Young Ambassador

 Hello fellow anthropologists!!

 

 I have recently been accepted out of 80 applicants to become one of Chester County's Young Ambassadors!! This is a program that works to make a positive impact on the environment within the state of Pennsylvania. The program works with Keep PA Beautiful, and there are over 30 ambassadors from each county. The program motivates ambassadors to become civil leaders to inspire, engage, and empower other young Pennsylvanians to keep our PA beautiful.

    I am very honored and excited to start working as my county's ambassador because I hope to try to influence positive change within the community. The program encourages ambassadors to start within their high schools and to focus on three main pillars: litter prevention (cleanups), waste reduction,  beautification.  

    I already have several ideas to implement within my community, but I also want to use this role as an grand opportunity.  I want to try my best to actively learn about my community from a different point of view and to learn about the culture that exists within its people. I believe that by meeting with people, teaching others, hosting community cleanup events, and so much more, I will be able to learn about the certain perspectives that the people within my community hold, and how I can use those perspectives to learn from to hopefully make positive change. 

    The several future plans that I hope to start up within my community include a newly formed recycling club at my high school. I want the club to focus heavily on waste reductions and recycling because this is something that is a lifelong practice and is not taught properly in most schools. There is an environmental club at my school that can technically take care of such ideas; however, I feel that by placing the idea of recycling under the environmental club takes away from its importance.  

    Within the recycling club, members can focus on educating others within the school, creating cleanup events within the community, holding events for elementary schools, and changing the recycling infrastructure within the high school. Not only will these events help make positive change for the environment, but people within the school can actively engage in caring for the environment and building lifelong sustainable practices. I believe that by creating this recycling club, I can also learn from the culture and the ways of life within my school, allowing me to apply what I learn to cultural anthropology. 

    Another idea that I have to hopefully beautify the environment is to put plants in classrooms: Plant Paradise! The idea is that students will be around nature allowing them to create a deeper relationship to their environment, but it also allows students to learn to take care of nature and to feel the importance of taking care of their world. The project allows students to learn the impact of their actions when it comes to caring for the environment. I hope to try and learn about culture through this idea as well, but I also feel that this project will implement new cultural perspectives within the classrooms.