The Social Studies Department has chosen the concept of “Diversity” for the next chapter that the World Culture students will be studying.  Within this chapter the students will be studying the continent of Africa. 
 
In order to illustrate this concept we had the students do a couple of activities.  The first activity was “Have You Ever…?” which is very active and was enjoyed by the students.  In this activity the students were able to learn things about students that they did not know before and had the opportunity to see their similarities and differences.  The next activity we did was an activity where students were asked to illustrate themselves on a piece of paper.  They could do this through written words, symbols, pictures, etc.  When the students were done they swapped their paper with a partner to see if the partner could interpret what they were trying to portray about themselves.  Then, some of the partners shared what they had learned about each other through this activity in the large group.  Finally we read the following:
 
IF THE WORLD WERE A VILLAGE OF 100 PEOPLE
In the world today, more than 6 billion people live.
If this world were shrunk to the size of a village of 100 people, what would it look like?

59 would be Asian
14 would be American (North, Central and South)
14 would be African
12 would be European
1 would be from the South Pacific

50 would be women, 50 would be men
30 would be children, 70 would be adults.
70 would be nonwhite, 30 would be white
90 would be heterosexual, 10 would be homosexual

33 would be Christians
21 would be Moslems
15 would be Hindus
6 would be Buddhists
5 would be Animists
6 would believe in other religions
14 would be without any religion or atheist.

15 would speak Chinese, Mandarin
7 English
6 Hindi
6 Spanish
5 Russian
4 Arabic
3 Bengali
3 Portuguese
The other would speak Indonesian, Japanese,
German, French, or some other language.

In such a village with so many sorts of folks, it would be very important to learn to understand people different from yourself and to accept others as they are. Of the 100 people in this village:

20 are undernourished
1 is dying of starvation, while 15 are overweight.
Of the wealth in this village, 6 people own 59% (all of them from the United States), 74 people own 39%, and 20 people share the remaining 2%.
Of the energy of this village, 20 people consume 80%, and 80 people share the remaining 20%.
20 have no clean, safe water to drink.
56 have access to sanitation
15 adults are illiterate.
1 has an university degree.
7 have computers.

In one year, 1 person in the village will die, but in the same year, 2 babies will be born, so that at the year's end the number of villagers will be 101.

If you do not live in fear of death by bombardment, armed attack, landmines, or of rape or kidnapping by armed groups, then you are more fortunate than 20, who do.

If you can speak and act according to your faith and your conscience without harassment, imprisonment, torture or death, then you are more fortunate than 48, who can not.

If you have money in the bank, money in your wallet and spare change somewhere around the house, then you are among the richest 8.

If you can read this message, that means you are probably lucky!

(The statistics were derived from Donella Meadows "State of the Village Report" first published in 1990)
 
After this was read we have a great conversation on these statistics and how the students reacted to hearing these statistics.  A number of different students commented on different aspects that really stood out to them.  Also, there was some in-depth conversations on what we have as American citizens and what we take for granted.

Bob Kovar, Project Director

Intercultural Leadership Initiative