Section 1: Enquiry in to the citizenship issue (10 Marks)
a) Choose an issue and say why the issue is important locally and nationally. Attach issues based evidence.
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The issue we chose was the issue of gangs and knife crime. A gang is a group of people who hang round together in a certain area. Many are involved in crime and they are intimidating to people in their area. Many gangs are also connected to knife crime.
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We chose gangs and knife crime because these issues directly affect a large number of young people living in the United Kingdom today. When we looked into our issue we found many interesting facts about gangs. For example we found in 2013 there were 15,000 individual gang members in London and 35000 across the UK. Gangs are also connected to lots of knife crime. Knife crime is a very serious issue in London and the UK. The London Standard newspaper reported that there were about 1000 victims of knife crime in London per month.
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We discovered other important information about our issue such as knife crime.
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Our issue is important locally because it will help reduce knife crime in the city and it is really important to make sure knife crime is stopped in certain areas because young people are becoming victims of knife crime.
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Our issue is important nationally because knife crime rate is increased in some areas of Britain. However it is important because too many young people carry knifes and instead of making someone else a victim majority of the time they get victim of knife crime themselves because most people take the knife off you and use it against you.
b) Describe how the issue links to at least one of the following Citizenship themes from Unit 1
Rights and responsibilities
Power, politics and the Media
The global community
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The theme of Rights is connected to our issue because everyone has the right to be safe on streets and subways. People should think twice before they commit a crime. However the law should be more alert on what’s going on.
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The theme of responsibility is linked to our issue because we all have a responsibility for each other and we should all work as a team to try to stop people becoming victims of crime which is going on around the country.
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The theme of Power and Politics is linked to our issue because people that are in position of power can help us to stop knife crime and make the law stricter for people who commit crimes and ruin other people’s lives and they should think twice before they commit crimes therefore the law should be stricter.
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The media can affect our issue by highlighting the issue and the media can help us because they can publish more news on the newspapers and the news which can make some people realise and make them aware of what is going on around them without them knowing.
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The theme of Global Community is linked to our issue because respect for life is a global problem as many people feel it is acceptable to hurt people if they don’t agree with you. However people who use violence only use it for their own purposes for their own use. But this should stop.
Section 2: Application of skills of advocacy and representation (15 Marks)
a) Communicate with two people in positions of power or influence about the issue to find out what they think about the issue Attach evidence that shows how you tried to communicate, influence or persuade these people Outline the views of the two people and compare these with your own view.
In this answer you need to * Write letters or e-mails or carry out interviews with two different people who have power or influence ( for example an MP, the head of a charity , a minister, a head teacher or a senior policeman) * In the letters etc. you should explain what you think about your issue and try to persuade them to agree with your point of view
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The person we first contacted was the mayor of London. However we asked him a number of questions about knife crime and how we should tackle knife crime in the future. This also helped us because it gave us feedback for what we need to do in the future in order to stop people from becoming victims of knife crime.
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We contacted him because they were in charge of the area and we contacted them because we wanted to know what was going around the area and asked them about knife crime
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They said knife crime is a growing problem and the police is doing its best to make it stop or decrease round the area as it is increases in areas where there is a lot of crime going on.
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We have similar views; we believe that if we make an effort we have a chance of stopping knife crime and stop young offenders from knife crime.
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The second person that we contacted was the Head teacher, and we asked about the issue and we talked about it with him. I think we both have similar views and I agree with whatever he says because it’s very interesting and it really inspires me and encourages other people with his talk.
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We contacted them by telephone we call them up and we asked for a meeting.
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We asked them what they thought the best thing to do would be to help the situation and they really helped us and gave us a lot of advice on how we should inform other people about this people and how we can encourage other people to come and help us with this so we can take everyone’s opinion on what they think we should do next to take this to a new level.
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They are in a position of power with regards to our issue because they have access to the media to publicise the problem. This will help us to spread our presentation to the world. This can help us because more people will know about our motive.
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They said that they are doing the best they can. They think young people should be doing things for themselves. Actually I agree with this point because young people have responsibility towards themselves, and they should know what it’s good for them. However I think they’re parents should also have responsibility towards their kids. Some parents don’t really care about what their children are doing. But some parents are only like them.
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We agreed with their views because from their point of view they also thought that the issue we are doing is really important and they should focus on Knife Crime. However from what my group thought about their views was that it was really important what they were saying, we all discussed our ideas together and listened to everyone.
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When we put on our presentation we also tried to persuade our audience that our issue and charity was important by showing the statistics that show it is a real problem. This would show everyone how important our issue is and would show the audience how young people are getting affected in different areas of the country by Knife Crime. By presenting this presentation it will help some people realise how important our issue is and they can join in and help us to stop Knife Crime.
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We tried to persuade people in the audience that the issue is a priority because it is causing people to die. We also gave examples of young people who were stabbed and were victims of knife crime. We made the audience realise that we need everyone to help us to stop this from happening because each year the number of victims are increasing.
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b) Why do you think people hold different views on this issue?
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People hold different views on the issue of knife crime because some people think it is the responsibility of the parents to bring their kids up properly because the parents should be more secured about their kid, they should have more control over them and raise them up in a good way rather than not caring about their welfare and letting them do anything which is not the right way to raise your kids because in the future this can affect other people’s lives.
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People’s views can be influenced by the media and their friends because this will affect their own lives, if the media has more news about victims of knife crime, they will realise how this problem is increasing day by day. People’s views can be also change by their friends because their friends could be victims of knife crime which will make them realise how much they value their own life.
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We found examples of different views about our issue on the internet and in the media. Some people think that people won’t mess with them if they carry a knife this is the reason where some people go wrong they think using a knife will protect them but they don’t know that the same knife they are carrying maybe used against them self because someone can stanch the knife off them and use it against the other person this mostly happens to 70% of people who tend to carry knifes.
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Other people think that those with knives should go to prison even if it is not used. But this is wrong because some religious people carry knifes for helping the helpless people for their protection, such as Sikhs they also carry knifes but do not use them unless if they are helping someone in need or if it is an emergency.
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My own views on this issue have been affected by this work because I now believe or understand that people who carry knifes for their own protection are usually victims of knife crime themselves. However I know understand that only some religious people are allowed to carry knifes for various reasons, such as helping the needy. But some people are against this because they may think that people who carry knifes should go to jail even if they don’t use it. But I am against this because I think they should be allowed to carry knifes, and I think these religious people have the right to carry knifes for their religion.
Section 3: Participation in action to address the Citizenship issue (15 Marks) a) Describe how YOU might affect your issue through action
In this answer you need to describe everything you did to try and make a difference to your issue
For example * Discovering information about your issue * Forming groups * Finding a charity * Visiting the charity * Making a power point presentation about your charity * Getting ready to put on a really good presentation * Putting on your presentation to others trying to persuade them about your issue and your charity * Any other things you did like writing letters, raising money , raising awareness
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We tried to affect our issue by spreading awareness to other people who are unaware about knife crime. We also discovered that knife crime is the most important issue in the United Kingdom, and something needs to be done about this. However we also affected our issue by contacting people with power and they could spread our presentation in newspapers.
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b) Participate in action, showing HOW you addressed this issue
How did you negotiate and consult with others to decide on your citizenship action?
What action did you take?
Attach evidence of your action and how you made a contribution
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We were working together in groups of 3-4 people.
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We organised our groups by reading over what we actually had to do and then whatever we felt could do best we took on that role.
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Our first task was to select an issue and a charity that we were interested in helping, and we chose the issue of knife crime.
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We made the decision by us looking over the booklet and when we came across ‘Knife crime’, we thought it was the right time to start getting the word across and making sure people knew about the issue.
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We then had to agree on a charity. We did this by researching charities that were local to us.
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Planning our work together was important because then we would know what we first need to do, and how we need to contact otherwise without the planning, we would really get confused. So this was a good idea.
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To make our presentation good we had to explain it properly so our class would understand what we are trying to communicate with them. This is so in the future we can take everyone’s advice and that could help us with stopping knife crime.
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When the presentation was ready we presented it to the class and the class gave us feedback afterwards on the things that we need to improve on in the future.
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We practiced delivering our presentation so that we would we wouldn’t have any problems presenting it to other important people.
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We demonstrated advocacy skills by presenting our presentation to the class.
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In the final of the YPI we contacted the manager of the charity
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In addition to the PowerPoint, we also planned that which person should present each slide.
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My personal role in the group work was to organise everyone’s roles and giving them instructions on what to do next.
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I was responsible for everyone’s roles because I was the person taking care of everything in the group.
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------------------------------------------------- I think that my best contributions to the group were………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
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I could have improved my contribution by ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Section 4: Assessment of the impact of own action (10 Marks)
a) Assess how your action contributed to your issue, both locally and nationally
In this answer you need to explain * What your main aims were at the start of the project * How you tried to make a difference to your issue * How successful you were in identifying your issue, finding a charity, visiting your charity, writing letters about your issue, and putting on your presentation * What impact did you have on your issue? Did you make a difference?
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When we started our Active Citizenship, we hoped that we would be able to make a difference by informing more people about the issue and spreading the word to more people to stay away from people who carry knifes because it could be a risk to your life. This presentation was mainly for the victims, and people who hang around in gangs trying persuade them to stay away from gangs because one day they can also be a victim of knife crime.
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We hoped that we would have an impact on the issue because we were presenting about it to our class and we explained to them how important our issue is. We also hope that our presentation would change many lives including people who carry knifes.
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Once our peers had heard about our issue, we hoped that they would give us feedback on how we should try to stop knife crime from happening.
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This would help our issue because this will tell us what we need to improve on to stop knife crime and make more people understand that they are wasting their lives by carrying knives.
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------------------------------------------------- We helped the other students in our class to understand that knife crime is increasing day by day in other countries as well. We also tried to make them
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We also communicated with people in positions of power by contacting them and they gave us lots of advice on how they can use newspapers, and adverts to make our presentation successful because then this will touch more peoples heart on how many people are dying because of knife crime.
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This made a difference because more people will know about our presentation this help us because it will attract more people to help us to stop knife crime. Because if we all work together we can stop knife crime. Because united kingdom has the highest knife crime rate.
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We also put on our presentation to parents and other adults and students at the YPI final. This will have a positive impact on the issue because we have adults and we can listen to their advice and they can give us suggestions on how we can stop knife crime because everyone has different views towards knife crime so it’s better to listen to everyone at a time.
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When we contacted our charity it had an impact on them. They felt that they should help us and they did help us because they told us that our issue was really important and in order to stop knife crime we should listen to their advice.
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It is more difficult to have an impact on a national scale because ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………………………………………. We did /did not have a national impact because…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
b) Now that you have finished, assess how well the action went and how it has affected your view
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Now our work is finished I feel that we achieved …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. ………………………………………………………………………………
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Our key strengths were ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………………………………………………………… ...………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………We could have improved by………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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My views on our issue have been affected because I now know/believe………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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……………………………………………………………………………. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
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The more research I did in to our issue, the more I understood that ……………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………..
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Speaking with or visiting our charity helped because
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This activity has changed the way I think about …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. because I now know that ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. It has also affected my views on my community and on the work of charities. I now believe charities …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… in the future I hope to help this issue further by ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 