Category: erikah

I read three articles during this period. The article which impressed me the most was the one about El Salvador. The murder rate of that country is 22 times than that of U.S. so we can know how serious the situation is. The officers are checking for tattoos that would reveal certain gangs and a forensic team from a local morgue heads out into the streets to collect the dead bodies every night. The article also mentioned what do the bereaved family feel so l felt really sorry after reading it. This is the summary for the article.
We discussed what can we do as Japanese and than we concluded with two things. The first one is to export police station system to those countries and another is to donate money to make children be able to receive education.
First of all, Japan has a police station which is called “Koban” in Japanese and it is been attracting foreigner’s attention. The representative example is Brazil. Brazil was elected as one of the most dangerous place in the world by UN in 1997, but it started to accept this Koban system from 2005. Owing to 270 of ” Koban” in Sampaio, the murder crime rate decreased to one-fifteenth. It is effective for not only to arrest criminals, but also to have communications with citizens and prevent the crime happen. We thought Japanese can advice on this system to those countries which the crime rate is quite high.
The second one is donating money to make children be able to receive education. It is said that half of perpetrators of abuse are graduated from junior high and 12 percents are graduated from high school and only 2 percents are graduated from university in Japan. From this result, we can definitely say that the education is one of the most effective way to prevent the crimes happen. In El Salvador, the compulsory education is ensured until junior high  school like Japan,but two-third of students who are to attend high school don’t go to school. I’m not sure whether donating money is effective to prevent the crime because we cannot say that the money is going to be used effectively by the government. However, I think we can say that to make children receive education is important so if the money which was donated was used to make the education system work, I think it will be good.
To conclude, we discussed that exporting police stations “Koban” system and donating money to make the education system work is something that we can do.

Final essay ‘ I believe in～’                             Law-Law 2^nd Erika Hirayama

“God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” This is what I believe in and what I always keep in mind. To be honest, I don’t believe in God and I don’t even believe in any religion. However, this word teaches me that the hardships you face is something that you can surely overcome and makes me think things positively toward the situation.

Watching the Davos meeting held in 2012, I heard a story told by a high school student who suffered the great east Japan earthquake. On March 11^th 2011, just after her graduation ceremony, she was hit by the quake. She realized herself on top of a twenty meter high heap of debris and then she discovered her mother trapped there. Her mother had her right leg pinned under heavy pieces of debris and at the same time, she knew that another tsunami is going to hit in few minutes. Her choices were two. Try to help or escape. She chose to save her own life, and after few days her mother was found dead. In the end of her presentation, she said the following thing.

‘Even now, I can’t think of that decision without tears. When I left at last, I said to my mother over and over again. ‘Thank you, I love you.’’ I believe I’ll never experience something so cruel as this for the rest of my life.’

In spite of the merciless experience, she never gave up her dream to become someone who can support children who lost their parents, just like her. She is studying hard at Keio University right now to realize her dream.

 Every single person faces with a difficulties someday. As for me, I confronted with the biggest challenged in my life when I was 4 years old. I had to leave Japan and live in Singapore because of my father’s work. I had no choice, but to go.  The first several weeks were just like a hell for me. I couldn’t speak English at all so it was not easy to attend school and become friends with someone who cannot make myself understand. However, I attend to school every day because I kept on believing what my mother told me on the first day of school. ‘There is nothing that you cannot overcome. God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.’ In the end, I was awarded a prize for perfect attendance every year until I came back to Japan. Since it has been more than 10 years, I forgot almost all of my memories in Singapore and English skills, but the spirit of never giving up is what exist in myself even now.

We have difficulties more or less, but we can certainly overcome it. In process of achieving my goals, I’m sure to encounter with many difficulties. However, when I give up, that’s when the game is over. Never stop dreaming and never giving up even it seems impossible is the most important thing to overcome difficulties

 

. This is whatI learned from the story and my own experience and the reason is why I strongly believe in a saying, “God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”                                        (542)

Reflection #2                    Erika Hirayama Law-law 2^nd 31509980

The article was about an election held in Italy on June 16th. What is special is that a woman won the vote and became the first female mayor in Rome. Her name is Virginia Raggi, a 37 year-old lawyer. She said that she’s going to restore legality snd transparency to the city’s institutions which means to end the internal corruption. To end in a defeat for city mayoral election in metropolis has taken a beating for the Roberto Giachetti, from Renzi’s center-left Democratic Party (PD), the article reported. This is the summary of the article.

Gender equality is being one of the most important topics these days. Hillary Rodham Clinton the representive example. If she won the election, she is going to be the first president so it is been a hot issue especially in America. Women are trying hard to take part in politics and that percentage is becoming higher. I think it is a good thing for both woman and man to be treated equally. However, when is comes to Japan, the situation is quite different. We only have 11.1% of women engaged in managerial position and this is the worst number compared to other developed countries such as America or France. Those countries are 43.1%and 39.4%, which are the highest number in the world.

I think the reason why it is has such a difference is based on two reasons. First of all, Japanese used to think that woman should do house work inside. This is like one of the traditions and what people used to believe importantly. Though the mind is changing right now, I think there are some people who still the division of gender roles are important in Japan.

The lack of a nursery school is another reasons why women cannot work. It is said that a number of child on the waiting list for daycare is 23167 in Japan. Government is trying hard to change this situation, but because of the low salary of nursery school teacher, many people leave that job so the task is getting harder and it is causing a vicious cycle. In order to make woman be able to work, I think it is important to change the situation and woman should be more positive for doing a job like politician or managerial position, just like the woman’s case in the article. This is what I thought after reading the article.

Reflection Erika Hirayama
-Summary-
The article was about a private “police” in Brazil. It has started its activity since December 1st last year and it is been paid. Agents have detained about 600 people for possession of drugs and some for theft so it can be said that it achieves a certain result. However, the target of private police are dark-skinned and homeless and they have removed some homeless so this move is controversial.

-Opinion-
It is sometimes necessary for citizens to protect themselves because police are not perfect so I agree to this movement in this point of view. However, since it is a private police and don’t have such rights like the public police have, it has to learn their place. In this activity, this “police” judge people by how they look like. People have rights to live in wherever they wish to live and this can be said even for homeless and dark-skinned. I thought this is kind of a discrimination and this may be one of the reasons why the government regards this activity.

※I had a trouble with my pods press so I asked Reina to submit for me.