Emily's+Reflection

For our service-learning project, we focused on Party Patrol, currently a controversial issue in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. We feel that the town is running a corrupt system to prevent under-aged drinking as well as utilization of illegal drugs. Although the lawmakers have good intentions and are strictly enforcing these laws for the matter safety, the effects of the Party Patrol system are causing trouble, rather then preventing trouble. In essence, “democracy” is foundation of this project. This is the first time in my life that I have actually enforced democracy is a political sense. To me, democracy can be defined as one sticking up for what they believe in, because the Constitution gives them every right to do so. Democracy is having a say in what one may think is unfair or unjust, and it is allows one to protest or fight against what they think is unreasonable. In this project, democracy has taught me that if I, a seventeen-year-old high school senior, believes that something is, in fact, morally incorrect, I am absolutely ALLOWED to do whatever it takes to change what is wrong and make it right. This is the first time that I have watched myself become a political advocate for something I believe should be fixed. I learned that I am 100% capable of campaigning if I have my facts, research, and legitimate supporters. Now that I know I am capable, I am that much more confident about campaigning in real-life. Before this project, I never thought that I would have the capability or confidence to be a protester against undue laws. I am very pleased with how my group worked together on this project. We all worked so well simultaneously because everyone was in such high favor of putting a stop to the Party Patrol scheme. Because of this reason, each member was happy with whatever part of the project they were assigned. With high spirits of democracy constantly flowing through each one of us, we were extremely cooperative with one another. No one would ever do something that was intentionally unfair to another member in the group.