My volunteering experiences in both communities has changed my perspective in various ways. I always knew I led a privileged life but just didn’t know to what length. Because Bangladesh is a developing country, the ratio of poor people to middle class is bigger and can be seen across the capital and outside the cities. In my time there, I spent some time outside my tight schedules to help out a non-profit organisation created by students like me, just for fun. During the fasting month of Ramadan, we set out on a venture to provide home-made food to poor people around a posh center of the capital and we provided to a couple hundreds of them. This was one of the best memories I made from there. The look on their face stills inspires me and I had volunteered for two more drives for clothes and necessities needed for winter. After coming to the States, the only time I happened to do something like this was last year before Christmas, I along with my other National Honor Society mates from high school, volunteered for Salvation Army to distribute free toys for all families.
The constitution of this country I believe has vested us with powers that we do not realize yet. There are several ways we can become an active citizen and looking at the pros of becoming one can be a start. We should take part in our local elections and choose the right candidates accordingly who would take the thoughtful decisions about what changes would benefit our local school district and the community. Together with other residents we can also come together and influence our local authority or the government to enact or change laws to favor our community. Active citizenship is also about volunteering to make someone’s day better. We can take part in local food drives and create a whole new one. Supporting people with whatever we can makes us feel good in a whole different level. We can also start an awareness chain where we teach the community about the local laws and take it to as far as the federal laws. We can teach each other about the differences we have in our gloriously diverse community and help each other to accept them how they are. “It starts with the small decisions – the height of buildings or the types of activities that are planned for a local park. This public indifference then starts to influence the bigger decisions – how our local taxes are spent, that 20 story building being built next door to you. And then global events. Trump. Brexit. These campaigns have been, in part, enabled through a level of public indifference towards the bigger issues. It is a time of growing global unrest where we need strong and inclusive communities. When our local communities are strong, we are more able to exercise democracy, to organise, to withstand change, to resist” (Five Ways to, 2017).
Overall, citizenship and being an active citizen is beyond patriotism because we are not only bringing good to the country as an inclusive community just because we are patriotic, but we are doing it to make it a better place to live. In a country full of cultural and socioeconomic differences among people, getting a President to lead our country only to make it a more hateful place is the last thing we should want. But to prevent it, all we have to do is raise our voice and do something for the next neighbour or people we see everyday. It should never matter what ethnicity or what color their skin is, because ultimately we all go home to learn the same thing from our book of religion, respect and love people and make their day better.
The constitution of this country I believe has vested us with powers that we do not realize yet. There are several ways we can become an active citizen and looking at the pros of becoming one can be a start. We should take part in our local elections and choose the right candidates accordingly who would take the thoughtful decisions about what changes would benefit our local school district and the community. Together with other residents we can also come together and influence our local authority or the government to enact or change laws to favor our community. Active citizenship is also about volunteering to make someone’s day better. We can take part in local food drives and create a whole new one. Supporting people with whatever we can makes us feel good in a whole different level. We can also start an awareness chain where we teach the community about the local laws and take it to as far as the federal laws. We can teach each other about the differences we have in our gloriously diverse community and help each other to accept them how they are. “It starts with the small decisions – the height of buildings or the types of activities that are planned for a local park. This public indifference then starts to influence the bigger decisions – how our local taxes are spent, that 20 story building being built next door to you. And then global events. Trump. Brexit. These campaigns have been, in part, enabled through a level of public indifference towards the bigger issues. It is a time of growing global unrest where we need strong and inclusive communities. When our local communities are strong, we are more able to exercise democracy, to organise, to withstand change, to resist” (Five Ways to, 2017).
Overall, citizenship and being an active citizen is beyond patriotism because we are not only bringing good to the country as an inclusive community just because we are patriotic, but we are doing it to make it a better place to live. In a country full of cultural and socioeconomic differences among people, getting a President to lead our country only to make it a more hateful place is the last thing we should want. But to prevent it, all we have to do is raise our voice and do something for the next neighbour or people we see everyday. It should never matter what ethnicity or what color their skin is, because ultimately we all go home to learn the same thing from our book of religion, respect and love people and make their day better.