, list three facts (things) that you learned, and include a photograph of something that you are doing around home to help the environment.

1. They are trying to make a new type of coal.
2. They are also trying to change the source of gas.
3. People are Sacrificing there education for our future.  

What I think they are doing is good for Nature and for people it gives the next generation a heads up of what they should be doing and thinking about all of this would be thanks to the School Strike for Climate Australia. 

Website

Activity 3: “I Have a Dream” [6 points]

Martin Luther King Jr was a Christian minister in the United States of America (USA) in the 1950s and 1960s. He spent much of his life fighting for equality (equal rights) for people of colour. At the time, there were laws that kept black and white people separated - they went to different schools, used different toilets, and even sat in different parts of a bus and ate in different areas of a restaurant. This was called ‘segregation.’

Dr King did not agree with these laws and he led many protests against them. He was joined in his protests by many people, including an African American woman named Rosa Parks. In 1955, Rosa boarded a bus in Alabama (USA) and when the bus filled up with people, she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. You can read about this famous incident here and watch a video about Rosa Parks here.

For this activity, please consider the problem that black men and women faced in America at this time.

On your blog, describe the problem. What did Rosa Parks do about the problem? How did other people react?

So back in the olden days people like Rosa Park couldn't go to the front of the bus if they did then they would be arrested so the black community had to got to the back of the bus but if the bus was to full then the black people would have to stand up. Until one day a lady could Rosa Parks got back from a hard day of work so as she was on the bus going back home until the bus was full so the black community had to stand up for the white community but Parks said No but then the us driver threatened her to stand up or he will call the police but Parks still didn't so the police arrived and arrested Rosa Parks for her heroic actions.