Social Studies Run Through

Hello everyone today I will be sharing a few work that some of my classmates and I have done during the past term for social studies.

One of the first things we've learnt that's about human rights was the story of Iqbal Masih and how he was a victim of child slavery to pay off a debt that his family had.

Below is an activity we have done about Iqbal Masih and we had to fill up the blank spaces in the story.

Here is the template for the activity if you want to give it a go. Link

Iqbal Masih’s story

Iqbal’s mother received a loan of 5000 rupees in Iqbal’s name  from his employer, (about $NZ200) after Iqbal had been working in a carpet factory in Pakistan for two years.  To repay the loan  Iqbal had to work up to 12 hours a day, six days a week on a carpet loom.  He was malnourished and often beaten. After six years of hard labour the debt had increased to 13000 rupees (NZ$518). In 1992, when he was 10 years old, Iqbal attended a meeting of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF). Where, inspired by what he heard, he gave an impassioned speech about his life.  During the meeting he learnt about his rights and, with the help of a BLLF lawyer, drafted a letter of freedom, which he gave to the owner.  He never returned to the carpet factory. Instead, freedom inspired Iqbal to campaign for the human rights of other children caught in the trap of bonded labour.  For the next two years, he spoke out, campaigned and lobbied for an end to bondage, estimated to affect more than half a million children in Pakistan alone.

As Iqbal’s campaigning and profile increased, he started to receive more threats to his life. Such was his dedication and commitment, Iqbal refused to stop his campaigning.  In April 1995 while cycling near his home town, he was shot dead.

The suspicious circumstances surrounding his death fits a pattern of collusion between powerful business families, political groups and local police authorities, which has resulted in other threats and killings.  Despite an initial invistigation, Iqbal’s murder remains unsolved.

Freedom	Six	Beaten	Political	13000
Powerfuloo	Campaignoo	Loan	Bondage	Rights
Meetingoo	Investigationoo	Cyclingoo	Twelve	Drafted
Bondedoo	Inspiredoo	Millionoo	Threats	Refused

                                                                                                         

Along the way we have also been learning different techniques to help us note down some important things. One of the techniques we've learnt on how to note was called the 'Dot Jot Method'. To do the dot jot method all you have to do is have bullet points and note down the key or main information about the topic you are focusing on.

We've also learned about referencing and how we should give proper credit to the people, websites, articles, ect. that we get information about a certain topic from. Here is the website that we've been using to help us reference.

Here is a slide that a few of my classmates have made about human rights, it is only a few of the human rights and it is still unfinished but the human rights included in this slides are all very important.

             

Another group task that we had to do was to make our own political party that would help the people. The name of our political party was 'Youth Workers Party' and there we focused on how to help students with their school life and how everyone should get a job.

Here is the doc of our policies that our party focused on.

Social Studies has been fun for me this year since I had the chance to learn about the things that has happened throughout history including the 'Black Death' and the 'Invasion of Parihaka'. It has also been fun learning new techniques like how to note, map and reference.