Cultural Awareness

Last week, we learnt about cultural awareness. Before then, I had not really thought about what it meant to be cultural aware. I kind of just thought cultural awareness meant being aware of other peoples cultural background. But, I did some additional research and found a definition of cultural awareness - I discovered that it means much more than that. 


The Centre for Cultural Diversity in Ageing states that ‘cultural awareness’ recognises that we are all shaped by our cultural background which influences;

• How we relate to other people
• How we interpret the world
• How we perceive ourselves

Never the less, my family have taught me to respect other peoples cultures. I try to not make any judgements about my friend’s culture. I do not judge people based on the colour of their skin. I believe that I am very accepting of others. 

I understand that within any culture, people’s values, beliefs and behaviour vary enormously. I feel that I am aware that different cultures exist as over the years I have made many friends from many cultural backgrounds - lebanese, greek, chinese, vietnamese (just to name a few). Also, I attended high school in Darlinghurst, where their were students from all over Sydeny from a wide range of cultures. I got the opportunity to learn about their culture's values, beliefs and behaviours. Although, I do not really know much about my Chinese heritage. I was not raised in a traditional Chinese household - I was born in Australia, my parents were born in Australia and even my grandparents were born in Australia and we do not speak the language. We consider ourselves to be more Australian than Chinese. I am not embarrassed or ashamed of being Chinese - that is just the way I was raised. 

As Michael Jackson says “It don't matter if you're black or white”.

Please visit http://www.culturaldiversity.com.au/practice-guides/cultural-awareness  for more information about cultural awareness. 

Until next time! :) 

Food Wastage

I was watching the news last night and the news reporter was talking about food wastage being a contemporary global issue. The headline stated that...
 Australian households throw out a staggering $8 BILLION worth of food every year!

The headline really caught my attention so I wanted to find out more. After doing some research, I feel like this topic needs to be addressed, as Australian's waste an enormous amount of food when there are so many people that go hungry in the world each day. With Christmas only a few days away and families consuming a large amount of food. What can families do with their Christmas leftovers? I know that after our Christmas feast, there are always leftovers and we do not know what to do with them. We do not want to throw them out but we usually eat out with family and friends so we do not get the chance to enjoy the leftovers. And I am sure that there are more households out there that do not know what to do either.

Want to limit your food wastage?... Here are some tips...

An unbelievable amount of food is wasted in Australia each year. That got me thinking about how much food the entire worlds population waste each year, so I did a little more research. I found that according to the United Nations Environment Programme approximately 1.3 BILLION tonnes of food produced in the world for human consumption is wasted each year.

This could be a huge problem in the future. Studies predict that there could be a food shortage in 10 years! This is due to the world’s population expanding combined with the effects of climate change.

So, what can you do with your left over food instead of throwing it out? Check out this video to see some ideas about what to do with food that isn’t edible anymore.

Jon Dee founded ‘Foodwise’ which is part of Do Something’s campaign. It attempts to reduce the environmental impact of food consumption in Australia. It provides Australians with information and advice about food wastage and what they can do to reduce their food wastage. 

“We need a global solution to ensure food is not rotting in bins while people go hungry” (Jon Dee, CEO of Foodwise)

Please visit http://www.foodwise.com.au/about-foodwise/the-campaign/ for more information about this wonderful campaign.

Until next time! :)

Learning About Myself

We had to create a personal cultural mind map. The task description required us to prepare a visual mind map that analyse our own cultural awareness through looking at our culture, knowledge, experiences and behaviours.

I was quite sceptical and scared about writing my cultural mind map because I am not really in touch with my cultural background and a religious belief. But, I have realised that it isn’t just about ‘where you came from’ and ‘what you believe in. It is about much more than that. I believe that my family, my friends, my education, my experiences, my behaviours, and my interests have shaped me into the person I am today and my view of the world.

I seriously believe that my family have taught me everything that I know about the world I live in. They love me, inspire me, motivate me, respect me, support me and accept me. They are everything to me. They have never tried to change me… they accept me for me. I believe that I have had an extremely blessed life and it would not have been possible without my family, I seriously owe everything to them. 

Completing this task has made me realise that I need to be more grateful towards my family, especially my family and friends. I have learnt that I do not need to ‘change the world’ but I can do little things within my community to help others and make their lives a little brighter and happier.  

Until next time! :)

What is Global Citizenship?

Hi all,

I have enrolled in a summer course called global citizenship. We are required to start a blog as part of the course and we will be marked on our blogs at the end of the summer.

My blog 'Lets Talk Global' is going to address issues that are occurring locally and globally. Some of these issues have been brought to my attention whilst undertaking this course and I want to share them with you guys. I feel that these issues need to be addressed as they could be detrimental to the environment and its people.   

I did not really understand the term global citizenship until I attended the first seminar day. I learnt that global citizenship aims to empower people through knowledge, values, beliefs, culture, experiences and behaviour. These concepts are interconnected and shape the way that we view the world.

Also, I actually learnt something really shocking about myself at the first seminar day … I cannot draw a map of the world to save my life. We had to do a group task where our teacher asked us to draw a map of the world. Anyway, I could hardly contribute to the group discussion. I had no idea about where the continents were situated, the name of the countries, capital cities or any landmarks. I obviously did not want to say anything embarrassing so I just sat back in my chair and watched. It was really terrible. I was thinking to myself the whole time “you should really know this”. I actually shocked myself because I thought I knew more about the world. My mother would be horrified if she knew about this, so shhhh!.

Anyway, I am going to study the continents of the world. I have high hopes that I will be able to draw a map of the world by the end of summer.

Until next time! :)