Reference no: EM133359697

Case Study: I would not be the person I am today if it was not for Anytown. I would not be in this room if it was not for this organization. You're probably wondering what I'm talking about. What can so dramatically change someone's life?

Anytown is a summer leadership camp. Now there are thousands of summer leadership camps all around the world. You have science camps, young life camps, all kinds of camps-camps that change our lives in positive ways.

The summer before my junior year, I attended Anytown. Before camp, I was a deviant young man. After camp I was never the same. So what exactly is Anytown? What is its history and what goes on at camp that's so powerful? Today I'll discuss these three things with you.

According to the website, Anytown Arizona is a youth development program that focuses on diversity awareness, social justice, and personal empowerment. Its mission is to be a catalyst and facilitator for social change. This camp brings together people from different backgrounds and different cultures.

The Anytown USA organization has several types of programs: Anytown Junior is for junior highers; Unitowns are for weekend programs; Beyond Anytown is for people who have attended Anytown; and Powertown focuses on parents and community members.

The weeklong camp is filled with activities geared toward understanding diversity through a great deal of educational activities that have emotional impact. Typically, the counselors act out different levels of violence that are seen everywhere. They start with verbal violence-someone saying an inappropriate comment to somebody just because they are a different color. They continue to physical violence, ganging up and pummeling another counselor because they are a different color. They finish with genocide. Genocide consists of four or six counselors acting out being Jewish, killed by two counselors acting out being Nazis. This is only one of the activities and there are many others.

So where did Anytown come from? What's its history? According to the Anytown website, Anytown began in 1957 known as the National Conference for Christians and Jews, now better known as the National Conference for Community and Justice. The goal then and now was to bring together a group of diverse young youth from a variety of different backgrounds, empower them to understand each other, and learn from each other.

In one cabin you will have a young man who has been very wealthy growing up and a young man who has had a very dysfunctional past. Together, throughout the week, they come together and they learn about each other and where they're from and what they've lived. Toward the end of the week they become kind of like brothers.

The staff, in a way, tests the students. They segregate them. Each day has a different theme, such as "know yourself," "know your friends," and "know your family." During the week in the end, when they become segregated they either continue to stay segregated or they desegregate themselves. These students never fail the test of desegregating themselves.

Each camp reacts differently to the segregation. Some break it and integrate to the camp. Some stay segregated until one specific student speaks up.

I hope you have learned a thing or two about this great organization that has been around for years. I'm sure that Anytown will be around for the future, helping our youth understand diversity, and understand each other. Jared Cohan, an Anytown alumni, quotes, "One person can achieve wonders by helping one person-an individual. Then that individual passes those things to another and so on and so on." This is the power Anytown has, changing the world one person at a tine.

Questions:

1. Did Enriques Ruiz effectively capture your attention at the beginning of his speech?

2. Did the preview forecast coverage adequately?

3. Did he provide effective and ethical evidence to support his ideas?

4. Were there good transitions between main points?

5. Did the conclusion summarize main points in the speech?