Persuasive Speech for School

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If you do, you'll see my latest post was the persuasive speech I just wrote for my Public Speaking class at school. I wanted to post it here too. So enjoy :)

I.               Attention Step

A.     In 2009, there was an estimate of 656,000 reported homeless people in the United States. In 2010, there were 100 million people worldwide, having no home whatsoever.

B.     A lot of people believe that individuals have only themselves to blame for being homeless. We choose to ignore those who have nothing because “it’s their fault anyways so they deserve it.” We forget what the real problem is. The problem is not how these people became homeless, but the problem is that they ARE homeless. Instead of ignoring the tugging at our hearts, we should help those who have less than us and get them back on their feet.

C.     We all want to change the world. We all want to make an impact. By helping someone who has less than you, you ARE changing the world. One person at a time, you’re making the world a better place and leaving your mark on this generation. In the words of Mother Teresa, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.”

II.             Need Step

A.     In the United States today, the U.S. Census Bureau reports 16 million children living in poverty. The United States government predicts that soon, 25 percent of the kids in America will live in poverty. 

In countries like Kenya, the numbers are so high that they’re not even reported and are impossible to even calculate. 

An episode of 60 minutes on CBS said that the number of children without an actual home in America last year was 1.5 million. That’s 500 times as many students as there are currently enrolled at Florida Gateway College that have no home to live in and are lucky to have food to eat. 

While we worry about where to go for lunch, what new iPhone app to download, what new album to buy, and where to vacation this summer, there are over 1 million children wondering whether or not they will have somewhere to sleep the next day.

 These things aren’t said to make us feel guilty about our lives or what we have. Instead, they’re to make us aware of what is going on in the world around us everyday. Oftentimes, when we hear the word “poverty,” we think of countries overseas and third world nations. We don’t realize that it’s here in the United States too, in Florida. In fact, Orlando has one of the most rapidly growing populations of homeless children and families.


B.     In Tanzania, there is a 13-year-old girl named Sofia. Sofia’s Dad is dying and she spends her days helping her Mom take care of him. She wants to go to school so that she can get an education and provide for her family. But, she can’t go to school because her family cannot afford the mandatory school uniform required to attend. 

We complain, day in, and day out about getting out of bed to get to school or trying to finish our homework on time. None of us can wait to graduate, but this little girl wants nothing more than to be where we are right now. And she can’t.

III.           Satisfaction Step

A.     There are so many ways to help homeless people and children. There are so many opportunities for us to help children like Sofia and begin to put an end to poverty, worldwide. 

In 2010, a man named James Barnett qui his job and sold everything he had to experience poverty in America firsthand- He became homeless. 

Day by day, he walked the streets with homeless people and started to realize the small basic things they needed, things like socks. James founded and created the company CYNY, which stands for ‘Clothe Your Neighbor As Yourself.’ The company prints t-shirts, containing the logo and sells them online. They then use all of the profits to provide homeless people with the basic clothes and necessities that they need. 


B.     But it doesn’t stop here.

CYNY has recently expanded to reach people worldwide. They are now using some of the profits to provide school uniforms so orphans in countries like Tanzania and Kenya can go to school and get an education. 

Not only are they providing these kids with the ability to go to school, but they are also creating jobs and boosting the economy in those countries. The money you spend to buy a t-shirt goes toward jobs for the Kenyan women to make the uniforms. 

Along with clothing people in need, providing jobs, and helping orphans go to school, CYNY helps the U.S. economy too. The company purchases their wholesale from American Apparel, which uses ethical employment and environment initiatives.


According to the CYNY website, American Apparel is quick to provide jobs for foreigners coming into our country and helps pay for their schooling. The average sewer at American Apparel makes 12 dollars an hour, almost twice the federal minimum wage.

IV.           Visualization Step

A.     By purchasing a t-shirt from CYNY, you’re making the first step to ending poverty and homelessness worldwide. By buying a shirt, you’re first and foremost donating money to provide people with the necessities in life that we tend to take for granted. You’re also helping create opportunities for children in these poverty stricken areas to get an education and make a better life for themselves. By wearing the shirt, you’re raising awareness of the ongoing issue of homelessness. You’re also showing people that we need to help others in any way we can.

B.     By purchasing and wearing the shirts, you’re starting a movement. You’re spreading the word to stop poverty and homelessness in the world. Ideas spread like wildfire. One person sees your shirt and tell their friend and before you know it, cities full of people will be displaying on their chests the need to help those less fortunate than us.

      V.        Action Step

           

A.     So, instead of spending $20 on a shirt at the mall, go to CYNY.organd purchase a t-shirt. Wear your shirt proudly and explain to people what it means. Spread the word. It’s that simple. You don’t have to start a big rally, hold riots, have huge fundraisers, or vote for a certain political figure. All you have to do is buy a shirt… and wear it.

B.     Maybe one day, that 656,000 people, will turn into 0. Maybe that 1.5 million children will turn into 0. When starting the company, James Barnett said, “Only by doing can we begin to offer hope and love to a world whose cup is half empty.”

It doesn’t take much to change the world. It really only takes one person. One person with one t-shirt, fighting to end poverty and homelessness worldwide. Be that one person.

(c) Amy Yarick 

Keep Driving

My Dad always tells me and my Mom that when you're driving in a big storm, you have to keep going. Never stop on the side of the road and try to wait it out. Keep driving because eventually you'll get through it and it'll clear up.

Life is the same way.

When a storm comes through and bad things start to happen, it's human instinct to put our lives on hold to worry about that one thing. We let those problems and tough times stop our whole lives. As a teenager, I think everything is the end of the world. So when I'm faced with a hard moment, I feel like my life is over.

I pull over and sit at the side of the road, waiting for it to end.

My Dad was right all along. I'll never get through the storm by sitting and waiting. The only way to get through and get to the other side is to push through it. Keep going.

No matter what happens. No matter what life throws at you, you can always keep going because life always goes on. It might feel like you'll never make it through and it might seem like there's no end. But there is.

All you have to do is keep going. Keep driving. Keep living. It's not easy. It sucks. It's hard to see. And it's crazy scary. But once you make it through, you realize how strong you are and how worth it it was.

Daily Blogging!

I'm blogging daily on my Tumblr if you want to follow along my boring personal, everyday life. :)

http://amyyarick.tumblr.com

Stop Kony. It Only Takes One Person.

When I woke up this morning and logged onto twitter and facebook, my newsfeeds and timelines were completely flooded with links to the stop Kony videos. I ignored it at first, not really knowing what it was. But being the curious person I am, eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and clicked on one of the links to find out what it was all about.

I was immediately interested and touched just 30 seconds into the video. After the 29 minutes and 59 seconds was over, I realized what all the “hype” was about.

If you have 30 minutes of free time to sit down and watch (and actually pay attention) to this video, then I highly suggest you do it because there is honestly no way for me to try and summarize it or tell you what it’s about. You have to see it to find out for yourself.

I’ve always been someone who is very interested in helping good causes and helping “change the world,” to put it in a cliché way. The man, who made this video, as well as the whole cause itself, reminded me of “Clothe Your Neighbor As Yourself” which is another organization I’m very passionate about. But in reality, these two causes are polar opposites. The reason they resemble each other in my eyes is for the main premise: Changing the world, starting with you.

In Uganda, a man named Joseph Kony abducts children. He takes them from their families, makes them apart of his army, and then trains and forces them to kill. A lot of times, he forces them to kill their own parents. He doesn’t just do this with a few kids. The video will tell you, he’s created an army of 30,000 children and he’s reaching to other countries. This seems like the kind of thing that only happens in movies. But it’s real.

All of these children go to bed in fear every night that they might be abducted. One young boy in the video saw his brother get his neck slit and be killed. He tells the camera that he would rather be dead. He would rather die right now than live another day in fear.

The goal of 2012 is to get Kony arrested and save all of the kids whose lives he has robbed. Lots of action has already been taken and this video was released to continue to spread the word and make it happen. 

At the beginning of this video, one of the men says, “Because we couldn’t wait for the institutions and government to step in, we did it ourselves.”

One of the most amazing and powerful things about the Kony project is that ordinary people started it. Those ordinary people made other ordinary people aware and now it is spread over the whole world. 1.1 million people were part of the facebook group when I checked this morning. This made me realize how often we underestimate our own power. We think we’ll never be able to change the world, but the truth it, it all starts with one person. It was one man’s dream to change the world so his son could grow up and be proud of the earth he lived on. That dream became a reality when he visited Africa and started a project to save these kids and stop Kony. He started a movement that will go down in history if we join him.

A lot of this video really broke my heart. Knowing that kids live in fear every day of being abducted just kills me. I feel like it’s easy to say, “Well, it can happen to anyone” and that’s true. But I can go to bed at night and feel safe. There are days when I’m scared of what could happen, but not all the time. If a child gets abducted in Florida, it’s on every newspaper the next morning. Everyone talks about it, it’s on all the news channels, and police/detectives will do anything they can to find that child. It’s not normal to us. It’s not something we expect.

But in Africa, it is normal. The children aren’t going to sleep thinking there’s a chance they could get abducted that night. They’re going to bed wondering which day they’re going to be abducted. It’s not a matter of “if” for them. It’s a matter of “when.” It’s like they know it’s coming. Try to imagine living in this kind of fear every day of your life.

I sat around all day and thought about this. And I’ve decided that I personally don’t think God created the world to be this way. I don’t think that when God made our earth 2000 years ago, He made it to be a destructive and dangerous place. God never intended for the planet to be this violent and this terrifying. God would never want his children to go to bed at night, in fear of being taken away before they wake up in the morning. I don’t think that when God made our earth, He wanted to make it in a way that was harmful to us.

I think it’s natural for us to sit here and ask God “Why?” Why would you let this happen to innocent children? Why won’t You stop this kind of evil? Why are You allowing this to continue happening to Your people?

I don’t think those questions will ever be answered.

But today I realized, that those questions shouldn’t be directed at God. Maybe instead of questioning God, we should be asking ourselves these same questions. Why are WE letting this happen? Why do we watch the video, see the pictures, hear the news, but continue to sit on our couches? Why aren’t WE doing anything to stop it?

The men that started this movement and made this video knew it was time to take action. They knew that the only way to stop Kony was to start trying. It only takes one person, with one idea, and one goal, to change the world. It doesn’t take SWAT teams, institutions, armies, bombs, and guns to stop this kind of evil. It takes one person. That one person can open the eyes of one more person and as the pattern continues, we build a community of people ready to change the world.

We can sit around all day and ask God why He isn’t intervening and stepping in to stop these horrible things that are happening, but at the same time, maybe God is looking at us and saying “what about you?”

When God made Adam & Eve, He created them to take care of His planet. He put them in charge of the world he created for them. God put it in our hands to take care of the earth that He gave us.

We all want to see change in the world. We all want things to be different. It’s time to be that change that you want to see. It only takes one person.

I encourage you to not only watch the video, but also visit kony2012.com and join the movement. You can save the life of one invisible child. And that one life you saved can change the world forever.

Stay Strong.

March 1st is National Self Injury Awareness Day. Typically described as a day to help spread awareness about the seriousness and misconceptions of self injury and mental health. It's also a day for people to wear orange or write love on their wrists as encouragement for all the people currently dealing with self-harm.

Things always seem to become more real when statistics are thrown in. Between two and three million people in just the United States exhibit some type of self-abuse behavior, including eating disorders like anorexia. 1 in every 200 girls ages 13-19 cuts herself regularly. Several studies show that 1 in every 100 people who is admitted to the hospital for self harm will die of suicide within a year of the self harm. Keep in mind that these few statistics are only based on people hospitalized for their self injury. The millions of others who keep it a secret aren't accounted for.

History of abuse, overly-stressed, feeling worthless, low self esteem, loneliness, fear, depression, anxiety, curiosity, and a need for control are just some of the many reasons teenagers give for self-injuring.

When Demi Lovato got out of rehab last year for self-injury issues, as well as eating disorders, she revealed the tattoos on her wrists. Her left wrist says "Stay" and her right wrist says "Strong." She got the tattoos as a permanent reminder to herself that she could be strong enough to overcome the feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. The ink on her skin was there to remind her that she WAS good enough. Demi Lovato's story is what made me decide to study Psychology when I attend a University this fall.

I know that God has protected me from a lot of the hurt that many girls and guys go through when their feelings of hopelessness reach their skin. I know that sometimes the only thing keeping me strong is knowing that even when I feel the whole world has given up on me, God hasn't.

We can be ashamed of the things we've done, but God isn't ashamed of us. His heart breaks knowing that we're hurting, but His love is still there holding us together. God made us all such beautiful creations, in His image. In the image of God, we were made to be perfectly His. No matter what the crazy world will tell you or throw at you, that is still reason enough to keep going. Don't let your fears, anxieties, feelings, or depression allow you to ruin the body God has given you. Don't let it keep you from living your life to the fullest you can.

Those moments when you feel worthless, like there is no hope for you at all, remember that God sees you as His precious child. He doesn't see your darkness or your scars. He sees right through that to your heart and He surrounds you in His love. Just like it says in Isaiah, we should no longer see ourselves as desolate, or deserted, because God has given us a new name. Hephzibah, meaning "My delight is in my child."

God sees our brokenness, He sees our fears, He sees our hurt, and none of that stops Him from loving us unconditionally. That's reason enough to stay strong.

Every moment you put down the blade and walk away, you're saving your own life. You're having the courage and strength to go on just one more day. You're being your own hero.

On this day, my heart breaks for all the teenagers out there dealing with self-injury. My heart aches for those of us who feel as though our life is no longer worth living. But I remember that there is hope and there is a light. I know that God's love is surrounding every single one of us no matter what we're going through. Knowing that he sees me as His precious daughter and takes delight in me as His child is reason enough for me to stay strong.

Just one more breath. One more minute. One more day. One less scar.