What Does It Mean to Give Back to Others and Why Is It Important?
Elementary School Division
Austin Strauss, 5th grade – Bancroft Elementary School
To start off, giving back to the community means helping others towards a common goal or interest such as providing assistance, goods, or opportunity. Why is this important? Community service results in a positive impact on others and builds self-confidence. There is strength in numbers and community service allows you to achieve goals you could not achieve alone. I have witnessed this in my school, sports, and neighborhood.
For instance, last year in the 4th grade on Earth Day, our class volunteered to pick up garbage around our neighborhood. It was important for us to show our respect for our environment. It brought us together and drew other interest as well. While helping the planet it helped me make new neighbors and friends.
Another example, during the soccer season, teams organize a food drive on Thanksgiving to help those in need. It feels good to help others and it’s a way of showing gratitude for what we have. It’s a way to showing kindness to people in need of support.
In my school, every afternoon in my English teacher’s classroom, my classmates and I help the teacher clean out her classroom. We feel productive and accomplished knowing that we could take any task she asks. Every year, our school holds a fundraiser with lots of games, foods, and crafts to raise money for a big event for all students regardless of background.
In conclusion, it is crucial to get involved in your community. There are many ways you can provide your time, money, and resources to others. The satisfaction of accomplishment is a reward. Giving back to your community makes your mind and heart grow, and it shows appreciation for what you have.
Middle School Division
Serenity Jefferson, 8th grade – Charles Hart Middle School
African American women face many struggles in today’s world, but some of the most pressing issues they come across are sexual harassment, sexism, trauma, and abuse. While these issues affect all women to some extent African American women experience them in a special way due to a race of gender. To understand how to confront these problems we should have the need to look at the impact they have on African American women’s lives and how we can work to solve them.
Sexual harassment is one of the most common and harmful problems that African American women face even today. It happens when someone makes unwanted and inappropriate sexual comments or gestures. This can occur anywhere (such as work, school, in public spaces, or even at home.) African American women, like many other women are often targeted by people who do not respect them. due to racism and stereotypes about African American women (being more sexually available or less feminine,) they can be treated in ways that make them feel uncomfortable, unsafe, and/or disrespected.
To stop sexual harassment we can create safer places for African American women to speak out. Schools and workplaces should have strict policies against harassment and should provide for both employees and students on how to treat each other with respect. There must be systems in place that allow women to report harassment without fear of vengeance. Most importantly society must challenge the harmful stereotypes about African American women that make them more vulnerable to harassment.
Sexism is the belief that one gender is better or more important than the other. For African American women, sexism is often combined with racism often making it even harder for them to succeed in life. for example, African American women are often paid less than both white women and Black men for the same job. They also face discrimination in job opportunities, with the lessen chances for promotions or leadership positions. also, African American women often have to work harder than their counterparts to prove their worth, facing the constant pressure of trying to meet unrealistic expectations.
To fight sexism we need to ensure that African American women have the same opportunities as everyone else. This means passing laws that ensure equal pay for equal work and that protect women from discrimination in hiring and promotions. It also means pushing for better representation of African American women in leadership roles. We should also encourage girls and young women to believe in themselves and their abilities showing them that they can achieve anything, no matter their race or gender.
Trauma and abuse (whether physical, emotional, or sexual) are common experiences for many African American women. Abuse can happen in relationships, at home, or maybe even in the community. For African American women, there are additional layers of pain due to historical racism and violence that have affected their communities. Many African American women suffer in silence either because they feel ashamed or because they don’t believe that anyone will take their struggles seriously.
One of the best ways to address trauma and abuse is to provide support systems where African American women can find help. It is also important to educate the public about the impact of trauma so that people are more empathetic and understanding. We all should create a society where survivors of abuse are believed and supported, not blamed or ignored. These things can make a big difference in reducing these issues.
In conclusion the struggles of African American women are not unbeatable. Through raising awareness, advocating for policy changes, and supporting the empowerment of African American women, we can address the issues of sexual harassment, sexism, trauma, and abuse. By taking these issues seriously and working together, we can create a world where African American women are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.
High School Division
High School Division
Leah Bagley, 12th grade – Basis DC
The most important issue that African American women face today is misogynoir. Misogynoir stems from slavery and continues to be a part of today’s society because of the harmful way people portray Black women. My solution would be a widespread proposal that creates a safe place to share their worries and reconstruct the skewed image of an African American woman.
African American women are presented to the world especially in the United States as angry, emotional, and most of all faceless. They face every issue that are common for women as a collective such as unequal pay and being seen as inferior. However, because of intersectionality and them being both African American and women, they face the hardships present in both worlds. For example, throughout history, you can see this fallacious belief that Black people “can’t feel pain”. In comparison, women often experience loosely similar opinions due to people believing they are always exaggerating their pain. African American women experience a mix of both which is seen in the extreme difference between infant and maternal mortality rates in Black women and other races. According to Kaiser Family Foundation, KFF, as of 2022, infants born to Black women are over twice as likely to die relative to those born to white women with a difference of 10.9 vs. 4.4 per 1,000. Overall, it is common for African American women to be ignored and dehumanized.
Although it is unrealistic to think any solution can immediately cause a shift in both the unconscious and conscious bias against Black women, there can be procedures put in place to have Black women to feel heard and seen just as much as any other race. In order to begin to solve this problem, I would propose an initiative of different branches and an overall network of resources that African American women can use. For instance, there would be a branch specifically for health where they can reach out medical advice similar to a medical clinic. This would ensure that they no longer must worry about being silenced and dismissed because it would be a program specifically catered to listening and supporting them. It is also essential that the employees and network of people taking part in this proposal are not only Black because this is not a Black issue, because this is an everyone issue. This skewed image of an African American woman has been taught to various races and even African American men. The idea that Black women must struggle is a big part of this taught “image” which is why it is so vital that they are given a safe space to discuss their experiences and brainstorm solutions without being shunned or judged.
My overall proposal to solve misogynoir and the root cause of the skewed image of African American women also includes a rebranding of Black women. This would include illuminating how intelligent, beautiful, and most importantly, human African American women are. It needs to be normalized so that they can experience and show emotions just like everyone else. If the dehumanization of Black women is not acknowledged, their ability to react when they are happy, sad, or angry cannot be accepted just like others’ emotions are. Due to the dehumanization taking place their evolutionary efforts are often overlooked because people are so focused on the inaccurate idea of what a Black woman is. They are revolutionaries, activists, and inventors but most of their stories are not known. The media has slowly started to highlight black history and black excellence yet there are still movies with all-white casts and disbelief when African American women have positions of power. When it comes to the media we consume, Black people, and in particular black women are often not represented accurately or with diversity. The idea of an African American woman rarely ever includes her being a mechanical engineer or the CEO of a multimillion-dollar company. They are not presented as people who have jobs that are still associated with being a man. Instead, their struggles are always highlighted, and they are seen as aggressive.
In order to rebrand this inaccurate image of African American women we would have to present the world with an alternative. By choosing widely different women to feature each week it furthers the idea that an African American woman is not one thing. They are not all angry or single mothers. They are the backbone of this country and continue to contribute to the world and history.
Unless we as a society gain the courage to confront the misogynoir that African American women face daily, we will not move on as a collective. The next generation will be taught the same as the previous which is that for some reason black women are an object of hate and discrimination. They are showcased as the same character in every movie because people don’t truly know what a Black woman can be and is today, not as a collective but as individuals. My proposal is to rewrite the definition of an African American woman without the tinted glasses that so many have on. They would have a network of trained professionals who openly listen to their voices without judgment to make them feel seen. The world must adjust to the varied image of a black woman without being influenced by the skewed preferences and perspectives of others.