Items

• 2021-09-30T14

  LIFE OF A COLLEGE STUDENT BEFORE AND DURING THE PANDEMIC.

  Life itself is not easy, one has to find a way to be happy and live a good healthy life because we never know what might happen the next day or year ahead. Before the Coronavirus everything was pretty normal, people were going about their daily lives. Most people were not ready to face this type of hardship. During the Pandemic schools, Jobs, places to pray, and supermarkets were kept close. I remember my friend was excited about her Senior prom and we wanted to surprise her with a graduation party, however, things didn't go as planned so we had to stay home for the lockdown. My daily routine changed. I have to take all of my classes online. Around this time the cases become worse, death cases keep on increasing each time. At some point, I began to wonder why this Pandemic had to happen to us during the beginning of the year. There were days when we had to stand in a line to buy food. The saddest thing that I have heard was how few of my friends lost their loved ones. Life was not easy for them. I have to call and check on them every day. Many people became homeless because of eviction and there were no jobs, though some were lucky to apply for unemployment, that was not enough for the people to pay their rents and have to buy food. Each day when I wake up I always pray for us to have a vaccine because even the younger children that do not know much about this virus were also affected. In 2021 when the Covid-19 vaccine was released it was great news however, some people didn't want to take it because they thought that it was risky. The most difficult thing is how people have to go back to their normal life system again.
• 2020-04-01

  COVID-19 Through My Eyes

  The item that I am submitting is the story of my experience of Covid-19, what my family and I went through and how we have pushed forward and persevered despite the many difficult challenges we faced the past year. This is important to me as it tells my story through my point of view, my journey through what I consider to be the hardest moments of my life.
• 2020-03

  Unimaginable Grief

  [March 2020] A month in time no one would ever want to go back to. My friend and I were enjoying our day and suddenly got news that campus will be closed until further notice. It was a scary and confusing moment; before you knew it everyone was talking about the virus. We definitely underestimated the virus and saw it spread in the blink of an eye. Slowly but surely we all began to realize how serious this was and prayed day and night for it to end. Cities went on lockdown, thousands became unemployed, and families grieved the loss of loved ones suddenly taken by this evil virus. I am so fortunate enough to have my close family and friends here with me today, but that does not mean these last one and a half years did not take a toll on me mentally. We've lost many loving family friends whom we never expected to lose this early. One thing the pandemic, thankfully, taught me is to appreciate those who you love because you do not know when they can be taken away from you. As hard as this experience was, I am grateful for the ups and downs and pray for the beautiful souls lost. Rest In Peace <3
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  2020-03-12

  Living post March 12, 2020

  I want to share my feelings and thoughts through text that display what I experienced as a senior in high school during the outbreak of COVID-19.
• 2020-03-11

  Same Reality, New Awareness

  Prior to the Pandemic, my life was like quarantining. Staying inside from Sun up till sun down unless absolutely necessary (school/laundry/grocery shopping, etc) was my life. I hardly did much physically and yet I was constantly mentally and physically exhausted. As COVID-19 began to spread around the world and billions were forced to stay inside their homes, the reactions from those who were not homebodies, surprised me. There were many people who were struggling mentally with the changes in their lives. Some now had a disrupted routine or structure, little to no social interactions, limited daily activities, and limited funds to provide for themselves or their family. As this had been my reality for so long, I was aware of how unhealthy it was but not how it could affect others. I had not realized what this type of life would look like for the average person. While I understood that other people have drastically different wants and needs than I do, their reactions to their new reality sparked new awareness in mine.
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  2021-09-30

  COVID-19: A new personal struggle

  My experience has changed overall with this pandemic. In my paper I discussed the different aspects of how my life changed given the circumstances with work, school, and personal lifestyle.
• 2020-03-16

  My life with COVID

  The COVID pandemic has affected everyone around the world. Going into march of 2020, I had a lot of pressure put on me by my parents to either quit my job, or take time off because they didn't know how serious the virus was and wanted me to take no chances. I also have an autistic brother who cannot speak so I didn't want to risk giving COVID to him. At the time, nobody knew how severe the virus was, but as time passed I witnessed first hand how serious it was. When I got back to work after taking time off, I saw what I thought was a joke. Shelves of foods completely empty, and all toilet paper sold out as well other cleaning products. This went on for about a month before people stopped buying a lot of things in fear. There would be lines outside of my job because too many people were coming and we didn't want to have a lot of people gathered in one place for safety reasons. More time passed and things sort of went back to normal but people now wore masks and practiced social distancing. Now over a year later, things are more calm and people are finally doing the right thing and wearing masks to prevent the spread of the virus and end this pandemic.
• 2021-07-12

  Working during the Covid-19 Pandemic

  I took a summer job in this pandemic working at a summer camp with young children. At first, I was skeptical because of the times we’re living in, and because kids just have poor habits that can cause the COVID-19 virus or any bacteria to spread. But then I just did it because it beats staying at home all day. There were many safety precautions and guidelines that took place to keep everyone safe and healthy. Any sick kids or staff were sent home and couldn’t come back until they were better. In addition, we had to check our temperatures every day, the staff had to fill out daily health surveys before arrival, we always had to have our masks on, disinfect each classroom after we use it, and wash our hands frequently. We went by a schedule, so there wouldn't be any confusion or unnecessary crowds. In terms of safety, the summer camp did a good job keeping everyone protected from the COVID-19 virus or any other sickness. Overall, the experience was different than the regular summer camp because we couldn’t do as much. But we made the best of it for both the staff and children.
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  2020-10

  Liberation School: the Mobilization of Back and Brown Parents, Healers and Educators

  Liberation School was a free, virtual online school that offered academic support courses, social-emotional support, healing centered practices, and political education courses to NYC public school families throughout the 2020-21 school year. Created by the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, the city's largest parent organizing group, Liberation school was designed as a response to the failings of the Department of Education to adequately provide the resources and support needed for marginalized students. While many principals, teachers and school staff put their hearts and souls into supporting NYC children during this global pandemic, it was clear that families could not solely rely on City Hall and the Department of Education to deliver a safe, quality education to children finishing out the 2020 school year and going into the 2020-21 school year. Black and brown students and families in New York City have faced the harshest, most devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism. Previous inequities in the school system have revealed themselves and worsened. The Department of Education (DOE) and City Hall did not provide the necessary resources and support for parents and youth navigating remote and blended learning for the first time in a timely fashion or accessible to non-English monolingual families. While many white affluent families were hiring teachers to create learning pods, CEJ designed Liberation School for Black, Brown, Immigrant, and low-income families, who don’t have the financial resources to hire personal teachers or tutors. An important value that shaped the creation of Liberation Schools is the idea of what it truly means to be an ‘inclusive school’. Language Justice is also Educational Justice. CEJ created sessions accessible to the public in multiple languages. Through both multilingual instructors and simultaneous interpretations of English workshops, LS also offered sessions using commonly-used online platforms, outdoor spaces, and live streaming on social media. All courses that were culturally responsive in content and pedagogy and many were conducted in English and Spanish, and some workshops in, Bangla and Mandarin. CEJ was inspired by the tradition of Black Freedom Schools in the 1960s. After Brown v. Board, many schools were still segregated and led to many student movements organizing and fighting for true integration in Northern Cities like Chicago, Boston, and NYC. The first examples of Freedom Schooling were created in the North as an alternative space for students to go to during boycotts in 1963 and 1964. One of most prime examples of Freedom Schooling were the Freedom Schools created by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi. Freedom Schools provided an educational experience for young Black Mississippians to challenge the myths of society, find alternatives to the segregated and racist white supremacists society, to understand the conditions of their oppression, and to create directions for actions in the name of Freedom. There were three general areas for the curriculum of Freedom Schools. One was academic work, which centered around the needs/or interests of the students that incorporated their real life experiences and learning about Black History or understanding the structural institutions. There were also creative activities such as writing, journaling, or arts. The last area was on developing leadership skills and helping students be a part of the change in society.
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  2020-05-01

  The start of a pandemic that shock the medical field to its core

  I have worked as a NYC paramedic for several years before the pandemic Covid-19 hit the world. As a paramedic, we were trained to deal with most situations that would happen on an emergency basis. We dealt with any situation as simple as a cut on the arm, to as complex as running a mega code on a cardiac arrest patient. When Covid-19 hit NYC, I was unaware of how bad it was going to get. At first, we thought it was a virus that was weaker than influenza, which is something we deal with on a regular basis. At this time, we would get one call a day that was related to Covid-19. I thought that everyone was over exaggerating. Over time, Covid-19 patients became more frequent, and in the matter of a month, it was the only type of call we would get. It was as if every other medical problem that people had went away. But this was because everyone that wasn't infected with Covid-19 was too afraid to go to the hospital. In the month of May 2020, things started to take a turn for the worst. People were starting to get critical on each call, where my partner and I would need to resort to extreme measures like endotracheal Intubation to help them breath. Sometimes, even intubation wouldn’t be enough, and the patient would go into cardiac arrest from the lack of oxygen in the body. It was a very difficult time for me because I felt powerless to stop people from dying to his terrible disease. In June 2020, it got so bad that the hospitals did not have capacity to accept anymore patients that came in. People were put in hallways, next to nursing stations, and hospitals had to dedicate entire floors to Covid-19 patients as they came in. Then another problem started to rear its head. My Co-workers and friends started to get sick. Those of us with families had to also make a choice, either quit their job to protect their families or live apart from them until this was all over. We did not have enough EMT’s and Paramedics to staff the ambulances we had running on any given day. Those of us who were not sick picked up anywhere from 60-90 hours a week. This struggle continues now as well. All over the world, there are not enough emergency services personal to cope with the amount of call volume that we are given each day. Over time we got adjusted to the madness and medicine advanced enough to be able to treat patients so that most did not become critical. Also, the vaccine was made available to the public and things started to get better. I shared my story to show a side of the pandemic most don’t get to experience. It shows how unprepared we were, and how we were able to prevail overtime. I will also include a video to show some insight on the pandemic that was taken with one of the companies I work with.
• 2020-03-20

  The huge personal challenge

  The pandemic changed our lives completely. I believe that thanks to that we learned to value life more and especially personal and global hygiene. This challenge was enormous, the pandemic changed our perspective on things, this did not put us on a tightrope where no one knows what was going to happen where everything was uncertain. But I think we have overcome a large part although we are not free from anything.
• 2020-06-01

  Covid-19 Reflection [MISSING MEDIA]

  My days during the covid-19 pandemic.