Homelessness And Poverty in Les Miserables
In the musical Les Miserables, there is a ton of evidence for the poverty in France during the time the musical was written. The author, Victor Hugo, experienced poverty and homelessness before he was exiled from France. In the musical the main character Valjean goes to jail because he stole bread to feed his family. Valjean became desperate because of how poor he was, so he resorted to crime to get what he needed to survive. Another character, Fantine, looses her job so she has to sell her teeth, her hair, and herself to make a living to feed her starving daughter. As evident in Les Mis, poverty creates a kind of desperation in people and causes people to do extreme things to survive or to help their family survive.
This I Believe
this_i_believe_speech.m4a | |
File Size: | 1610 kb |
File Type: | m4a |
Life is a constant battle. Between war, poverty, slavery, and natural disasters, its hard for people to live without worry, or stress. However, these problems give an opportunity for people to rise up, take a risk, and change the world. And shockingly, the people that are rising up to change the world are teenagers.
Every year my church youth group hosts something called Youth Week. We stay at church for a whole week and go out and do service projects in the community. Then every day we come back to church about 3:00 pm, talk about our day and do some typical things you would do if you were at a summer camp. This past year I worked with my group at a place in Holland, MI called Blacktop. I remember getting into the van with my group the first day to go to the place and thinking please let it not be a place where I have to work with kids. No such luck. It was a church where kids hang out and learned about Jesus. When our group found out that we were working with kids things got really quiet. Anyone who has worked with kids knows how hard it is to introduce yourself to a kid that has no idea who you are. But as it turns out I was actually blessed by these kids. I spent a lot of time playing a game these kids invented called Zombie. Was it rigged to their advantage? Totally. This little girl named Madelyn wouldn't leave me alone, she always wanted me to play Zombie with her. It was worth it, to hear kids laughing, and expressing their joy. It was so cool to be a part of influencing these kids lives.
If 120 teens could get together and make a difference in their community for only a week; just imagine what all the teenagers in the world could do to change their community. A lot of teens are probably like me; they are scared to get out of their "comfort zone". They are scared to go against the "popular opinion" and be the change. But teens can do it. Teens have the power. Teens CAN change the world.
Every year my church youth group hosts something called Youth Week. We stay at church for a whole week and go out and do service projects in the community. Then every day we come back to church about 3:00 pm, talk about our day and do some typical things you would do if you were at a summer camp. This past year I worked with my group at a place in Holland, MI called Blacktop. I remember getting into the van with my group the first day to go to the place and thinking please let it not be a place where I have to work with kids. No such luck. It was a church where kids hang out and learned about Jesus. When our group found out that we were working with kids things got really quiet. Anyone who has worked with kids knows how hard it is to introduce yourself to a kid that has no idea who you are. But as it turns out I was actually blessed by these kids. I spent a lot of time playing a game these kids invented called Zombie. Was it rigged to their advantage? Totally. This little girl named Madelyn wouldn't leave me alone, she always wanted me to play Zombie with her. It was worth it, to hear kids laughing, and expressing their joy. It was so cool to be a part of influencing these kids lives.
If 120 teens could get together and make a difference in their community for only a week; just imagine what all the teenagers in the world could do to change their community. A lot of teens are probably like me; they are scared to get out of their "comfort zone". They are scared to go against the "popular opinion" and be the change. But teens can do it. Teens have the power. Teens CAN change the world.