Mediadossier Engels

Profile paper

I already have made my profile paper last year, but this is all I remember. I did my profile paper about being a judge. We (Marine and me) like doing researches about this kind of stuff and how people judge. We would like to know how people will judge if they don’t know the whole story. For example we had a case about a boy who had a fight with another boy. First you read that he did it on purpose and that the other person was really hurt because he got hit. Then later when you read the second part of the case you can read that he didn't do it on purpose and he was very sorry and it was self-defense. We asked people how they would react and how they will judge. We also looked if they were a man or woman, his/her religion and how old they are. We asked mister Sprangers if he could help us out with our profile paper, because he was our teacher last year.

Our questions:

• How will people react if they didn't know the whole story?
• If they are a woman or a man.
• What his/her religion was.
• If they would react different if they knew the victim
• If they would react different if they knew the culprit.

It was a long journey, but we finished it on time and we are really happy that we finished it. Our teacher mister Sprangers was a great support. I think we did a good job; it wasn’t difficult to work together with Marine because she is very smart. We even had fun making this profile paper. We had a lot of ideas and we were very proud of our 7 which mister Sprangers gave us. It was actually funny to see that most people say that the doesn’t give the right punishment, but the people who say that, wouldn’t punish the culprit any harder than that the judge would do.

Our results were:

• That older people judge harder, they will punish them harder. Younger people will punish less hard than the older ones. That's because younger people have another view on the world.
• It makes a lot of difference if people knew the whole story. They will punish people harder if they didn't know the whole story. That is because people assume things quicker. They don’t listen to the whole story. Their opinion is based on what they hear, and how they hear it. If I say that someone hit me in the face with a chair, people will assume that it is the fault of the one that hit me, but maybe I started the fight, and I hit the person first.
• We have learned that people judge different, and it is okay to judge the way people judge. We are all different and nobody can control the way we feel and what we say.

Further education

After my school for higher general secondary education I am planning to go to Breda to Avans. I want to follow the education for social work.

Ever since I was little I wanted to ‘help’ people. At first I wanted to become a policewoman. It sounded interesting to me, and of course, it is a job with a different day every day. When I grew older, I realised that police officers have to begin on the streets, that didn’t sound nice to me.

When I was about 10/11 years old I saw Baantjer (the Dutch television show), and I wanted to be like the cock (the person). I wanted to search to answers, who killed the man, how did he killed him, and why.

I realised you had to have a long education before you’d get there. I was always interested in the question why would someone do something illegal.

Because I was always interested in this I realised that I wanted to work with criminals, I wanted to know how they think.

When I knew that for myself I needed to think about an education, but which education is the best for the job I want to do. That’s difficult.

I was always looking for the education social work, but you also had to learn how to deal with difficult kids. There was a problem. I don’t like kids.

On the 8th of February I went to Avans.  There was an open door day; it became clear to me there that you can have a minor in children studies. I was so relieved; I didn’t have to work with kids. Most of all, I was relieved because I heard you can also have a minor in people who are kept against their will. That is exactly what I wanted to do.

After that open door day it became clear to me that this was the education I want to do. After we came home, I immediately signed in for that education, and in April I will have a practise day on that education.

I am really excited about this education, with that certificate I can work with all kind of people. I would like to work with the ‘heavy’ criminals, but you only can work with them for 10 years, because you are mentally ill after that time. So I hope I can start with addicted people.

I think it would give you such a nice feeling when you help people to get their lives together, that would be such a satisfaction for me!

But,,, before I can go to the education I really want I need to get my other certificate.

I am convinced I can do it this year!!

Bear Rehab

Bears who have been tortured are now going to the “rehab”.

Ukrainian officials are making a sanctuary for bears because the way the bears had been tortured have horrified the government. The bears have been taken illegally as a cub, and have been tortured till they danced. This “training” of the bears consists of making the bears “dance” on burning embers. If the bear can get too dangerous a metal ring is fitted in their nose and the bears get a lot of vodka. Katya, an old bear, was found in a tiny cage with another boar, they couldn’t move in the cage.

Up to 80 bears will see out their days in the new sanctuary’

. Rosa is the First bear to live in the sanctuary. The Ukraine are on a good way, but the road ahead is still very long.

Busting the beauty myth.

For a very long time the look on beauty has been wrong. After a few years of photo shopping, the reality is odd and ugly. Some perceptions of beauty are realized in a normal life, we try it with everything, and if that doesn’t work we are well willing to have a surgery. Surgery can get our wrinkles away, but we also lose our expression. Dr. Cecilia d’Felice says: “It isn’t a problem to encourage woman to be perfect, but it becomes a problem when it’s unacceptable to look a certain way.  More and more brands are having ‘normal’ woman for advertising. Bobbi Brown has launched a campaign which celebrates the diverse looks of real women. Brown tells women to be who they are. Rebecca Morrice Williams is the founder of a cosmetic brand, she says that she doesn’t want perfect girls, she often photograph ‘odd’ girls, for instance with freckles, to show how beautiful these ‘odd’ girls are. But there has been a change in perception, we want more diversity, and the most of the women realize that models don’t look good when they wake up. There is much more appreciation with how the way women look, they don’t want to have a surgery to look ‘better’, and they mostly look ‘done’. Maybe women’s faces shouldn’t change, but the way we think, and what we think beauty is.

Alcoholic mum.

2.5 million children in Britain are living with an alcoholic parent.

Giselle’s memories of the holidays were not fun. In the morning het mum was nice, but later on the day, her mum starts drinking and she became really aggressive.

Giselle is now 47, with a good job. If you meet Giselle, you’d think it’s a woman who has it all, but who really knows Giselle can tell that Giselle’s childhood was terrible.

But Giselle is not the only women who lived with a parent that was drunk all the time. There are at least 2.5 million children who have to deal with alcoholic parents. From that 2.5 million children there are 90.000 babies among them.

Campaigners say that there are probably more children who live in these circumstances, not all of the alcoholics are discovered. Alcohol abuse is much more tolerated. It’s oke to say that you have a hangover; you don’t say that you have used drugs.

It also is hidden which parents are drinking because their children don’t want to say that their parents are alcoholics. The children don’t understand what an addiction is, and what happens with the people who have it.

Spiegler, a man who had been dealing with an alcoholic parent, has made an online forum for children who have to deal with alcoholic parents. Each month, 25000 children are visiting the forum. The children are confused, they want to be with the parent, but they also hate the parent.

If a father is alcoholic, people can understand, but if a mother is alcoholic, most of the people think it’s not true. Alcoholic are selfish, and mothers shouldn’t be that way.

Still, 29 per cent of the mothers are drinking more than the recommended drinks every week.

Women who have managerial of professional backgrounds are more likely to drink a lot of alcohol. Humprhrey, is a 20-year-old girl, who h ad a mother who was an alcoholic. Her mother is now in recovery, but Humphrey has been suffering from depressions.

Parents often promise to stop drinking, but it’s already too late. Many childhoods have been broken, the children have no self-esteem, and they think that they don’t have control over their own life.

The people who grew up with an alcoholic parent are often known as the nice, confident and successful kid. Although, these kids feel insecure and unsuccessful.

The hardest thing to realise for such a kid is that the kids can’t help their parents. The alcoholic parent should fix their lives, and their self.

If the parent doesn’t realise that they have a drinking problem, no one can help them. Giselle’s father left the family, because he couldn’t deal with the alcohol problems of her mother. Giselle hated her father for that, but now they are working on their relationship.

When she was 17 she left home, she went to art college.

Giselle found her mother dead; after all she was glad that it was over.

Children can react on their alcoholic parent on 3 different ways, they can become shy and quiet, they can deny the fact that their parent drink more than is normal, of they you it to become stronger. 

Homeless top chefs.

Michael Oliver and Andrzej Smorolzusla work in a five-star hotel in London.

Together with Mazoub Siddeek, they were all homeless men.

These men work in the restaurant, because they are part of a net partnership which is trying to get people to work, people who normally can’t get a job.

The director of Andaz said that the human resources organisation wasn’t about getting homeless people to work, but they brought towels and toiletries to homeless people. They asked the wanderers what they really wanted, than Andaz has found chefs to run workshops for these people. So after that, they brought the homeless to the restaurant to learn how to cook.

It was a risk, but everyone enjoyed it. If the chefs aren’t happy the whole program would stop, but it wasn’t needed, it worked out fine.

It worked so fine that the hotel has got an award for it.

The head chef, Hameed Farook, had been waiting for a change like this. He worked, got paid and took care of his family. He could finally do something more.

It opened the eyes of the chefs, they realised how much luck they have.

At first, Dominic Gates had a wrong image of chefs, he thought they were all like Gordon Ramsay, and they were screaming all day. It turned out that the chefs were actually really nice.

Michael Oliver was at first hired at the restaurant for 2 months. He did so well that they wanted him longer. Michael Oliver said: ‘Homeless people aren’t people with no place to sleep; they have a story, a reason why they are homeless.’

He thought that people would look down on him, but the people actually saw him as a chef. He hopes to get a full-time job.

Andrzej Smorolzusla was a professional footballer in Poland, but in London, he lived on the streets for 2 years. Now, he works in the restaurant as a full-time chef.

Mazoub Siddeek left his home in Darfur, because of the war. He landed in Dover.

He has tuberculosis and a post-traumatic stress disorder. He also ended up in the streets of England.

Mazoub Siddeek now works in the restaurant. He also got a room, and he found his wife back with the help of the Red Cross.

Out of the box.

Jodi Jill has lived in a storage unit during her childhood. For the first time in two years Jodi went back to the store-unit where she had lives with her parents and siblings.

She hopes that she can figure out how her bizarre childhood was. When she reached unit 151 she is overwhelmed with emotions, when the door opens she panics out.

The first 7 years of Jodi’s life she lived in a small house with her sister and parents. Her parents announced that they were moving into a house with a yard and a swing.

The family grabbed al their belongings and hit the road. After a few days driving Jodi realised that her parents didn’t have a plan. Jodi still doesn’t understand why they weren’t allowed to talk and only eat $1 fast-food.

Jodi remembers her parents as strange people. Her parents believed that the government was trying to control their lives.

For three years they lived on the road. The ended up in Loveland, in a storage-unit. Her father announced that they were sleeping in the storage-unit and that they would move further the next day. That day never came. Jodi realised the next day that they weren’t moving anywhere. Her father builds a sleeping place, they went to the toilet on a bucket, and they also showered with (another) bucket. People weren’t allowed to live in the unit, so Jodi and her sister couldn’t go out during the day. At night they went out to look for food and furniture. Jodi was scared of her own reflection when she saw it after a long time. Bob and Carol, the owners of the storage facility, always suspected that the family lived in the storage-unit. Not only Bob and Carol knew, there were other people who knew that they lived there. Jodi didn’t have any knowledge, and when her baby brother came to the world she didn’t know where he came from. Her parents told strange stories about where babies came from, and about how money works.

When Jodi was 14 she helped her mother of giving birth to her new brother. Jodi pulled her brother out of her mother. Two years later her mother gave birth to a 5th child. When her mother was angry she called the kids mistake 1,2,3,4,5. She also did hit the kids with a phone book, so that you couldn’t  see bruises on the kids.

On Sunday, the family went to the library, so the kids could teach themselves things about the world. When Jodi was 15, she found a book about a monkey, there was a cassette player with it. Jodi learned the words to herself, and later to her sister.

When Jodi was 18, she could read normal books, that’s when she learned about basic stuff, like where babies came from and that water come from pipes in the ground. A year later, Jodi and her sister moved to a town where Jodi had a small room, which she paid by mowing the lawn. Jodi had changed her last name to Jill, but still her mother could find her.

Three years later Jodi moved to L.A. There she visited the website examiner.com, and then she realised you can get paid by ‘clicks’ and she became to write on that page.

Jodi is still a columnist, and still lives in L.A. She had changed her whole hair. Her lives seems normal, but she still hasn’t had a boyfriend, because she can’t have the intimacy.

She made a list with her brothers and sisters of people who knew about their situations. 173 people knew, and didn’t do anything.

Jodi only speaks on of her brothers. She suspects that her other 2 brothers live with their father, but she doesn’t speak to them anymore. Her sister doesn’t have contact with anyone of the family anymore. Jodi herself doesn’t speak to her divorced parents for 15 years now.

Jodi doesn’t have any photos of her childhood, her only memories of her childhood are the books curious George and Clifford the Big Red Dog, the books that she read when she was little. Most people call their parents about their memories, Jodi has here books.

Gen Y.

The most teenagers I know are friendly and polite. If you look at the media the teenagers an imaged as bad people. Teenagers are often imaged as egocentric, work shy, violent and rude.

There was a report from Ontario and Michigan universities, they compared teenagers of this year with teenagers of other generations. It has unexpected results. There is not much change in between teenagers now and teenagers who were young a few years ago. So today’s teens are not much worse than the older one were.

I think it won’t make national headlines. The image of teen pregnancies, hoodies and violence are more often seen in the media. We also don’t want to see the good news, we like to see the misery in the world. It is also easier to think about the lazy of miserable teenager as the nice one. This image is also made worse by the media.

Teens are not as terrible as we want to.