thinking beyong borders speech

8/6/2019 Thinking Beyong Borders Speech

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[1] Hello, my name is Rayn Riel. Im from Brooklyn, New

York. Im 18 and graduated high school last year. I deferred

from Tufts University to take a gap year with a programcalled Thinking Beyond Borders. We traveled for 8 months

and in 8 different countries, studying a variety of

international development issues. We went to Costa Rica,

Peru, and Cambodia, but spent most of our time in four

countries: Ecuador, China, India, and South Africa. And we

are now spending the last few weeks here at home,

reflecting on what weve learned. Now I am here to share

with you a little bit of what Ive learned on my journey.

[2] So, before we get started, I would like to ask you guys

something. Take a look at the questions on the screen. What

do you think?

Why should you care about the environment?

Why should you care about education?

Why should you care about agriculture/food?

Why should you care about public health?


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If you dont care, why dont you?

We care about issues when we feel connected to them; whenwe understand how it relates to us personally. I asked about

the environment, education, agriculture, and public health

because I learned about these subjects during my time in

Thinking Beyond Borders. I learned through community

service work, living in home-stays, cultural immersion, lots of

reading and projects, and seminars.

I have always felt passionate about the earth, and fixing its

problems. Another passion of mine was design. Essentially, I

was really into physical infrastructure all types of buildings,

trains, dams, bridges, tunnels and I still am. Ive always

liked building and designing things and still want to study

architecture and engineering. I decided to go on this gap

year because it would fulfill both of these interests: exploring

the world, and, at the same time, design.

I did not realize how relevant our infrastructure and physical


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space is to development! For example, by building a school

in a village in order for kids to get an education, one would

think that the village or slum would start educating itsyouth. But there are many other considerations to be made

besides the physical structure. Where will the teachers come

from if the village does not have any teachers, and how will

they get there? How will the students go to school if they are

unbearably sick? Why are they sick? Is it because of the

environment such as dirty water or maybe it is because

of the food, and their agriculture? And why would they go to

school if their families need them on the farm, or if they are

making money selling drugs and committing crimes, or if the

student is a girl in an unequal society? But what if they are

getting educated? Where will they go once educated, and

what will happen to their community and their culture as the

years progress? These are just some of the problems, and

they all connect back to a theme of interdependent issues

such as the environment, education, agriculture, public

health, social infrastructure, and the economy. For now, let

me get into more detail with these interconnecting issues,


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through my experiences in each of the four main countries I

went to on this trip.

In a world that is more connected than ever before, we need

to see beyond the immediate picture. What happens around

the world often affects us, and more often than not, is

caused by us in the United States, as a result of our power

and influence in the world, in the first place. I had some very

powerful experiences abroad, and learned why I should and

need to care as a result.

[3] In Ecuador, for 1 month I lived with an indigenous

community of people called the Tsachila, in their village of

Los Naranjos. [4] Until 50 years ago, the Tsachila lived in the

jungle completely isolated. My host-family tells me in

Spanish (because I do not know their indigenous language

Tsafiki) that they had nothing and they pointed around the

house to show the progress theyve made now they have

clothes, TV, school, literature, toys everything would be

fine except for one problem: environmental degradation.


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[5] As a result of clear-cut deforestation, everything is drying

up. The river that they rely on for water and for food gets

shallower and narrower yearly. The soil that they rely on fortheir farming and for their food also gets drier and less

healthy yearly. The plantains get smaller every year because

there is less nutrition for them in the soil. And that means

their wallets are drying up, too. [6] As volunteers, our job

was to plant 5,500 trees along the riverbanks in order to

reforest, and rejuvenate the river and jungle ecosystem

surrounding it. With our boots, malaria medicine, and

mosquito repellent, we accomplished the job we set out to

do. [7] When trees line the river, it is a natural way to filter

out pollutants, and rejuvenate the ecosystem. And this is

needed, especially when harmful chemical fertilizer that is

used on the crops runs off into the river. [8] The Tsachila are

not educated when it comes to learning sustainable

agricultural practices. They cleared their jungle for

agriculture, and their soil health depletes every year due to

chemical fertilizers, monoculture, and a lack of organic

inputs and biodiversity. And their diet their health is poor,


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as a result of dirty drinking water from the river, and an

unbalanced diet, which mainly consists of starchy plantains.

[9]Indeed, if they continue with current practices, eventually

their land will become a desert, their source of income will

disappear, and their community will vanish as they migrate

to the cities. And their culture, already under threat as a

result of assimilation and their youth leaving for work in the

cities, will surely not survive if they cant sustain themselves.

[10] Therefore, their economic and social sustainability are

interconnected. With sustainable environmental practices

come, hand-in-hand, sustainable agricultural practices, good

health, and an education system that teaches these

practices. You cant have one without the other; theyre all

connected and dependent on each other.

[11] Due to globalization and in a large part, due to

American influence, the Tsachila deforested their jungle and

started farming the way they do. We may buy their produce

in our supermarket. Think about your own health when you

eat food that has been grown with chemicals and with


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unhealthy soil the food you eat will not be nutritious to you.

In fact, it may even be harmful. [12] And our oceans get

polluted from the chemical fertilizer and pesticides, as it runsoff into waterways. Furthermore, our climate will be affected

by deforestation, and all of the related effects of climate

change will impact everyone around the world. [13] Stronger

storms and higher ocean levels could destroy your

community, not to mention harm your environment,

economy, public health, and society. [14] Now lets talk

about China, where, among many things, I climbed the Great

Wall and regrettably ate dog meat.

[15] Why do people think the way they do? People think the

way they do because of how theyre educated. And theyre

educated under a pedagogy, or way of teaching, dependent

on the culture. Education influences culture, and culture

influences education. I saw this firsthand by teaching English

in Chinese public schools, both in the city of Kunming, and

the village of Shaxi. [16] Students in China are taught in a

large classroom of around 60 students, via rote


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memorization and repetition. Rarely is there any creativity,

individual thought or expression, or thinking outside of the

box involved, which is very convenient for the totalitariangovernment, which does not really want people to think

freely. Yet is this way of thinking benefiting our

interconnected issues?

[17] One day, I went to the zoo in Kunming. At the zoo, a

Chinese woman revealed something to me that could have

easily gotten her in trouble with the government, because it

involves speaking up about human rights. When I told this

woman that the animals in the zoo looked unhappy and not

free, she responded by saying that the Chinese people are

like those animals, and that I am lucky to live in America. I

took this to heart.

[18] If you dont speak up, what can happen? Although

Chinas economy is growing rapidly, millions of people have

been able to move into the middle class, and physical

infrastructure is being built everywhere, there is a catch.


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China is able to grow so rapidly because it sells cheap goods

abroad, especially to Americans. The easiest ways to be

cheap often involve overlooking long-term implications andthe consequences related to all of the issues I discussed

earlier. [19] It is cheap to pollute, because you dont have to

deal with your output. So coal, which is cheap and heavily

polluting, causes a lot of unhealthy, smoggy air. And

factories pollute without restraint as well. None of this is

good for a healthy human or for a healthy ecosystem. All of

these environmental problems will affect you at home

because of connected ecosystems as well as a connected

economy. For example, youre probably buying fruit from

China, or your newest iPod. [20] Chinese people cant speak

up about these things and they arent necessarily aware of

the problems to begin with, because they arent taught

about them. Why would their government want them to

know? [21] Although a lack of education leads to

environmental problems, it also leads to health problems

and agricultural problems. For example, if you dont know

how to take care of yourself, how do you know what is


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healthy? If you dont know how to farm, how are you not

going to end up farming unsustainably? And how can they

solve problems if they arent educated? In the end,education deeply relates to our other interconnected issues.

Nonetheless, as China continues to grow and interact with

the outside world through technology, I think things will

change via social and economic pressure. [22] Lets get into

India now

[23] India has one of the oldest cultures in the world. Yet its

agricultural system is quite new. Around 40 years ago, at the

time of the change, people were starving. America

intervened with a new system of industrial agriculture, giving

Indians chemical fertilizers and pesticides, so that

monocultures, and therefore more yield of a specific, hybrid

crop, could work without fail. Pumps that allowed Indians to

drill deep underground to tap unused aquifers to water the

crops were also installed. Monocultures allowed each farmer

to have more yield, and especially with the introduction of

the tractor to replace cows, less people were needed in rural


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to the environment, education, health, the economy, and

society as a whole. I found that the solution for India lies with

cow manure lots of it. Its pretty much all we dealt with atthe sustainable farms. They had organic methods, using no

petroleum so no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or tractors.

The sun, not oil, and the cow, were the centerpieces of the

system. The grass grew with the help of the cows organic-

manure-fertilizer, and the cow ate the grass, and then its

manure was put back into the system. It was a closed

system. [27] Because the cow is holy in India, it is not killed

and so what this farm sells is organic fertilizer, cow

byproducts (such as dairy), and medicine (processed cow

urine, for example). Among the many things they sell, they

sell energy. Cow manure is used in a biogas plant at the

farm to create natural gas as well as more nutritious

fertilizer through a complicated chemical process. The point

is that energy that would otherwise be wasted as

greenhouse gas emissions coming up from the manure is

harnessed in India. Also, if food is grown locally and

sustainably, that means minimal transportation costs,


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assuming that the energy used to power transportation does

not come from renewable sources. This food is healthier than

food grown on chemicals, there is less pollution that harmsyour health and the environment, and farmers are not

economically dependent on oil and running into debt, to

name a few examples of the interconnectivity of agriculture

with other sectors. [28] In the end, sustainable agriculture is

a very important step to be made if one is to solve global

problems relating to all of the issues environment,

education, public health, the economy and social structure.

[29] Now let me talk about South Africa, [30] where in my

spare time, I went on a safari, and I went skydiving, bungee

jumping, and paintballing. But most importantly, I spent time

helping sick people living in slums.

[31] Like in all nations, culture and history are driving forces

behind what occurs in the present. In South Africas case,

when the Dutch, and then the British, arrived, they began

taking control of the many different, scattered tribes. Over

hundreds of years, inequality between colonists and


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this place. Their economy does not give them job

opportunities. Many are not going to school. And their diet

consists of unhealthy, fatty foods, from the same industrialagricultural system I mentioned before. No wonder many

suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity, while

only a few countries away on the same continent, people are

starving. In order to combat tuberculosis and AIDS with

treatment, one needs to have a healthy diet as well. This is

too expensive and simply is not happening. [35] In many

rural areas, HIV/AIDS, as well as malaria, are destroying

families and communities, which affects all of our issues

negatively.

[36] So, I hope now you have a general sense of how

everything is connected, and also a general sense of what I

did on my trip. I think it is evident that we do need to care,

not only because of a moral responsibility, but also because

what happens outside of your community affects you. We

need to care now, because the sooner, the better. So what

can we do about it? Ill give you an example through design


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my passion - as we wrap up here. [37] Lets call it IMPACT

Design, as it balances traditional design which is form and

function, and, truth and beauty with responsible,sustainable impact on all of these issues.

[38] Lets think outside of the box what are your

assumptions about what a building is? Is it just a place, and

thats it? [39] Or maybe you understand the negative

implications involved with the construction of a building, and

question your assumptions as to what a building could be.

[40] Lets think outside of the building. What if a building did

not have a negative impact on the world? What if it actually

helped the world, and the construction and existence of the

building was beneficial to the environment, education,

agriculture, public health, society, and the economy?

[41] Although I have many ideas for how this would work, let

me just briefly explain a few of them through one type of

structure: lower-income housing.


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[42] In America, in the inner cities, like here, in the D.C. area,

many lower-income housing units are in need of repair.

Currently, due to a lack of funding for public housing, as wellas due to poverty, the buildings are a disgrace. Of course,

not all of these structures are this way but some are. By

repairing broken elevators, fixing plumbing, cleaning walls,

replacing shattered windows, and adding light, among other

fixes, their environment will be greatly improved. Ones

environment deeply affects ones physical, mental, and

spiritual state, so making the buildings beautiful, and not

just cheap structures, is part of the solution. And when one

wants to remake the buildings, there are ways to positively

address all of our issues.

[43] But Im talking about thinking outside of the building

with the design. What if the building used renewable sources

of energy, and it had solar panels [44] and wind turbines

[45] installed on the building, supplying the majority of its

energy? And what if we included biogas plants [46] ,

commonly used in Indian farms to create energy from


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organic waste, to the building as well? Energy would be

created from human waste. Electricity could be provided by

renewable sources, and besides, most lighting for thebuilding could come from sunlight to begin with. The same

can be said with heating and cooling. The materials needed

for everything in the building could be recycled. And what if

there was a rooftop farm [47] , and farming was incorporated

with the structure? The farm could practice sustainable

agriculture, and the soil could come from compost made

within the building, as a result of everyones organic waste

from his or her lunch, among other inputs.

How would this benefit all of our issues? Ill be brief and

touch on only a few things. First of all, renewable energy

means no pollution, and no dependency on oil (which would

be a great move for all factors), as well as more profit and

increased real estate value due to both being able to create

your own energy and even sell extra energy. Rooftop

farming means sustainable, local, healthy produce for a

healthier person and environment. It also is a great way to


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it to generate its own energy, or a school that has an urban

farm so that they can learn about sustainable practices and

eat healthy school lunch as well, or even a sewagetreatment plant that processes human waste similar to cow

manure in India, and generates energy in biogas plants for

the city. All of these things, and more, positively affect each

of our issues and lead to a sustainable future.

[48] Why havent these problems been solved already?

[49] To help answer this question, take a look at the screen.

You have less than a minute to try and figure it out.

THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX GAME

[Continue below after around 20 seconds,.. Tease them to

find the answer for themselves by using the different

slides/steps for the solution feel the audience]

[50] [51] [52] [53]

Obviously answering why we havent solved these problems

already is very complicated. There are so many reasons. I


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In the end, find something that you are passionate about,

and think outside of the box! Realize the connections, and

remember these words: who, what, when, where, why, andhow. [55]

______________________________________________________________________________________ ___________ SIDE NOTES*ORGANIZE DESIGN PART FOR PP (THE TABLE GRAPHICS STUFF!!)*get parents to bring up external harddrive to graduation so that my photos can getto TBB and on brochures, website, etc.. Powerpoint with photos bullet point summaries


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*copies of M.P. and P.O.Ls..* talk to the audience, move around, be excited but know material, be able tonavigate, semi-memorize* Be confident, pace yourself, annunciate, gestures*read out loud make sure it makes sense when you readfor powerpoint:

work on public speakingWater being enthusiastic Pronunciation

thinking beyong borders speech

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