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3: Basic Editing Annotations
1. The narrator discusses how to split clips, meaning how to cut out audio or extra sound (or silence) that is not needed. Splitting clips can also be taking one track and making it into two, so that they can be used in different places. Clips can also be joined together as well. You would join a clip together because that was the intention or to prevent a pause in the audio, because audacity will make the audio that was cut out into silence until the next audio plays. This can be done by going to the edit, clip boundaries.
2. To export the audacity file, you go to file, export, and choose the format best to save it in. An Mp3 file will be compressed and able to put on a website or attatch into an email. This tutorial says that to export as an Mp3, you have to download another type of library, which I belive is the LAME Mp3. Any computer should be able to open this format.
9/19/16 Refugees Deeply
Reading the background on Refugees Deeply taught me a lot. I have to shamefully admit that I have not really been educated on the refugee crisis until we began this project. I knew of the Syrian refugee crisis from seeing it on the news, but I did not realize the extent of it as a whole. The timeline really helped to explain that there have been millions and millions of people throughout the past one hundred years who have been displaced due to conflict in their home country. I was shocked that a report from June 2016 stated that 65.3 million people were displaced in 2015. I did not realize until now how big of an issue this has been and continues to be. There is a process that goes into determining if a person is actually a refugee and should be granted asylum. There is a difference between the two and an asylum seeker is not a refugee until they are approved and granted the international protection that the seek. I also learned that throughout the asylum process, each country has their own way of doing things. For example, in Tanzania the government conducts the RSD procedures, but the Egyptian government is not involved in the process. When a person crosses the border of a country they are considered an asylum seeker and have to go through the process that I previously mentioned. I think that the application process is necessary to make sure that a person is actually in fear for some reason and that they are not going to go into a new country to cause any type of trouble. If a person does, they can be sent back to their home country or a third country, due to the human protection rights. I believe that the sexual assaults that took place in Germany on New Years Eve, done by a group of refugees, should definitely have consequences and as Germany is doing, looking to revise their laws. If a person is lucky enough to escape some kind of war or terrorism and find safety, they should be expected to not break laws and especially not harm citizens of the country protecting them. Events like this give refugees a bad name which hurts the people who are actually just looking for safety. I think it is important to not develop a discrimination towards refugees because of things like this and keep an open mind that if something like this happened in our country, we too would hope to find safety somewhere else.
9/22/16 Quick Facts
The Syrian refugee crisis is how I came to have most of my previous knowledge of refugees. This article explains that the Syrian civil war is the “worst humanitarian crisis of our time” and that there has been eleven million people displaced or killed. To help the people that have been forced out of their homes requires billions of dollars just to meet the basic needs of Syrians. In 2015, Russia set bombs off, intended for ISIS, but an estimated 2,000 civilians were killed. So not only do people need to flee because of the war, but also other countries that are trying to defeat ISIS. There are roughly five million Syrians who are waiting to or have already submitted their applications with the United Nations. Over half of the Syrian refugees are under the age of eighteen, which has a severe impact on not only how they are growing up, but things like their schooling. Many of these children have not attended school for a long period of time due to the crisis. There are neighboring countries who are trying to help with this aspect and make room for the refugee students, but only so many children can go and some are still unable to attend because their families cannot afford the transportation. Thousands of Syrians flee everyday to seek safety. From 2011 until now there has been a dramatic increase in the number of Syrians who have been displaced and seeking safety and that number will continue to rise unless there is a change.
9/29/16 Libguide Summaries
People Living “In Sheer Terror” Around Lake Chad
This article focuses on refugees in West Africa, specifically in the Lake Chad region. People are having to flee their homes due to the violence and attacks of the Boko Haram, also known as the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP). In the past two years over 2.5 million people have become homeless and roughly 66,000 have become displaced within Lake Chad. The regional military forces are retaliating, which makes conditions even worse and more dangerous. When these people are forced to leave their homes in order to find safety, they are not as capable of maintaining things that would be considered basic human necessities, like health care. Some of the healthcare facilities have been closed down due to the lack of medicine and equipment or because the staff has also had to flee. The current lack of medical care becomes an even bigger problem at this time because the refugees are living in poor conditions, which creates a greater risk of contracting some type of illness. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) are opening clinics and doing what they can to help the people in West Africa. Medical and humanitarian assistance is being provided to refugees, the displaces, and also host communities. MSF teams are also working with Ministries of Health to provide primary and pediatric care, psychological assistance, surgical care, and treatment to the victims of violence. Water and other essential relief items are also being provided and distributed across the region. Although the MSF are doing the best that they can, there are other people who cannot be reached. The article explains that it is very difficult to reach people who have been displaced in their own country. Attacks and counter-offenses are still taking place in locations like schools, markets, and places of worship. It is not an option for people to return to their homes yet, but in the meantime, MSF is doing the best that they can to help.
Syrian Refugees Start a New Life in Norway Through Resettlement
This article is a look at the refugee resettlement process through a Syrian woman named Sherihan. Sherihan and her husband, Hennan, were building their life together and in the process of starting a family when they were forced to leave their home. The apartment that they lived in was located on the border between the opposition and government areas. Especially because of the location of their home they saw many civilians shot by snipers, like seeing their neighbor killed because someone believed they he was supporting Assad, Syria’s president. The couple fled from Aleppo to the countryside, around the same time the Sherihan became pregnant. After their son Kahraman was born, Sherihan and Hennan noticed that he wasn’t responding to movement correctly, which is when they were told that he would be blind for the rest of his life. After the news, the family decided to move to Turkey in order to be closer to a doctor that gave Kahraman hope of having at least some sight. In desperate need to get their son proper medical attention, the family registered with the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, and were later told that they qualified for resettlement. In September of 2014, Norway became their new home. Sherihan and Hennan wish that they did not have to leave their home, but they are adjusting well in Norway. Both are fluent in the language and they also enjoy the difference in freedom. For example, they have friends who do not question why the don’t go to the mosque or why they are drinking beer. It is different to not be judged on everything. Hennan says that he discovered Norway was a place where freedom was a reality when he found Kurdish literature in the library because writing in the Kurdish language, along with literature on religion and politics is illegal in Syria. The family still have friends and relatives living and Syria and realize that people will continually be forced to flee until the war stops. Sherihan believes that the global community needs to do more to stop this war and that every country should welcome refugees. She simply wishes to live a normal life in safety with her family.
10/3/16
Nigeria: Disastrous Living Conditions More Deadly Than Violence
This article was only written a couple of days ago and is a continuance of another article that I previously summarized. This article explains that the living conditions of the millions of people who have been displaced in Africa are actually raising the number of deaths more than the violence that is leading to this displacement. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) are still providing as much assistance and medical care possible. There is a camp located in the town of Ngala containing 80,000 displaced people who are stranded and cannot leave. MSF was just recently able to reach this camp to provide food and medical care. Here they found that one in ten children under the age of five were suffering from severe acute malnutrition. In the town of Gambaru there is an estimated 123,000 people, with one in seven children suffering from severe actor malnutrition. The clinic that was located in this town was burned down and it is too dangerous to seek medical care elsewhere. There are other towns experiencing the same conflict and emergency issues, but the living conditions in the Maiduguri were shocking. This is because Maiduguri is not currently experiencing conflict and have access to aid organizations, yet MSF found malnutrition rates to be as high as the ones located in conflict zones. Throughout the 2.5 million people who are displaced, “the mortality rate is five times higher than what is considered an emergency, with the main cause being hunger.” MSF is seeing that food and medical care is being delivered to both, remote and accessible areas with the Nigerian authorities being responsible to ensure that this continues to happen in order to prevent the high numbers of people who are at risk for imminent death.
Detained, Deceived, and Deported: Experienced of Recently Deported Central American Families
This article differed from the others that I have read thus far because it focuses on keeping the people who flee out of America, rather than trying to help keep them safe. One of the biggest reasons that the people of Central America, especially mothers and children, flee for their safety is due to gangs. Gangs participate in murder, rape, and other forms of violent which endanger these people. The Department of Homeland Security has family detention centers that are made to hold the people who try migrating across American borders. In 2014, a detention center was opened in Dilley, Texas and made to hold 2,400 people. The purpose of these centers is to deter future migration. The U.S. government also works with the Mexican government to try preventing migrants from arriving at the border in the first place. Every day the women and children seeking safety are sent from the United States back to the Northern Triangle of Central America (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador). Recent data shows that the Northern Triangle is one of the most dangerous regions in the world, with growing rates of organized crime, murder, gender-based violence, and other forms of violence, as well. When women are sent back to their region, they become targets of gang members and are threatened to do things like sell drugs, pay “rent”, or join criminal groups. All of the women interviewed expressed that they feel “extremely vulnerable and unprotected”, and they are often left to live in hiding. On top of having to hide upon their return from the same violence that they were trying to freeform, life becomes even harder for women because they have to worry about debts from their trip to America, making surviving economically even more challenging than before.
10/06/16
Liberian Refugees in West Africa
For the class project, my group was assigned a refugee from Africa, so I chose to research an article on Liberia. It was difficult to find on that was more recent than 2013. The article that I did decide to work with explains that Liberia had a fourteen-year civil war which created over 750,000 refugees. Luckily, most of those refugees found asylum in the coastal West African states. At the time that this article was written, there was still an estimate of 65,000 Liberian refugees who remained in West Africa and it was expected that in 2011 the UNHCR would declare that those remaining refugees would no longer merit prima facie status.It was believed that many people would then go into local integration or repatriation. The article states that this meant that the United States would be presented with the opportunity to ensure that the remaining refugees would either return to Liberia, local integration, or third country resettlement no later than 2011. The United States would still work to provide support with the UNHCR and continue to monitor reintegration in Liberia to make sure that people are transitioning and that this process remains sustainable.
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Clement and Aline Shabani
This video is of Clement and Aline sharing their story of how the became refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Like many places with people who are forced to flee, the DRC had a bad government, so there was room for chaos. Females needed the most help because they had no voice and were not considered in society. Women needed to be protected and have their rights defended because not only were they not given the same chances as males, they would be taken and raped by groups of men, often contracting HIV. Clement and Aline were personally effected when soldiers entered into their home. They were forced to pay to be “free”. Clement was tied up and had to watch his wife, Aline, be violated by the men. Once the soldiers left the couple fled from their home to a nearby friend who was Chief of a village. The next morning they were told that the soldiers went back to their home because there were orders to kill Clement and Aline. Luckily, they were not there, but their home and office was burned down. In an attempt to somehow arrive to safety, the two took their five children and walked during the night, for three nights, because that was the only time that trying to escape was possible. Finally, they arrived in Uganda. They did not know anyone, but they were welcomed and given a place to stay. Afterwards, they went to Amnesty International in Bangkok, Thailand to seek protection. They were given temporary visas and stayed in the country for five years and nine months, until arriving to the United States. I’m sure that there are many people from different contrived who can relate to Clement and Aline’s story. When the government cannot provide protection people are forced to flee from their homes and seek safety elsewhere.