31/10/13

Part 1 Listing:

- Organization: Save the Children

- population served: Children; mostly in devolving countries

- main focus: better education, health care, economic chances; provides emergency aid in natural disasters, wars and other conflicts

- in 120 countries all around the world

- ways to help: programs, campaigns, promote children's lives, provide relief, help to support children in developing countries, promote policy changes in order to gain more rights for the young people

- current project: Humanitarian work in Syria, Every One Campaign

- future hopes/goals: Reducing child deaths rate by 2015, safer and brighter future for children

Part 2 Writing:

Every 4.5 seconds a child somewhere in the world dies caused by hunger and preventable diseases. They do not get the chance to make it to their 5^th birthday. Additionally, millions of children either do not get the opportunity for education or they drop out of school before their 3^rd grade. Those are a few of many challenges the world has to face. However, this shouldn’t be this way. Every child deserves the chance of a healthy start, education, and a brighter future.

The worldwide active, non-governmental organization 'the Save the children fund', commonly known as Save the Children, is devoted to save those children’s lives. Established in United Kingdom in 1919 to help and feed children who suffered from hunger crisis after the First World War, Save the Children wants to attain the right to survival, protection, development and participation for every single child. They strongly abide by their motto "We save children's lives. We fight for their rights. We help them fulfill their potential". In order to accomplish their mission, Save the Children promotes children's lives, provides relief, and helps to support children in developing countries. Furthermore, they promote policy changes in order to gain more rights for the young people. The organization's main focus lies on a better education, health care, and economic chances. Moreover, Save the Children provides emergency aid in natural disasters, wars and other conflicts. Till this day, Save the Children is spread in 120 countries all around the world with the goal to improve children's lives. In order to do so, they create programs and campaigns to support them. 

Since Save the Children constantly tries to make a better living condition for children, they have several projects and campaigns at the same time. However, one of the their current projects is the humanitarian work in Syria. More than three millions children suffer from Syria’s conflict, leaving them homeless, injured and without food. It lacks of the essential of life: Food, water and health care. Save the Children tries to give the children and their families the basics to survive as far as possible by providing them with accommodations, food, and support. Moreover, it has been recently confirmed that there is an outbreak of the highly contagious disease “polio“ in Syria, which is spread through dirty water. It attacks the body and in worst cases can be deadly. Save the children warns from turning into an epidemic threatening children across the Middle East region. Additionally, thousands of Syrians flee the country daily and increase the risk of the spreading the virus throughout the region. Therefore, they demand to stop the war, so they can get access to the country to provide widespread vaccinations. Save the Children has already vaccinated 21,000 children against polio in Syria but they want to increase the number.

Furthermore, the organization made dramatic progress in the past ten years by reducing child deaths, getting more children into school, and pulling millions out of poverty. They reduced the number of child deaths from 12 million a year to 7.6 million a year. However, this is not enough. There are still too many children who die from preventable diseases, even though low-tech and inexpensive solutions exist to save them. Therefore, Save the children launched the Every One campaign in 2009 to address every single citizen in the world to help to prevent millions of young children worldwide from dying. It is their biggest global campaign ever aiming to reduce the child mortality rate by two-thirds and to achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 by 2015.

In conclusion, Save the Children is an internationally active organization to save children’s lives and give them a better future. They work in many different areas to ensure children’s safety. In order to accomplish their goals, they use programs and campaigns to fight for children’s rights. Save the Children’s work and dedication has shown some remarks in saving children’s lives and giving them the opportunity to live. They made a drastic positive change in the last few years by reducing the number of child deaths by almost fifty percent, and they aim to achieve more by 2015.

In my opinion, Save the Children put a lot of effort in saving children’s lives and giving them the chance of education, health care, and safety. It is really inspiring to see how much progress and change has already been made in the recent years and how much still will come. The organization’s ambition to achieve more by 2015 is really remarkable. They seem to devote themselves to their duties in saving children’s lives. Since investing in children means to invest in the future, children should be protected at all times. Serving children for more than 90 years now, I believe that the future of this charity organization as well as the future of the children will be bright and succe

10/24/13 Creation of the beloved chocolate bar

Once upon a time, Choco the Chocolate was tired of living in the supermarket. He saw all the people passing by laughing and having fun. He knew that there was a completely different world outside that he wanted to discover. He was hoping for weeks that someone would take him home and that he would get to see a world besides the supermarket but it never happened. So one day, the adventurous and curious Choco decided to leave the candy section of the supermarket and go on an adventure on his own. However, he didn't want to go alone. He wanted someone with him and thought immediately of that one special person. So on his way out, he passed by the milk section where he saw her, Mimi the milk. 

Choco was in love with Mimi for a long time but he never dared to ask her out on a date. They knew each other since kids and secretly Mimi liked him back. However, when it came to this girl, Choco was really shy. Choco was so nervous but he wanted her to come with him on the journey so badly. He saw his long awaited chance to ask her out on a date. So, he put himself together and walked towards her. He took all his courage and asked Mimi the milk if she would like to go on an adventure with him. Mimi was kind of surprised and speechless. She was wondering what he meant by adventure. Choco replied that he wanted to travel the world and get away from the captivity that they were in. He told Mimi that there is a completely different world outside waiting for them to discover. Mimi was overwhelmed by the idea of traveling the world since it was always her dream. So, Mimi agreed and soon they left the supermarket together. 

They ran out of the supermarket to the airport where they took the first flight to Paris. When they arrived in Paris, Choco took her on a date. He put a lot of effort in to make it an unforgettable day. So, he took her out for dinner on the top of the Eiffel tower. Mimi was speechless. She didn’t know what to say. She thought it was just perfect. Since then, they travelled all around the world. Years later Mimi and Choco got married and were deeply in love. Soon the first child was born. The child had chocolate on the outside and milk on the inside. The beloved chocolate bar was created. 

10/22/13 Introduction

First of all, I would like to introduce myself to you.

I'm Irina Chan, 19 years old, from Germany. I've been attending EF in Santa Barbara for almost seven weeks now. English is really important not only for my future goals but also for my studies since I am going to study International Management and half of my studies are covered in English. Therefore, I want to improve my English as much as possible. So, the following aspects tell you which certain areas I would like to enhance during my stay here at EF.

While studying here at EF, I want to improve my speaking skills as well as my writing skills. I want to learn to express myself better in writing and speaking. Additionally, I want to extent my vocabulary in order to add variety to my writings.

The language skill that I am most proud of is probably my understanding/listening skills. Mostly, I watch TV shows and movies in English and I can almost understand everything.

What I noticed during my time here at EF is that I have some difficulties comprehending texts and articles on academic topics sometimes. Therefore, I think that my reading comprehension needs the most improvement.

My goal is to study at a foreign university and therefore a good knowledge of the language is required. Furthermore, I aim to work in an international company and deal with international customers. Thus, it is really important to be able to speak and express myself in English as fluently as possible.