by Nile McClain<\/p>\n
\u201dUjamaa\u201d and \u201cUmoja\u201d in KiSwahili mean \u201cCooperative Economics\u201d and \u201cUnity\u201d respectively. They are Kwanzaa principles I feel this capitalist system needs to use; especially in these economic times.\u00a0 If indeed we did use them, we could probably lessen the impact of this economic crisis.<\/p>\n
Being sixteen I\u2019m looking into finding a job and I\u2019ve become more aware of what the economic crisis is really about.\u00a0 I\u2019ve come to realize that jobs that are usually available for people my age are sparse.\u00a0 More adults out of work are seeking jobs at places like fast food restaurants, grocery stores, and other places where teenagers usually work.\u00a0\u00a0 This forces teens like me to compete more for jobs or to seek work in other places.\u00a0 Ujamaa or cooperative economics means basically local people coming together to control the economics of their community.\u00a0 For example, if there were more locally owned stores and markets the community would be more sustainable.\u00a0 \u00a0We would have to rely less on big corporations to distribute jobs and income to our communities.\u00a0 Instead our communities would be creating its own jobs.<\/p>\n
Umoja, meaning unity has had positive effects in the crisis where families have been brought together and this is a small but very (in my eyes) significant and needed change.\u00a0 Recently my brother and I moved in with our god mother in order to go to better schools.\u00a0 Our home schools were located in the inner city where the economic crisis has devastated the schools.\u00a0 Schools have closed, bus routes have been cut and teacher cut backs have lead to schools were class sizes are enormous and students have to be at bus stops before sunrise in order for fewer buses to make more stops<\/p>\n
Not only have I become more aware of my own personal finances, I\u2019ve become aware of the finances of my household and the issues caused by this crisis.\u00a0 We\u2019ve made numerous changes to our lifestyle including limiting the number of times we eat out each week.\u00a0 As a household we have to pay more attention to the amount of electricity, gas and water we use.\u00a0\u00a0 This means shorter showers and lower temperatures inside therefore we are forced to put on more clothes while in the house. In my experience people have become more mindful of others, less wasteful, more \u201cgreen\u201d and in my case, more insightful.\u00a0 This is beneficial to our community!\u00a0 Along with these positive effects, there have been negative effects such as the job search has become more \u201cdog eat dog\u201d.<\/p>\n
Instead of depending on those outside of ourselves and embattling in fierce competition with each other we need to embrace the Kwanzaa principles of \u201cUjamaa\u201d and \u201cUmoja\u201d.\u00a0 We can be innovative and united to help each other out of this crisis caused by corporate greed that has left our homes and communities devastated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Nile McClain \u201dUjamaa\u201d and \u201cUmoja\u201d in KiSwahili mean \u201cCooperative Economics\u201d and \u201cUnity\u201d respectively. They are Kwanzaa principles I feel this capitalist system needs to use; especially in these economic times.\u00a0 If indeed we did use them, we could probably lessen the impact of this economic crisis. Being sixteen I\u2019m looking into finding a job […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":932,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}