Journey to the Center of the Earth

Entrepreneur, author and co-founder of the non-profit organization Kiva Jessica Jackley recently visited the Poly Upper School to discuss her work. Much of Jackley's lecture was focused on her educational and career path, which was far from simple. While attending college (Bucknell University), she often questioned the intent of those who worked in finance, a field she likened to a "moral slope". After studying business administration at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, however, she soon gained an interest in microfinancing, seeing how it fell in line with her overarching mission of working to help others. Inspired, she went on to find Kiva, an online microfinancing platform through which borrowers and lenders can interact. Ultimately, Jackley's story of the long and complicated process of finding a fulfilling career demonstrates the importance of adaptability and resilience. While her education and resulting career were long centered around h

Polytechnic School was recently visited by Malawian-American singer-songwriter, political activist and Poly alum Masauko Chipembere. He was born in Los Angeles to Malawian politicians Henry Masauko Blasius Chipembere and Catherine Mary Ajizinga Chipembere, who played large roles in the fight for Malawian independence against colonial rule. While at Poly, Masauko Chipembere discussed his father's experiences during and after independence, the treatment of women in Malawi, and the potential benefits of permaculture in Malawi. One thing that stood out to me, though, was his explanation of the role of global citizens. "Put joy in everything you do, because if you don't, you won't find it" - Catherine Chipembere Before anything else, Masauko Chipembere highlighted how global citizens must be passionate about their work. As he put it, as soon as you solve one problem, another shows up, to the extent that only those who are truly engaged in and enthusiastic about

Since entering Syria on the 9th of October, the Turkish army has only continued its assault on Kurdish forces in north-east Syria, and the consequences have been dire. Over 160,000 civilians have fled the Turkish-Syrian border, and according to Kurdish sources, hundreds of IS fighters have escaped from prisons abandoned by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the face of Turkish invasion. While the circumstances surrounding Turkey's current involvement in Syria are complex, the major factors at play remain clear. In part, the conflict has been the indirect result of economic hardship in Turkey. With the recent drop in the nation's GDP, and with unemployment on the rise, animosity toward Syrian immigrants in Turkey, as well as toward the president's former open-door policy, has been at an all-time high, making the decision to relocate Syrian migrants to recently vacated territory in northern Syria a logical one from Erdogan's point of view. Recent decisions b

On September 16th, Poly had the pleasure of welcoming Martha Adams, producer of the Brave Girl Rising project, to the school. The event involved a screening of the short film, before a Q&A discussion with Ms. Adams in which she answered any lingering questions about her work. The short film follows the experiences of a Somalian refugee in the Dadaab Refugee Camp, Kenya named Nasro. With the Brave Girl Rising project's main aim being the empowerment of women worldwide, the short film focused on Nasro's account of what it means to live in a region where girls have a 1 in 4 chance of being raped by the age of 18 and girls are often pulled out of school to spend their time supporting their families. Part of what makes Nasro's story particularly inspiring is her strong desire to attain an education even when she understands that such an education is unlikely to bring her better opportunities in the future. When Martha Adams asked why the girls at the camp still value their

As of the 5th of August, the number of mass shootings (incidents with at least four casualties) in the U.S. in 2019 stood at 255, marking an average 1.18 shootings per day. With these figures, the United States holds a gun violence death rate of roughly 12.5 deaths per 100,000 people, one four times as high as those of Syria and Yemen. In terms of homicides as a whole, in 2017, 73% of homicides in the U.S. involved a gun, which falls in stark contrast to the 38% of Canada, 13% of Australia and 3% of England and Wales. The correlation is clear: as a gross generalization, many western countries with stricter gun control policies tend to experience lower rates of gun-related homicides than those who stubbornly defend the right of civilians to bear arms. From the nations mentioned above, for instance, Canada mandates gun safety training for and performs rigorous background checks on those who wish to purchase firearms. The usage of such firearms is also significantly more restrict

Above: a brunch was held for the 16 olive farmers with whom I worked As mentioned in my last Global Scholars capstone project update, I spent a few weeks this summer hard at work in Catalonia, Spain to continue my goal of supporting the independent olive farmers of the region. While I spent time working in the field, the main focus of my visit was both to collect footage of the area and to conduct various interviews with either the farmers themselves or with others closely linked with the olive oil production process (such as the manager of an olive mill).  These interviews were recorded, and I intend to post them on the project website (www.myolivegrove.org) as soon as they have been translated from Catalan. The image above of the mayor of the town in which I was based provides an example of how these interviews were held. My finalized capstone project will likely involve educating the community on the struggles faced by these farmers (hopefully in a way that directly benefi

In the past few months, Brazil has been the victim of major setbacks in the preservation of the Amazon rainforest. Over the course of this year, over 1,330 square miles of forest cover has been lost (in comparison with the 957 square miles last year). This June alone saw a rate of deforestation verging on double that of June just one year ago. A significant force at play in this recent decay of environmental protection is undoubtedly the poor policy of the nation’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who is both overly dismissive of related studies and supportive of an excessively anti-control mindset. Indeed, Bolsonaro seems to condone the recent spike in deforestation. Part of his presidential campaign involved promising to remove regulations on protected land, which he described as an economic and agricultural hindrance. Soon after taking office, Bolsonaro granted the Ministry of Agriculture the right to certify the protected status of indigenous lands, a right previous

One fact is evident to anyone who has attempted to use Google Translate for anything more than a word or, at most, a short phrase: at best, it lacks precision. This shortcoming is hardly the fault of the designers behind such programs. Far from it - translating text or speech of any significant complexity almost invariably leads to a distortion or even a loss of much of the intended meaning. This occurs for a variety of reasons. Firstly, languages do not always follow a one-to-one correspondence structure. Even in the case of English, which boasts an exceptionally extensive vocabulary as far as languages go, there still exists in other languages a countless number of words with no direct translation into English. The classic example of this phenomenon is the German word schadenfreude . Google translates this word as "malicious joy", a rather clunky attempt at conveying the rough meaning of the term. Indeed, schadenfreude  has made its way into the English vocabulary as a l

"People have a need to know. Journalists have a right to tell. Finding the facts can be difficult. Reporting the story can be dangerous. Freedom includes the right to be outrageous. Responsibility includes the duty to be fair. News is history in the making. Journalists provide the first draft of history." One highlight of my recent trek up the East Coast was stopping in Washington, D.C., home of many of the nation's great museums. One such museum is the Newseum, which, as the name implies, hosts a large number of news-related exhibitions, which include a Pulitzer Prize photographs hall, a First Amendment gallery and a 9/11 memorial. One exhibition that I found to be of particular relevance to global affairs was the Time Warner World News Gallery, dedicated to shedding light on how free speech (or the lack thereof) dictates the struggles of journalists around the world. The gallery features an interactive map (similar to this one  by Reporters Without Borders) that d

This past month has been particularly productive on my part in terms of working towards my Global Scholars capstone project, which, if all goes according to plan, will relate to aiding independent olive farmers in the region of Catalonia, Spain. Focusing my efforts on the small village of Isona, I plan to support these individuals by spending time both helping out with the manual aspects of their work as well as generally promoting their businesses (hopefully internationally, as I am aiming to import their olive oil into the U.S.). Last summer marked a significant step towards this goal, with me fulfilling my service hour requirement helping out on the farms of these struggling farmers. In terms of plans for future progress, I have been looking to create a website in which I detail my future goals for this project, as well as report my past endeavors in the area. A preliminary draft of the finalized website can be found at www.myolivegrove.org. In mid-June, I will be attending a co

Vanessa Hua is a writer based in San Francisco who is best known for her novels, which often tackle diverse issues related to immigration. During her talk at Poly, Hua concentrated on her newly published novel, A River of Stars , which revolves around the efforts of a pregnant Chinese woman in Los Angeles. A focal point of Hua’s discussion centered around the duties and burdens of writers, especially when they attempt to portray any perspective (ideological, cultural or otherwise) that is not their own. While Hua’s exploration of what it means to be a Chinese-American in California makes sense due to her own Asian-American background, some of her works, such as many of her short stories, stray from her own perspective to a much more significant degree than A River of Stars might do. The lesson that conflicting perspectives often deserve to be considered equally valid is a crucial one, especially when confronting our own prejudices.

In March of 2019, musician and human rights activist Arn Chorn-Pond came to Poly to discuss how he survived the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia as a child. At just nine years old, he was separated from his family and placed in a Khmer Rouge detention camp, where he witnessed atrocities that forced him to learn to grow numb and unfeeling. At age 14, the Khmer Rouge positioned Arn Chorn-Pond on the battlefront during the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. He eventually escaped by fleeing into the jungle, traveling for months until he reached the border to Thailand. Throughout his presentation, Arn Chorn-Pond never failed to remind the audience of the various roles that music has played throughout his life. The playing of music was first introduced to Arn Chorn-Pond as nothing more than a tool for survival. During his time at the detention camp, he learned to play the flute, eventually being chosen to entertain the camp guards with propaganda songs. After arriving at the Un

When I first read what it takes to become a Global Scholar, I was surprised at how many of the criteria match what I have achieved by simply following my passions. “Completion of the highest level of a modern language”, for instance, was a goal on which I was focused long before I even understood what the GIP entails. Similarly, the “cross-cultural travel experience” was a requirement that I first fulfilled before turning one year old. I owe much of the overlap between my personal passions and the qualifications of a Global Scholarship to my European identity. Born in London to a German mother and a Spanish father, I moved around the continent for 14 years until arriving at the United States just before my freshman year. By that time, I had already had plenty of time to develop a love for international discovery. It became a pastime of mine to learn as much as possible about the extraordinarily diverse languages and cultures that define the human race. This past