AY Honors/Community Improvement/Answer Key

This honor was developed in cooperation with Adventist Community Services.

1. Be in at least 10th grade

This honor requirement specifies an certain maturity and is listed as a Level 3 Honor.

2. Explain the process of urbanization and list some of the human needs that it creates, especially for the poor or underprivileged.

Urbanization is the shift from a rural to increasing numbers of people living in cities. Urbanization is not merely a modern phenomenon, but a rapid and historic transformation of human social roots on a global scale, whereby predominantly rural culture is being rapidly replaced by predominantly urban culture.

From the development of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia and Egypt until the 18th century, an equilibrium existed between the vast majority of the population who engaged in subsistence agriculture in a rural context, and small centres of populations in the towns where economic activity consisted primarily of trade at markets and manufactures on a small scale. Due to the primitive and relatively stagnant state of agriculture throughout this period the ratio of rural to urban population remained at a fixed equilibrium.

With the onset of the agricultural and industrial revolution in the late 18th century this relationship was finally broken and an unprecedented growth in urban population took place over the course of the 19th century, both through continued migration from the countryside and due to the tremendous demographic expansion that occurred at that time. In England, the urban population jumped from 17% in 1801 to 72% in 1891 (for other countries the figure was: 37% in France, 41% in Prussia and 28% in the United States).

Urbanization rapidly spread across the Western world and, since the 1950s, it has begun to take hold in the developing world as well. At the turn of the 20th century, just 15% of the world population lived in cities. According to the UN the year 2007 witnessed the turning point when more than 50% of the world population were living in cities, for the first time in human history.

Urbanization is occuring because people are drawn to cities for a better lifestyle and economic opportunities. Cities are known to be places where money, services, wealth and opportunities are centralized. Many rural inhabitants come to the city for reasons of seeking fortunes and social mobility. Businesses, which provide jobs and exchange capital are more concentrated in urban areas. Whether the source is trade or tourism, it is also through the ports or banking systems that foreign money flows into a country, commonly located in cities.

People that move to urban areas may find that:

• They are no longer able to grow their own food, placing them at risk of hunger
• Jobs may be harder to find than anticipated, especially in an economic downturn.
• Social networks are stronger in rural areas where there is less movement between places, while urban living can leave one feeling isolated as people move in and out. It can be lonely in a crowd.
• Crime of all kinds is higher in cities.

3. Read the chapters in Ministry of Healing by Ellen White entitled “Help for the Unemployed and Homeless” and “The Helpless Poor” and write a one-page summary of the key points.

You can read these chapters here: http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mh/mh12.html and here: http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mh/mh13.html

Here is an example summary of the key points written by a contributor to the answer key.

4. Interview a pastor, a person who works with Adventist Community Services, ADRA Canada or an Adventist community development program, and ask how the church is meeting the needs of the poor in the community. Take notes during the interview.

You should prethink the questions, but be flexible with followup questions too. The interview can be in person, by phone or other electronic means. Be sure to take notes and thank the person for their time.

5. Present a 10-minute report on how a youth group might help in the urban development problems the church is sponsoring. The report may be presented to a Pathfinder staff member, or it may be presented in a group setting.

Explaining the plan you wrote for Requirement 8 would nicely fulfill this Requirement.

6. Spend at least four hours in one of the following field trips as a participant:

Get out there and serve.

a. Go out with a street ministry team that provides food, blankets or clothing to the homeless.

If you live anywhere near a city, you can organize this activity yourself or join an existing team.

b. Go out with a health screening van.

The Adventist Church runs such programs across North America.

c. Go out with a Christian work team that is repairing or building housing for the poor.

Habitat for Humanity is a good organization to check out.

d. Work in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter.

The Salvation Army is very active in this area.

e. Volunteer with an Adventist Community Services or ADRA Canada community development program.

Contact your conference office about opportunities if your local church does not have any such programs.

7. Attend a worship service in a church made up of a different ethnic group than your own. List for your instructor the things you observed that were different than what you have grown up to be used to in your own culture. Then list the things that were similar to what you are used to.

The requirement does not state that this must be a Seventh-day Adventist Church (or one of your denomination). It might be more interesting to visit another type of church.

8. Write a proposal for a community development project that could be conducted largely by teen and/or young adult volunteers. This could include objectives, action plan, personnel needed, schedule and budget. This proposal may be written by an individual or as a team project in a work team of no more than four persons.

This proposal would be a good basis for the presentation in Requirement 5.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization