General Motors SWOT Analysis

General Motors Corporation (GM) is primarily engaged in the production of vehicles. It designs, manufactures and markets car, trucks, and other automobile parts all over the world. GM has a strong brand portfolio gives it significant competitive advantage. However, sustained decline in light vehicle sales as a result of increasing durability of vehicles and weak economic conditional pressure on the overall performance of the company.Strengths:Global presence, GM was the leading auto manufacturer in terms of sales for 77 years until 2007. The business has grown its presence in the world and is now operating in 157 countries, while its Chevrolet brand reached world record sales (4.95 million units). New vision and strategy, after 2008 bailout, GM has experienced major changes and reorganized the way it does business. New members were appointed to the firm’s management team with Daniel Akerson as the CEO.He shook GM†s bureaucratic organizational culture and introduced new s trategy and visions to the business. GM became smaller but leaner and is becoming more. Strong brand portfolio, GM currently sells 18 automobile brand to satisfy as many customer needs as possible. The most  popular brand are Cadillac, Buick GMC, and Chevrolet that sells very well in USA and China. Chevrolet reached global sales record and sold 4.95 million units in 2012. Strong presence in China, China is the largest automotive market and is an emerging economy that grows steadily. It is also the second largest market for GM in terms of vehicle units sold.An early entrance into China, well performing partnerships and local Buick brand are the main reasons why GM has a strong position in China’s automotive market. Knowledge of home market, GM is the largest car manufacturer in US and currently holds more than 18% market share. This is mainly due to extensive knowledge of US market and its consumer. 4 well performing brands, GM’s has one of the highest cost structures compared to all automobiles manufacturers. GM’s Cadillac, GMC, Chevrolet, and Buick are among the best-selling brands in US and China and brings in more than 80% of all General Motors sales.Weakness:High cost structures, GM has one of the highest cost structures compared to all automobiles manufacturers. GM costs are driven by its generous employee compensation and pension plans. Although GM has reduced its cost after 2008 it still has a lot to do to become cost competitive. Brand dilution, GM controls 18 automobile brands that vary in quality and are sold in separate markets. With so many brands in sales, customers find it hard to identify which brand belongs to GM family, as only one of 18 brands carry GM letters.The result is lower GM brand awareness. Bureaucratic culture, before reorganization in 2008, GM was infamous for its rigid culture and structure. Since them, the company has made some cultural and structural changes but should continue improving as it isn’t as quick as it competitors in reaching to constantly changing environment. Car recall, last year, General Motors recalled 119,000 pickups due to missing hood latch. The same year it had to recall it Chevrolet volt and fix battery problems. Recalls are expensive and damages brand reputation, especially when the company announces them so often.Opportunities:Positive attitude toward â€Å"green† vehicle, today consumers are more aware of the negative effects (air pollution) caused by cars fueled by petrol and diesel. Large quantities of CO2 emission intensity greenhouse effect, and negatively impact the life on earth, and thus, consumers are more likely to buy new hybrid and electrical cars that emit less co2. Increasing fuel price, increasing fuel prices open up large markets for GM’s hybrid and electric cars as consumers shift toward cheaper fuel types. Changing customer needs, by introducing new cars models, General Motors would be able to meet changing customer needs for smaller and more fuel-efficient cars. Growth through acquisitions, GM has successfully acquired many car companies in the past and should continue doing so to gain new skills assets and access to new market.Threats:Fluctuating fuel prices, due to increasing extraction of shale gas, future fuel prices should drop and make electric and hybrid cars less attractive. GM would treat the project of hybrid and electric cars as losses, rather than perspective future cars. On the other hand, steeping fuel prices would make current GM models less attractive to cost conscious consumer lower amounts of fuel. New emission standards, a new wave for stricter regulation on vehicle emission standards may negatively affect GM’s finances. The corporate would have to invest large amount of money to comply with these new standards.Rising raw material prices, rising prices for raw metals will lift the cost for auto manufactures and result in squeezed profits for the companies. Intense competit ion, for 77 years from 1931 to 2007, GM led global sales of vehicles, but lost its position in 2008 due to increased competition of cheaper and better quality cars, especially from Japan and South Korea. Exchange rates, China are GM’s second largest market and the business earns huge profits there. Exchange rate fluctuations threaten GM’s profits if the dollar would appreciate against Chinese renminbi.

Clique Pens Analysis Essay

Currently Clique pens is stuck in a situation where they are competing with other pen brands including BIC, Scripto, Pentel, Pilot, Papermate, and Sharpie. The fight for shelf space is among some of the biggest retailers worldwide such as Wal-Mart, Target, CVS, and Kroger. Because of the immense power retailers hold in this market, companies like Clique need to make sure they are allocating their funds in ways that deem appropriate to stay on the shelves. Pens are a high profit and high-turnover items which for retailers is great, but because retailers haven’t changed the price for almost over a decade, manufacturers are receiving less and less profit from their items. Retailers hold the power over the manufacturers in this market due to the amount of brands available; if one brand wasn’t working for the retailer, they could simply choose another brand. In order to remain profitable Clique’s brand managers have worked with different marketing and ad agencies to d evelop an integrated package of advertising, trade and consumer promotions to maintain the market share. Clique allocated 15% of its total promotional budget to advertising, 30% to consumer promotions, and 55% to trade promotions. Types of advertising Clique used consumer promotions and price off deals through the retailer, in such ways you would see in an ad in a magazine, â€Å"available at target†. Consumer promotions were mostly used as coupons distributed to the customer through newspapers, in-store displays, and cash register receipts. Coupon redemption rates deemed useless for the most part considering rates were about 1.3% lower than most other consumer products. Elise Ferguson (president of the writing implements division of U.S. home) has a very important decision to make; whether or not the company should spend their time and money marketing towards retailers or towards consumers, in order to grow Clique’s profits. One option that the company could choose to go with would be marketing towards the consumers rather than the retailers. Logan Chen, vice president of marketing feels that reducing trade discounts and establishing a consumer oriented MDF (Market Development Funds), coupled with additional consumer-targeted marketing programs is the way to ensure that consumers are receiving the full benefit of Clique’s promotional dollars. However, Ross McMillan, sales vice president disagrees on that course of action whole heartedly. If Clique were to use a majority of their sales and marketing funds towards the consumer the company could  lose considerable shelf space and sales to competitors, due to the reduced marketing controlled funds. Consumers in this market also do not hold much if any brand loyalty, which means they wouldn’t pay much mind to advertising. Another large factor to keep in mind would be the fact that coupon redemption rates are 1.4% lower than other consumer products, which means wasting money that was spent on this type of advertising. Going with this option would be extremely costly for Clique as well as a dangerous move in the already fragile market; one wrong move towards the retailers and Clique could kiss their shelf space goodbye.

VISC 1004-01 Final Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

VISC 1004-01 Final - Essay Example ree films was developed in different historical moments, all the films present the same social biases, whether it is the biases related to the relationship between the rich and the poor or the biases related to the intimate relationship between individuals of two different races. However, in all the films, the female gender seems to suffer the most social prejudices, since their choice of happiness is rarely appreciated by the people in their lives, whether their families or their friends. The Far from Heaven (2002) is a film that was developed in the 21st century, telling of the story of a love relationship that eventually becomes disapproved by the society. Cathy Whitaker is a rich woman who happens to be living in a marriage that has no happiness and no sexual fulfillment, until she comes to learn very late that her husband, Frank, was also a gay (Haynes, n.p.). In the course of her stressed life, Cathy Whitaker happens to come across Raymond Deagan, who is the son of her former gardener who is already dead (Haynes, n.p.). Due to the unfulfilling marriage that Cathy Whitaker lives in, she develops passionate feelings towards Raymond, which eventually turns into love feelings that see both establish an intimate relationship. However, considering that Cathy Whitaker is a rich woman who is courting Raymond; a black and poor man, the society applies its social biases and prejudices against the black race and against the relationship between the rich and the poor, to ev entually separate the two. Three white boys abuses Raymond’s daughter, causing Raymond to decide never to engage with a white woman again (Haynes, n.p.). The whole neighborhood is also spreading word about the unethical relationship between Cathy Whitaker, a married woman, and a black poor man, causing Cathy Whitaker to be the laughing stock of the whole neighborhood. The same script is repeated in the film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), where Emmi, a German widow in her 60s gets engaged with a

Nursing organization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Nursing organization - Essay Example ent elect, immediate past president, secretary, treasurer, four board members and an ex-officio run its affairs, ensuring that the association attains its objectives in the long run. Its functions include promotion of health, recovery and wellness by identifying mental health issues, preventing related problems and providing appropriate care and treatment to people with psychiatric disorders (APNA, 2013). The membership of APNA draws from all educational levels and a varied range of settings including military, forensic, private practice, outpatient and education among others. Currently, the total membership exceeds 8,000 members (APNA, 2013). These members benefit from professional growth and continuing education with access to its scholarships, networking and information access through its Member Bridge program and discounts on certification exams, long term insurance, conference registration fees and educational materials. The membership cost would depend on which of the five categories a member joins. Regular membership would be available to registered nurses, those paying dues and pursue endeavors furthering the association’s purposes. Such members might vote, seek directorship and serve in committees. A joining fee of $135.00 would apply with a monthly fee of $12.50. Mental health professionals not registered as nurses would join as affiliate members at a fee of $135.00. Affiliate membership attracts all membership benefits save for voting or holding office. International membership would be for those residing outside the US at a cost of $135.00 with the entitlement to all membership benefits. For retired registered nurses interested in participating in psychiatric-mental health activities, retired membership at a cost of $75.00 would be their reserve just as the student membership would be reserved for proven nursing students at a cost of $25.00. Student registered nurses could vote though they would not hold office. Among the accomplishments of APNA

Memo Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Memo - Essay Example Canada has a gross domestic income per capital of $41,000 and a total population of 34.3 million inhabitants (Culturegrams, 2012). Zamada Motors is looking to expand its operations into the Canadian marketplace. The firm in 2014 plans on launching a small compact car called the â€Å"2.2†. The car is a small two seater with high fuel economy that is targeted to compete with Fiat, Mini, Ford and Toyota. The purpose of this memo is to provide a comprehensive integrated marketing strategy for Zamada Motors. The company has a marketing budget of one million dollars. A million dollars might seem like a lot of money, but to launch an introductory mass marketing campaign in a foreign country the budget the firm has is limited. Despite the budget constraints there are marketing channels that can be used in a combined manner to achieve the goals of the company. The first step for the company is to let the Canadian population know about existence of the Zamada brand. The marketing plan will start by focusing on the brand. The second step of the strategy is to emphasize on the â€Å"2.2† to drive the sales of the product. The marketing budget of the firm will be divided in two initiates. The company will spend 20% of its budget to get the word out about the brand. The remaining 80% of the budget will be used to market the â€Å"2.2† car model. ... To minimize cost the company will select to launch its ads in popular shows that are not part of primetime television. The firm will place three commercials per week for a period of three months. The firm will contact all Canadian TV stations to negotiate a deal for the marketing package. The bid the company will make for the commercials will be valued at $150,000. If for some reason the firm is not able to negotiate a contract based on those parameters the company will lower its expectations to two commercials per week instead of three. The second marketing channel that the company will use is the written press. Some of the potential newspapers the firm might perform business with include Georgia Straight, The Fountain Pen, High River Times, and Oxford Review (Onlinenewspapers, 2012). The marketing budget for the written press initiative is $20,000. For that budget the company expects to have a daily ad in the newspaper for a period of three months. The final channel that will be us ed for the initial public relation launch of the company is the radio. The company will place four radio ads per week for a period of three months. The marketing budget for the radio campaign is $30,000. The second phase of the integrated marketing campaign is to introduce the â€Å"2.2† car model to the general public of Canada. The firm has a marketing budget of $800,000 for this initiative. The company will use some of the marketing channels utilized in phase one as well as other marketing channels that are better suited for a marketing strategy to target a specific demographic group. The company will once again utilize television as one of its channel. The television campaign to introduce the â€Å"2.2† will be shorter than in phase

Management Accounting Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Management Accounting - Research Paper Example The intention of this study is management accounting as the process of generating reports that enable managers to assess how the company is performing in relation to competitors. By contrast, financial accounting provides reports for external stakeholders such as the shareholders. Financial accounting reports are also prepared according to the generally accepted accounting principles. However such rules are not applicable to management accounting. Thus a management accountant can apply his own discretion in preparing the required report. Management accounting is defined on the basis of several assumptions. The first assumption is related to the goal of management accounting. The goal of management accounting is to assist the management in maximizing the net profit of the company. The second assumption is that the management is able to control the success of the company to some extent so that its performance is not completely dependent upon market forces. The role of management is to apply planning and control to impact upon organizational performance. Management accounting is defined based upon the assumption that it is meant to provide a set of decision making tools that the management will apply to enhance organizational performance. As mentioned before, the role of management is to apply planning and control. Planning and control can be applied in marketing, production or finance. Therefore the definition of management accounting must include decision making in marketing, production and finance. ... As mentioned before, the role of management is to apply planning and control. Planning and control can be applied in marketing, production or finance (Lillis & Mundy, 2005). Therefore the definition of management accounting must include decision making in marketing, production and finance. Management accounting derives its definition also from the assumptions that the management makes about the accounting department. The management expects the accounting department to provide data that will assist in marketing, production and financial decision making. Finally, management accounting must be defined based upon the assumption that accounting information must be customized to the decision making tool involved. Sometimes this involves defining the nature of the accounting information according to fixed and variable costs (Emsley, 2005). Management accounting as a process must incorporate all these assumptions. The sources of management accounting data can be both external and internal. T he role of management is to apply planning and control techniques in influencing the organizational performance. To meet this objective, the management must access data from both the internal environment and the external environment. Management accounting data from the internal environment enables the management to assess the organizational performance. The data from the external environment, such as the data on competitors and demand, enable the management to compare organizational performance with market performance. Thus these sources of data enable the management to understand whether the company is performing above or below the market average. As mentioned before, one of the assumptions

Islam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Islam - Essay Example Thus, although there is no sign at all that Mohammed and his followers were blood descendants of Abraham, Islam is clearly associated with the biblical times, characters and traditions; even if the Bible has not had that profound effect on Islam as upon Christianity (Peters, 2004). Having developed from events that took place some 1400 years ago in the Arabian Peninsula, Islam is currently a world faith with over one billion followers worldwide (Gordon, 2003). On the other hand, although the Islamic religious doctrine, practices, and institutions have been the subject of numerous, if not countless, writings and discussions (Gordon, 2003), Islam remains the most misinterpreted, hence misunderstood religion, especially in the light of recent events such as the 9/11 attacks and the consequent ‘war on terror’. Therefore, this paper attempts to get an insight into the Islamic religion, highlighting some of the most contentious points of the doctrine. Historical Background In order to understand the essence of Islam as fully as possible, one would need to take into consideration first and foremost its historical context in which this religious cult has originated and matured; by the way, this is equally valid as far as any other religious tradition is concerned. Mohammed was born in Mecca about 570 AD, in the Hashim clan of the Quraish tribe which possessed a distinguished status in the town (Schimmel, 1992, p. 11). By that time, the wealth and ancient glory of the Arabian Peninsula, most notably the powerful trading kingdom of Saba (â€Å"The Kingdoms of Ancient South Arabia,† n.d.), was already too far gone (Schimmel, 1992). The religious life of the Arab tribes, particularly in Central Arabia, was still dominated by a rather primitive religion, whose rituals were performed in numerous tribal sanctuaries, including the shrine in Kaaba which appeared the center of the pagan cult; additionally, there were certain Jewish and Christian influences (S chimmel, 1992, p. 7). Arabia was situated in the sphere of influence of its trade partners by then – Persia and Constantinople (Schimmel, 1992). There were also a number of Jewish settlements not far from Medina, and even – according to some authors – the kings of Saba had reportedly converted to Judaism; the latter inter alia indicates a quest of a higher faith (Schimmel, 1992). Somewhere in his forties, Mohammed was overcome by visions and voices, realizing that he was entrusted with a divine mandate – to proclaim, like some Hebrew prophets of earlier times, most notably Amos, the forthcoming Day of Judgment when the human beings will face the one omnipotent God, their Lord, to answer for their actions (Schimmel, 1992, p. 12). The obvious parallel between Mohammed – the last prophet – and the first Hebrew prophet of judgment, Amos, is not only in theological terms, but also in terms of historical necessity. Thus, having seen the decline in Arabia’s power and wealth, likely brought about by the Arab tribes’ disunity and internal feuds, Mohammed found the ultimate means of unification – the belief in one omnipotent God – and saw himself at first as a God’s messenger to the Arabs, a prophet being sent to warn them (Schimmel, 1992, p. 15); later on, however, he put his visions into practice, embarking on a decisive move towards uniting the

Business Strategies and Decision Making Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Business Strategies and Decision Making - Essay Example Several authors have observed a consistent pattern in strategy development and there is no empirical doubt that managers are for it (Higgins, 2013:30). Managers in various organisations, as evident in several publications, agree that it is not easy to hold together all the components of an organisation if a well-patterned strategy is not developed. The importance of such a plan can be drawn from the point those core goals, actions and policies are integrated into a strategic plan that drives the success of a business-both large and small. Managers though, observe that developing a strategy alone is not sufficient for a corporation to realise its success, but rather, should be a well-engineered plan that brings together and allocates resources equitably in all operations. Nevertheless, all corporations-large or small- need a form of a patterned strategy put in place so as to experience success as other successful firms. The effect of ignoring such plans may result in haphazard resources spending and consequently, lead to wasteful use of the already limited resources. In comparison, large organisations’ strategies are formalised as compared to small-sized ones. However, small sized organisations are of late realising the importance of developing critical strategies that are formal and communicated to staffs. As much as patterned strategy development has been taking centre stage in several organisations, there has a negative counter-development- strategy drift. A business external environment such as competitors, consumers, suppliers among others, is essential to any firm. When a firm fails to respond to such aspects, the condition is termed as a strategy drift. It is not a new phenomenon to find a formally stable business close down as a result of failing to effectively respond in a strategic manner to its external environment (Wild, Wild and Han, 2008:230).  

Cadbury Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Cadbury Business - Essay Example The company operates in more than 50 countries globally. The company is ahead of other food companies like Nestle and Swiss conglomerate. Though the company has been facing stiff competition from small producers who advocate for healthy eating, the company has made it to thrive and it still performs well financially. Many British consumers love the company and its products. The main products of the company are fruit sweets, toffees, pastilles, bubble and chewing mints. Macro environment Those are the external and factors which cannot be controlled that influence the decision making of an organization. The macro environment also affects the strategies and the performance of the organization. The macro environment includes such factors as the economic factors, social conditions, and demographics, political and legal conditions within the organization. The other factors may include the natural factors, and changes in technology. The micro environment has influence on competitors, change s in the cultural tastes, disastrous weather, changes in the government regulations and changes in interest rates. Key Performance indicators These are indicators which measures the extent to which an organization has accomplished its objectives. They are the tools that many organizations use in order to track and keep record their progress and the success they have achieved in the organization. They consist of asset of measurable objectives which are predetermined for a specific organization and the indicators can involve any aspect of the organization which is considered to be important. For an organization to come up with an effective performance indicator, it must stipulate the mission of the organization first which would clearly define the goals and the objectives of the organization. The goals set out by the organization should be measurable and all the stakeholders in the organization must be involved in formulating such goals. The performance indicators can be presented in form of charts or reports. The key performance indicators provide an insight into the strengths and performance of an organization which is usually based or determined by the predefined measures specified by the organization. The method that an organization may chose to display the performance may vary, as it largely depends on the objective that was being measured and the audience which was targeted. Key performance indicators are different for each and every organization since they depend on the type of the business or organization and the specific objectives being measured. The objectives of any given organization can either be non financial or financial. In our case for the Cadbury, the organization uses number of sales made as the key performance indicator. The Cadbury Company also uses the comparison between different trading years profit with a target of the percentage they want in each and every year. Once a company or organization comes up with a specific key performance in dicator, it becomes very hard to change it unless the goals of the organization change. The key performance indicator should be maintained stable so that the progress of the organization can be efficiently and effectively monitored. The Cadbury Company has tried to maintain its performance indicator for many years and this has enabled the company to monitor its progress against other competitors in the industry. This has also enabled the Cadbury

Databases Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Databases - Assignment Example The pitcher statistics are strikeouts, walks, saves, innings, pitched, earned runs, wins and losses. An entity is in the first normal form if it contains no repeating sets of data. Similarly the above attributes contain several repeating attributes. Walks for example are found within the pitcher and the hitter. This wastes a lot of space in the data base. To normalize the ERD into INF we eliminate the redundant data. In 2NF we further normalize the diagram and include foreign keys. These foreign keys are items that are used as primary key in other attributes. The awayteamID for example was used in 1NF as the primary key for the Awayteam. It is therefore introduced into the game attribute as a foreign key When we develop the 3NF we ensure that there is no redundancy. The relationship between player and batting is one to many. This means that a player can play for only one team at a time. The relationship between a team and a player is many to one meaning that many players can batt. Marston, T. (2004, September 30). The Relational Data Model, Normalisation and effective Database Design. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from Tony Marston:

History of British Empire Notes Essay Example for Free

History of British Empire Notes Essay History of the British Empire leading to the establishment of the commonwealth This work contains information about the British Empire compared to the Roman Empire than compared to the Spartans. This shows who done b=worse things and was it worth going through all of that if their Empire is not the best? My work also contains certain opinions(mine and my dad) and tan some extra information about the commonwealth, what they do and who’s involved in it. I say that that British Empire changed the world the most because their economic system and schooling system means they had technology and money to build army and navies in Rome could only dream of. However the British got their political and law system from the Romans and Rome in the day had great economic power. ‘The sun never sets on the British Empire’ Is a well-known saying about the British Empire because there was a lot of colonies around the world which meant it was daytime somewhere in the Empire. The British Empire covered the largest land area ever ruled over by one nation, this involved over 166 countries. The British Empire began around the 1700, even though there is no longer considered an empire it still has a vast commonwealth network (this means that there are still some colonies that still believe in the British Empire) However, the Roman Empire lasted over 1,000 years and stretched from Britain to the Middle East. Much of the building technology of the Romans were adopted by the western world and are still used today. 2,000 years later. The Romans had much less of advanced tools to work with and the longer length of the time they was an empire. There are many good and bad points about the Roman Empire but what shocked me the most was that they took over neighbouring countries in their plan to take over the world; they tried to do this through violence and destruction. They would use black slaves and animals as entertainment; this would involve blood and violence. This would be held in the Colluseam. They also had massive amounts of slaves and killed hundred thousand during their conquest. The Empire wasn’t all that bad, considering the Empire was so big there had to be harsh and inhumane things to keep control of it. But things like the gladiatorial games weren’t necessary as without the slave the Roman Empire wouldn’t have been as successful and prosperous as they were. I think that the slaves deserve a lot of credit in making the Empire a success, even though what the Romans done to them were harsh and despicable. If I was to compare the Roman Empire to the Spartans, really the Roman Empire would be k nown as what they done would have been common at the time as the Spartans put a whole race into slavery and never let one of them rise above being classed as a slave. The Romans was quite cruel as they would torture slaves, child molestation, rape, poison and incest slaughter, this was just some of the things they would to the slaves compared the British Empire which invaded countries, changed most of their original cultures, once used privateers(pirates that were authorized by the government) would be used to plunder enemy ships during war and encouraged the colonies even in America to do the same. So I have compared the British Empire to the Roman Empire who was then compared to the Spartans and to conclude my research i believe that we should be proud the British Empire as we was much more civilised and didn’t go over the top in attempting to take over the world unlike the Roman Empire who would put people/slaves through the worst things to try to succeed in taking over the world. Just to make things clear the Spartans was far worst as they put a whole race into slavery and that’s all they would be. I asked my dad if he is proud o f the British Empire and he said: ‘At the time they brought allot of civilisation to many places that lacked in it, in different countries they helped build rail roads, postal services, and religion.’ Than I asked him if he was proud of it now, he replied: ‘Yes because nowadays we have strong, economical and commercial ties with the common wealth countries’ I don’t think my dad was too sure about the bad points but apart from that it was clear that he is proud of the British Empire because of how much it has helped the world today. The coalition government has set out a vision to strengthen the commonwealth as a focus for promoting democratic values and development. There are 54 independent sovereign states in the commonwealth. The commonwealth are a group of countries working in the same direction to promote the common interest of their people and promotion of international understanding. Membership of the commonwealth is voluntary , it is 63 years old, it has 54 member states which together comprise over 2 billion citizens. Her majesty the queen is head of the commonwealth, membership of the commonwealth does not bring with it contractual obligations rather members commit to a series of statements of believes esta blished by heads of government. The priorities and programmes of the commonwealth: 1.Good offices for peace- strengthen democratic processes and institutions 2.Rule of law- promoting the rule of law is seen enhancing democracy, good governments and development across the membership 3.Human rights- aims to assist members in the adoption and implementation of international human rights 4.Economic development-to assist developing countries to improve their understanding of international trade rules and regulations and to help them strengthen their negotiations within the world trade organisation. 5.Environmentally sustainable development- the commonwealth brings together industrialised countries with significant greenhouse gas emissions. 6.Large emerging economies- notable energy production and some of the poorest and the most vulnerable economies. 7.Human development- the commonwealth works towards the millennium development goals and is partially active in education, gender and health.

Experiences of Afro Caribbeans and Asian migrants to Britain

Experiences of Afro Caribbeans and Asian migrants to Britain The second half of the twentieth century saw a transformation of British society in which peoples from areas of the world that had formerly constituted colonies of the British Empire migrated to Britain in large enough numbers to have a significant impact upon the host community.   Since Elizabethan times, Britain had been host to significant numbers of black people. Yet their impact had never been felt as profoundly as it was in the late twentieth century, when many parts of Britain became what successive governments chose to term ‘multicultural.  Ã‚   This change did not come about without resistance and upheaval.   The impact of migration was often traumatic, especially upon those individuals who had left their homes to seek a different life in what they had looked upon as the Mother Country.The term ‘Mother Country is well-known and widely used.   However, during the period of the British Empire it was used as a trope that assumed a very particular meaning whe n applied to the relationship between the colonial power and its dependent territories.   During the nineteenth century, the expansion of the Empire was accompanied by a discourse that cast Britain in the role of parent and protector, as may be seen in visual products of the period, such as the Punch cartoon from 21 April 1894 in which John Bull is depicted discovering a black baby on his front doorstep, wrapped in a cloth marked ‘Uganda, and with the caption: ‘THE BLACK BABY.   Mr Bull: â€Å"What, another!! Well, I suppose I must take it in!!†Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   David Dabydeen, in his first collection of poetry Slave Song (1984), includes an illustration of ‘Britannia and the Natives, from a publication dated 1814, in which Britannia is shown on a raised pedestal surrounded by kneeling and supplicating black people with, in the background, the figure of Justice with her scales.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Britannia is thus configured as the ideal mother.   Such im ages gave Britain a benevolent and protective role (albeit with the reluctant undertones of John Bull), whilst to the colonies there were attributed the characteristics of immaturity, loyalty and submissiveness. However, in the history of Britains relations with its colonies, there is copious evidence of a breach in this unwritten contract of mutual loyalty and support.   At home and abroad, Britain exploited, rejected and abused the ‘Children of the Empire, yet the bonds were not easily broken and the twentieth century saw a significant number of colonial (or ex-colonial) peoples seeking a first-hand encounter with Britain.The growth of migrant communities has been termed ‘diaspora, a term that was   borrowed from its traditional role in describing the dispersal of Jewish people, and it carries with it ideas of banishment and trauma, suggesting ‘a linkage asserted in the context of exile from a homeland, and a unity maintained in varying circumstances confronting a scattered population. Beginning with the slave trade and continuing with indentured labour and the economic migrations of the later twentieth century, the British Empire was a significant force in the global migrations of successive communities of African and Asian peoples.   Postcolonial literature and the theories that it has produced addresses the issue of migration and the dismantling of the European imperial and colonial enterprise.There are two important strands to postcolonial discourse that, rather than opposing one another, are often overlapping and inter-related: the first is one that might be termed pessimistic in that it concentrates on the debilitating effects of colonialism and the racism with which it went hand in hand, and the second is a more optimistic view of the transformative power of migration discourses that reveal that ‘truth is relative and that the shifting viewpoints of ‘outsiders and minorities have more to reveal about modern life than a totalising and deterministic central power.  Ã‚   The ‘pessimistic viewpoint is usually one that is concerned with militant protest and the recovery of history and culture that had previously been denigrated and undermined and it has to be seen in the context of the negative effects of loss and dislocation suffered under the colonial system.   Any examination of migration must devote attention to the economic and social conditions which cause migrant peoples to seek opportunities away from their home communities and the structures of colonialism were particularly conducive to population movements, usually forced or encouraged by Britain for its own economic advantage.   The late twentieth century migration of Caribbean and Asian people to Britain was initiated by Britain for economic reasons and was accomplished by the combined mechanisms of active government policy and the poor living conditions which many hoped to escape. It is clear that the economic rationale for the system of colonialism was exploitation and colonies inevitably remained underdeveloped because they were used as sources of cheap raw materials. Poverty was endemic; work was unskilled, low paid and intermittent; the reliance on foreign capital gave overseas companies a stranglehold over the economy; processed goods were all imported, including most staple food stuffs; housing was overcrowded and lacking in sanitation; the child labour force was large; spending on education was low and illiteracy was widespread .  Ã‚  Ã‚   The neglect of any political development towards self-determination and independence was also a feature of twentieth century British colonialism: executive control was centralised in the British parliament and, prior to the independence movements of the nineteen sixties, any expression of local government was chiefly confined to the representatives of the colonial power.  Ã‚   The denial of the cultural heritage of the black peoples of the Empire was also a vital part of the colonising process.   It particularly affected those who were able to become educated through the system of providing scholarships to the most able pupils, who continued their studies to secondary and sometimes university level.   All education was dictated by European standards French, Spanish, Latin, English literature, English history were all taught, whilst local history and geography were ignored.   The language of education was standard English: local accents, vocabularies and grammatical constructions were denied a voice.   The intention was to inculcate a sense of loyalty and belonging to Britain, creating a local educated elite whose knowledge and values were determined by colonial rather than national standards.  Ã‚  Ã‚   The long-term effect of this has been variously interpreted: Caribbean writer Kenneth Ramchand has written of a ‘cultural void‘   a nd poet Edward Kamau Brathwaite has referred to the ‘fragmented culture‘   of the Caribbean.   Yet Amon Saba Saakana claims that the indigenous communities retained many of their African characteristics and were in conflict with the imposed colonial culture official culture may have been European, but many aspects of the alternative African culture remained intact, even though under siege.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Such diversity of opinion illustrates the dilemma of a society which had traditionally been unable to develop any real perception of itself, except in the terms dictated by an imperial foreign power.   It is impossible to ignore the fact that, for the first generations of twentieth century colonial and postcolonial writers, the system under which they were educated was colonial in outlook and many of them continue to be preoccupied by their responses to European influence and the artefacts of European culture.   For the individual growing up in a colonial society, the difficulty of developing any real sense of self was compounded by the constant conflict between the standards and values of the indigenous community and the official norms imposed by the ruling power; a dual sense of perception was often the result of these competing discourses.   The image of a psyche that is alienated, divided, open to exploitation, overawed and unable to assert itself in the face of the imperial aggressor particularly pervaded the earlier literature which was concerned with migration (for example in Jean Rhyss Voyage in the Dark or V.S. Naipauls The Mimic Men). The twentieth century had thus perpetuated its own version of the nineteenth century discourse that figures the colonial subject as child-like and in need of parental protection.   Although the historical evidence suggests the contrary that, in the Caribbean at least, colonialism was aggressively imposed and required the stationing of quite large garrisons of troops to suppress opposition throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries  Ã‚   nonetheless, until quite recently the belief in the passivity and powerlessness of the local population was widely held and has found its way into literature.   The myth of British superiority therefore had to be confronted when migrants had a firsthand experience of Britain and it is the dismantling of this myth that can be seen as a vital aspect of the postcolonial literary project.   One of the seminal texts of postcolonial literary theory is entitled The Empire Writes Back and this aspect of   ‘writing back t o the imperial power, when previously colonised peoples create work which ‘adopts, adapts, and often rejects the established European models has become a key idea in postcolonial literature.  Ã‚  Ã‚   From this idea of the liberating of postcolonial voices and the opening up of a new form of discourse a second, more optimistic, strand of thought has developed that is particularly concerned with the postcolonial experience of migration.   For writers such as Salman Rushdie and Hanif Kureishi, the newly emergent identities of migrants can be sites of excitement, new possibilities, and even privilege. The migrant seems in a better position than others to realise that all systems of knowledge, all views of the world, are never totalising, whole or pure, but incomplete, muddled and hybrid.   To live as a migrant may well evoke the pain of loss and of not being firmly rooted in a secure place; but it is also to live in a world of immense possibility with the realisation that new knowledges and ways of seeing can be constructed out of the myriad combinations of the ‘scraps‘ which Rushdie describes knowledges which challenge the authority of older ideas of rootedness and fixity. The cultural commentator Homi K Bhabha, in his book The Location of Culture emphasises this notion of marginality and regards the crossing of boundaries as an exciting new departure in the construction of identity, not merely in terms of the individual, but also for communities.   The migrant has a crucial role:Standing at the border, the migrant is empowered to intervene actively in the transmission of cultural inheritance or tradition (of both the home and the host land) rather than passively accept its venerable customs and pedagogical wisdom. The argument is that hybridity, liminality and the postcolonial condition are positive and productive and it forms the basis of a more optimistic reaction to the essentially negative history of slavery, Empire and colonisation.   However, it is possible for this approach to be seen as over-optimistic, in that it is produced from a cosmopolitan and educated elite (Rushdies experience of migration consisted in being educated at a top British public school and later joining the celebrity literary society of London and New York).   Smith warns that, for many migrants, ‘disconnection is not necessarily a comfortable state of being and that there is a danger in celebrating a very privileged form of mobility and in ignoring typical, everyday experience of localized forms of control and resistance. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the first substantial number of Caribbean migrants travelled to Britain on the S.S. Empire Windrush in 1948, and were greeted at Tilbury Dock by newspaper reporters whose banner headlines read ‘Welcome Home‘.  Ã‚   The idea of Britain as ‘home was one which had been deliberately encouraged in the British Empire and had served to alienate colonial peoples from their actual homelands.   Once in Britain, the idea of home was transposed onto the places that had been left behind.   Home therefore became a contradictory idea and was displaced from actuality into the imagination, never in the here-and-now, but always in the desired future or the remembered past.   John McLeod utilises Salman Rushdies essay ‘Imaginary Homelands to argue that the migrant experiences the concept of home as ‘primarily a mental construct built from the odds and ends of memory that survive from the past,  Ã‚  Ã‚   yet it is a lso true to say that, for many migrants, ‘home had always had a dual aspect: it was partly situated in the the ideologically determined concept that was the originating location of British education, law, language and culture but it was also located in their ancestral homelands in Asia or Africa.   The migrant experience is therefore one of liminality, poised on the threshold, never fully occupying the space called ‘home.   Just as identity within the colonial context was a contested site of contradictions, so the effect of migration on identity has become a recurrent theme of tension and conflict.   The ways in which postcolonial writers have found methods of replying and re-writing, rejecting, utilising and transforming European traditions and canons of literature has been complicatedly affected by migration.   As Anne McClintock remarks, the ‘tenacious legacies of imperialism continue to dictate ‘the sanctioned binaries colonizer-colonized, self-other, dominance-resistance, metropolis-colony, colonial-postcolonial, making strategic opposition problematic: ‘such binaries run the risk of simply inverting, rather than overturning, dominant notions of power‘.  Ã‚   The existence of these binaries is often explored thematically in the literature and can be detected in the oppositions of the past and the present; the places from and to which the migration occurs; the wider so ciety and the individual; the language and culture of two (or more) places.   The perpetual tension created by the contradictions of postcolonial experience is explored through these oppositional themes.   The sense of self and the identity of the migrant is thus a divided one and, whether optimistic or pessimistic in outlook, the creative fertility of this division is what the postcolonial writer seeks to explore. By reading a few examples of postcolonial literature it is possible to weigh the positive and negative strands of theory and to explore to what extent the writers demonstrate that the contradictions and complications of migration and the muddle and pain of rootlessness have been outweighed by the excitement of discovering a fertile site of new identity. In the discussion that follows, the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson and Grace Nichols will be explored, together with David Dabydeens novel The Intended and Ayub Khan-Dins play and film East is East.   Not every work will necessarily be discussed in each chapter, as the different literary works exemplify the experience of migration in differing ways.   However, the thematic concerns of all of these works will, it is hoped, be seen to be so closely intertwined that each chapter will represent a facet of the whole. The contrasting experiences of the past and present of the migrants experience is a common theme within much of the literature of migration.   As has been previously discussed, the colonial past was a brutalising political system.   David Dabydeen has taken up the theme of migration in Caribbean literature in terms of the shattering of illusions, ‘trauma and alienation‘, ‘personal disintegration and ‘shared vulnerability and dependence‘.  Ã‚   His novel The Intended is intensely concerned with the colonial past and he uses Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness as its inspiration and organising theme.   Dabydeens view of Conrads novel can be summarised by his comments from his A Readers Guide to West Indian and Black British Writing:Conrads Heart of Darkness offers a powerful denunciation of the horrors of Imperialism in its depiction of the cruelty of Europeans and the decimation of native Africans.   In the greed for ivory and quick profit, life is smashed up and squandered. Dabydeen comments on the confusion, grotesqueness and absurdity depicted in the novel as the hallmarks of imperialism and he contrasts the brutal reality with the dreams and aspirations which had originally impelled it.   The figure of Kurtz degenerates from noble idealism to a squalid end:At the beginning, he is a classical missionary figure, full of noble ideals about torch-bearing, about setting the bush alight with the concepts of European civilization. †¦ Instead of the fulfilment of these burning ideals, Kurtz degenerates into an emaciated figure crawling on all fours and the only burning that takes place in the novel is fire which destroys the grass shed and which exposes the Europeans as ineffectual buffoons in their attempts to control it.   Conrads theme is the turning of a dream into a sort of confused nightmare and Dabydeen has used this idea as the theme of his own novel.   For Dabydeens migrants, the journey from Europe to Africa is reversed, but their migration from their homelands to London, the heart of Empire, has a similarly brutalising and corrupting effect.   They also experience a descent into corruption, as they become increasingly involved in prostitution and pornography.   Whilst the desire to exploit the commodity of ivory is the motivating force for Conrads empire builders, Dabydeen turns this desire into an exploitation of white female flesh as a commodity.   Dabydeen has used Kurtzs name for his fiancà ©e ‘the intended as an ironic title for his own book in order to highlight the gap between aspiration and actuality.   The narrators comment to his girlfriend, Janet, reveals to him and to the reader this gap: ‘But you are fragrant, you are everything I intended, I blurted out, the words seeming to come from nowhere, and as soon as they were uttered, sounding foolish.   In one accidental sentence I had finally confessed all the dreams that I had stuttered out to her in a year of meetings, always trying to structure the expression of my desire for her so as to make it impersonal, philosophic, universal, but always failing, my plain needs leaking through the cracks in words. However, in this very ability to articulate himself, the narrator, like Conrads Marlow, shows him able to distance himself and thus survive the brutality that surrounds him.   This is in contrast to figure of Joseph, who, in committing suicide by setting light to himself, recalls the futility of Kurtzs ‘burning ideals.   Throughout Dabydeens novel, Joseph is depicted as the person least involved in European culture.   The narrator imbibes European culture through his contact with Western literature, as he reads Chaucer, Milton and Conrad.   Illiteracy frees Joseph from these influences and he is often depicted as a character who can take an outside, alternative view of things.   His adoption of Rastafarianism also aligns him with a more elemental Africanness and a closer association with his Jamaican origins.   Joseph stands outside European culture and is therefore a more trenchant critic of its negative forces.   It is he who comments that ‘Ivory is the heart of the white man  Ã‚  Ã‚   and he similarly exposes the sterility of the narrators attitude to literature in the dissection of poetry that is an   uncritical mimic of his teachers methods: Poetry is like bird†¦ Joseph remarks, You turning all the room in the universe and in the human mind into bird cage.  Ã‚   Yet Jo seph is unable to use his insight to gain freedom.   He is repeatedly confounded by his own ignorance, even to the extent of being unable properly to operate the video camera which is his chosen method of intercepting and interpreting his experiences.   His attempt to film ‘the wind as it brushed against the   leaves †¦ capturing on film the invisibility of the wind leaves him ‘dangling dangerously by the waist high up in a tree and is misunderstood by witnesses as an attempted suicide.  Ã‚   Such an image is used to evoke other familiar images of slaves being punished, particularly one which Dabydeen has used in his own article on ‘Eighteenth-century literature on commerce and slavery (see below).  Ã‚   This illustration was based on a 1773 eyewitness description.   The background shows skulls on posts reminiscent of a scene in Heart of Darkness and also alludes to Josephs preoccupation with bones and skeletons. It appears, therefore, that Josephs function in the novel is to represent the past in which the enslaved African was denied access to education and so was rendered inarticulate and, in terms of history, silent.   Joseph is eventually reduced to crouching in a derelict building, emaciated and silent, vainly attempting to scratch letters into the soil with a stick.   He has been unable to organise and record his experience in anything but confused and fragmentary images and in this way Dabydeen demonstrates the inarticulacy of the state of slavery and the ways in which modern historians and writers must reconstruct a past from inadequate evidence.   In telling Josephs story, the narrator of The Intended preserves Josephs history through the written word, but, just as in the history of slavery, it must always be a third person narration because, without access to reading and writing, Josephs own I is lost when he himself dies. Although it has been argued that the characters in Dabydeens novel ‘suddenly materialize, having no history, the past as empty as their pockets   this is not true, for Dabydeen is using the past figuratively and the past of his characters is often not a personal one, but is implied by their relationship to history.   The novels narrative swings between the past, present and future of the narrators experience, relating his sense of ‘shame and unreality in the present, as he feels himself to be in a state of suspension between the past from which he has come and the future to which he aspires.   For him, the past and the future are always present, creating conflicting images of who he is, what he has been and what he will become.   In this way, he demonstrates the constant crossing and re-crossing of temporal boundaries and thus lives in the liminality of which Home K Bhabha has written.    Dabydeen is not unique in his attempt to come to terms with the violence of colonial history and the aspiration towards a different future.   East is East illustrates the relationship between the past and the present through the intergenerational conflict in the Khan household.   The Khan children have no memory of a past elsewhere because they have been born in Britain; instead they are an example of the youthful offspring of the migrant generation who have an uncertain sense of where they truly belong and are alienated by their inability to find acceptance in the host community.   Having little or no sense of their past, their fragmented responses to identity are governed by their differing attempts to ‘assimilate‘.   George Kahn‘s inability to relate to his children and their aspirations symbolises the tension between the past and the present.   Though he is frustrated by his own inability to govern his family in traditional Pakistani ways and though he has failed to inculcate Muslim values into his children, George has a strong sense of his personal identity which his children seem to lack.   He is concerned at the current war in Kashmir   and he has a sense of personal involvement, feeling members of his family to be at risk.   The progress of this conflict on the television and radio acts as a background noise in the familys life, just as the past of colonial conflict is a background to their current situation.   The British Raj had united the disparate parts of the Indian subcontinent, but with independence came partition and the creation of East and West Pakistan.   The political events to which the film alludes are the rumblings of war and discontent which continued into the 1970s, with the separation of Pakistan and Bangladesh.  Ã‚   The past seems to offer no hope for the alienated generation of children who have been born in Britain.   The history of empire, whose repercussions continue to be felt, both poli tically in Asia and culturally in Salford, does not seem to offer a transformative or positive trope for the characters in Khan-Din‘s drama. Linton Kwesi Johnsons central concern is with this generation that has little or no sense of a past elsewhere or of the history which has moulded their identity.   In his work the theme of   ‘giving voice to the present and making sense of the past is always significant.   He has commented on the positive effects for the older generation of having memories with which to identify: ‘at least we could still identify with home because we came from somewhere else†¦ [Young people] born in this country †¦ dont have any other home to identify with.  Ã‚  Ã‚   In this way, he describes the migrant experience of ‘routes that have to act as a substitute for ‘roots, as McGill argues: ‘Preferring routes to roots, Johnson operates in what Homi Bhabha calls the â€Å"interstitial passage between fixed identifications.†Ã‚  Ã‚   Thus, Johnson can juxtapose his current experience of Britain with his memories of a distant homeland in very overt ways , for example in the trope of the letter home in ‘Sonnys Lettah (Anti-Sus Poem).   This poem illustrates Johnsons strategy in its title, by uniting the writers relationship with the past (as a son, he is explicitly identifying his place within the generations of history) and the present political situation (the hated sus law which enabled police to stop and search and was perceived as a racist weapon against young black men).   The poem opens with the address ‘Brixtan Prison / Jebb Avenue / Landan south-west two / Inglan which by its spelling, defamiliarises Britain.   The following greeting, Dear Mama, / Good Day, is rendered in normal English spelling, yet it uses an expression that is specific to Jamaica, since Good Day is not a way in which a British person would begin a letter.   Johnson is thus re-working both the spelling and familiar modes of British address in order to weld the past of Sonnys warm and secure childhood to the brutality and grief of the pr esent experience of Britain.   Johnsons elegiac attitude to the ‘home of Jamaica is also clear in his poems Reggae fi Dada and ‘Jamaican Lullaby‘, which both exemplify the importance of memory in the present and a connection to the past from which the migrant has come. In her poem One Continent/To Another, Grace Nichols demonstrates that it is futile to separate the theme of past and present from the sense of place.   The passage of slaves and later migrants moving from one continent to another is a transition in space as well as time.   In her book I is a Long Memoried Woman, Nichols seeks to relate the past to the present by her focus on the subject of slavery and in poems such as One Continent/To Another she describes the experience of the slave as a movement in time and space: from the past of bleeding memories in the darkness to the future of ‘piecing the life she would lead‘.   Nichols uses the confusion between beginnings and endings to suggest the notion that past, present and future are simultaneous: Being born a womanshe moved againknew it was the Black Beginningthough everything said it wasthe end. This is an example of what Easton describes as ‘the imaginative, in particular metaphoric processes by which Nichols transforms the historical African-Caribbean female experience into positive images.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Easton also comments that ‘Forgetting †¦ is to be silenced.  Ã‚   Just as Joseph in The Intended is silenced by his inability to record his experiences, so in the work of Nichols, the inability to call up memories is another form of silencing of the past and, through it, the present.   In the poem One Continent/To Another Nichols uses the repeating of a negative phrase to convey a positive sense of the past when she describes the woman who hasnt forgotten / hasnt forgotten.   As the title of this poetry collection suggests, the theme of memory is central to Nicholss intention and her construction of memory as a double negative in this poem not merely remembering, but, more importantly, not forgetting illustrates the experience of memories that on the surface are emphatically negative but that can actually be transformed into the positive and life-giving experience of the present.   In this way, Nichols transforms the memory of the experience of slavery into a discussion of the present experience of migration.   One Continent/To another records the first experience of enforced migration: that of the slaves in the middle passage womb of crossing the Atlantic who encounter a metaphorical giving birth to a new New World self.   Each migrant experiences the sense of figuratively stumbl[ing] onto the shore, being dragged down, thirsting, the disorientation of displacement, yet Nichols turns this negative, bereft of fecundity into her final affirmation of the future: the life she would lead.   Nichols thus succeeds in changing an essentially brutal experience into one of affirmation and strength.   The transformational potency of migration is thus embedded not in the experience itself, but in the memory of survival and in th e imaginative power of the migrant.   In this way Nicholss work can be interpreted as an example of the power of the imagination over the ‘scraps of disparate experience to which Salman Rushdie refers (as discussed by John McLeod, above). For David Dabydeen, too, the time shifts in the narration of The Intended are also geographical shifts.   Large portions of the book are concerned with the narrators childhood in Guyana and these memories of a distant homeland which are juxtaposed upon his experience of Britain.   During the time of the period of the British Empire there was always a sense that England and especially London was the dominant metropolitan centre, while the colonial homeland was regarded as dominated periphery and was denigrated as inferior.   Unable to define themselves, except in contradistinction to the imperial centre, the inhabitants of the colonies looked upon their own homelands with a sense of unreality because they were undefined in terms of the dominant colonial discourses.   In seeking to create his own homeland as a setting for his novel, Dabydeen creates multiple literary landscapes, not only enshrining London and Oxford as markers of education and achievement, but also giving sta tus to the homeland in which his imagination was formed. Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin have discussed the crisis of migration in terms of the ambivalent relationship between identity and place that often distinguished the colonial experience:A major feature of postcolonial literatures is the concern with place and displacement.   It is here that the special postcolonial crisis of identity comes into being; the concern with the development or recovery of an effective identifying relationship between self and place. For the postcolonial writer, to re-cast their own homeland as a reference point against which to see Britain is a reversal of the pattern of the past in which all other countries were contrasted with the ‘normative core of British literature, landscape and history.  Ã‚   What is perhaps most crucial to Dabydeens use of Guyana as a setting is its interweaving with the narrators experience of London in a way that always tends to dominate and qualify London.   For example, in his first reference to Guyana, the narrator begins with a metaphor: I walked down Bedford Hill feeling sorry for myself, wishing I had a family to go home to.   Nasims mother was like my grandmother who waited by the roadside and when I stepped of the bus at Albion Village would take my hand tightly in hers and lead me

Industrial Training At Malaysian Agriculture Research Commerce Essay

Industrial Training At Malaysian Agriculture Research Commerce Essay This report briefly summarizes throughout my industrial training at Malaysian Agriculture Research and Development Institute Kuala Terengganu. The industrial training period began from 25th June 2012 until 16th August 2012 under the Department of Promotion and Technology Development. The objectives of this report are to provide details information about MARDI and its function especially for this MARDI Kuala Terengganu station. The briefing of tasks and activities throughout the training, challenges and solutions, knowledge and skills required, and as the training to expose student to the real workplace environment. This report also covers some of the activities and tasks during my training period there. The activities included in this report are specifically focus on the food processing and the technology, projects with entrepreneurs, the renovation and upgrade the Technology Information Center and also the still ongoing research on use of GenKimo fertilizer on hybrid sweet corn crops. The challenges such as given a task within constraints of time, less skills in operating the machine and less experience in food processing were had been solved. Some of the valuable experiences that I gained are on time management, communication skills, teamwork, food processing processes and creative thinking. TABLE OF CONTENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Industrial training program is one of the elective courses which are the most chosen by students to make up their credit hours of kuliyyah in order for them to complete their undergraduate studies. Industrial training is an important program because it will provide the students with academic and professional education in their courses. With practical working experience the students will enhance their skill and capability hence they are exposed to the world of employment. Therefore, this report is prepared in order to fulfill the requirement of this training in order to know what the students actually do and get during their industrial training period. The objectives of this industrial training are to expose the students to the actual working environment, to enhance and supplement the knowledge and skills of the students, to develop the students in term of ability, competence and interpersonal relationship, to expose and familiarize the students to rules and regulations including safety, to develop the spirit of team work among the students and other working group members, and to assess the ability and competence of the students in preparing themselves to join the workforce upon the completion of their study This report is briefly summarizes and covers all the details information about this institute, the activities, the tasks and functions that have been done and also the product or services provided by the institute and throughout my industrial training for the eight weeks starting from 25th June 2012 until 16th August 2012 under the Department of Promotion and Technology Development in MARDI Kuala Terengganu. Malaysia Agriculture Research and Development Institute (MARDI) Kuala Terengganu is the main station in Terengganu state. It plays an important role as the references center for all parties especially for entrepreneurs in improving and establishing their products. Besides, this station also involved in the development of food processing technology based on fish and active in giving advice, producing new products, providing modern technology in food processing and monitoring and help the entrepreneurs market their products. The activities done in this station such, organize the development programs of IKS in agriculture and farming industry, activities connect industry with department, agency and industry parties that involve in process of technology transferring and innovation technology, training entrepreneurs through the test-bed technology facilities for fish-based products, execute activities related to development and transferring of technology to the target group especially public sector and small farmer, and do research in technology processing for fish-based products. As an industrial trainings student, I was asking to involve and follow the activities done by the station and at the same time gain knowledge while working on with the entrepreneurs. In addition, I also involve in the new research project of MARDI in testing the effectiveness of GenKimo fertilizer on hybrid sweet corn and also helping renovate and upgrade the Technology Information Center of the station. Thus, from all the activities and tasks given and done, I get a lot of knowledge about MARDI itself, the food processing technology, the machine operation, and learn how MARDI help the entrepreneur in marketing their products. ESTABLISHMENT AND BACKGROUND OF MARDI Introduction MARDI (Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute) is a statutory body known as the Agricultural Research Institute of Malaysia to carry out research work in agriculture, food, and agro-based. The MARDI research efforts have generated many new varieties and clones of plants, animal breeds and management systems, as well as the latest technology and post-harvest food processing have been developed for horticultural and livestock products. In addition to carrying out contract research and development (R D) projects, MARDI also provides technical and entrepreneurial development in food technology, agriculture and other fields related to the industry. The technical services provided in the form of advice, consultancy, technical training, laboratory services and quality assurance analysis, processing and product development and technology up-scaling. Establishment and background MARDI was established with the primary objective of generating and promoting new technology, appropriate and efficient for the development of food industry, agriculture and agro-based industries. MARDI Act 1969 has led to the establishment of MARDI on October 28, 1969. MARDI was fully operational in 1971. MARDI managed and driven in accordance with policies and regulations of the Board of Governors decided with the concurrence of Mardi Agriculture and Agro-based Industry. For financial matters, the Minister of Finance is also required. MARDI Scientific Council will ensure that the technical program MARDI level of quality and maximum effectiveness. Functions To conduct research in the scientific, technical, economic, and social construction of the production, use and processing of crops, livestock and food. To serve as a center for collecting and disseminating information and advisory services relating to matters of scientific, technical and food-related economic, agricultural and agro-based industries. To serve as a center providing specialist services in food, agriculture and agro-based. Provides for various types of training to meet the development needs of food, agriculture and agro-based. Assistance grants allocated for pure research and applied scientific, technical, and economic and development related to food, agriculture and agro-based industries. To maintain liaison or statutory body with public and private organizations as well as foreigners who are involved in scientific research, technical, economic and social issues related to food, agriculture and agro-based. To conduct research and commercial production. To develop, promote and exploit the research results. To serve the agricultural industry, food and agriculture based. Achievements Amendments to MARDI Act (1990) which allowing MARDI to be involved in commercialization activities and subsequently ensued by the establishment of MARDITech Corporation Sdn. Bhd. (1992). The Act was further amended (2002). Yielding MARDIs certification with ISO 9001:1994 for quality management (1998) and ISO quality cap was earned when MARDIs analytical laboratory was accredited with MS ISO/EC 17025 (2001), followed by MARDI being MS ISO 9001:2000 (2004). Establishment of MARDIs Test-Beds and incubators (2005). Embracing of K-management as an operational culture (2005). MARDI organizational restructuring (1st February 2002). Establishment of additional research stations including in Sabah and Sarawak, based on agro-climatic zones and also in Mali and Malawi in Africa. International recognition through collaborative networking with research organizations and universities in USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, China, ASEAN, and EU countries. Vision To be a world-renowned RD organization in food, agriculture and bio-based industries by 2015. Mission To create, innovate, transfer and apply knowledge, competencies and services to transform the national food, agriculture and bio-based industries towards increased commercialization and competitiveness. Customer Charter MARDI determined to produce appropriate technology, sustainable and viable and provide technology leadership to customers involved in the development of food and agriculture sector with dedication and professionalism. To achieve this, Mardi constantly strive to satisfy our customers by: Produce 40 year technology with the potential for increased scale, pioneer or commercialized for the benefit of the food, agriculture and related industries. Improving the performance of the target groups through the use of technology Providing services related to the development of quality food and agriculture sector and accredited based on international standards. Provide customer feedback on the status of application advice, information, training and expertise in technology-based Mardi within seven working days. Manage the payment for supplies and services within 14 days from the date of receipt of complete documents from the supplier. MARDI Quality Policy MARDI is committed to: Develop and promote appropriate and viable technology for customers in the food industry, agriculture and agro-based industries Comply with the requirements of quality management system and continually improve Once a year review objectives and quality policy at Management Review Meetings to ensure continuing suitability Disseminate this quality policy to all responsibility center (RC) in MARDI and displays them in Mardi intranet site. MARDI KUALA TERENGGANU Industry Profile There are four MARDIs stations in Terengganu which are: Kuala Terengganu MARDI station Jerangau MARDI station Kemaman MARDI station Besut MARDI station MARDI Kuala Terengganu in Manir began operating in 1990, it is formerly known as the Seri Culture MARDI Research Station Kuala Terengganu. This station research and operation is mainly under food processing and technology fish-based products. In 2000, fish processing station of Department of Food Technology MARDI at Jalan Balik Bukit, Kuala Terengganu had been transferred its operation to Kuala Terengganu MARDI station. Kuala Terengganu MARDI station is located 10km from Kuala Terengganu via Kuala Terengganu-Kelantan road and near to Pekan Manir. The main objectives of the establishment of this station are to support any activities of transferring and commercialization of technologies also research and innovation of technologies related to fish-based products. Besides, it also responsible to provide the infrastructure and supporting services to any transferring of technologies and study also expansion of income by optimizing the usage of natural resources. In addition, the main activities at this station are under the Food Technology Center, Promotion and Technology Development Center and Station Management Center. These three central undergo different researches and functions such the functions of Food Technology Center are do the research to produce new technology especially in the field of after-pharming and processing of fisheries products, provide technical training for food and agriculture entrepreneurs and staff of government departments and agencies, and provide advice to entrepreneurs. The function of Promotion and Technology Development Center is to promote activities, technology transfer and commercialization that has been produced by MARDI while the Station Management Center function is to manage all the activities of all four Terengganu MARDI stations and manage the administration systems. Functions of MARDI Kuala Terengganu station Promotion activities, transferring technology and commercialization that has been produced for the eastern MARDI using mechanization: Seminar, forum and industry dialog Exposure to mass media and publications Technical training Technical services Development of SMEs entrepreneurs Technology incubator services Support station by doing research on food technology especially development of fisheries products. Do research about food technology to formulate new technologies especially in the field of handling the harvest and processing of fisheries products. Supply the technical training for food and agriculture entrepreneurs to government employees and agencies. Provide the analysis service laboratory to do research for food industry. Placement staff to perform functions on technology transfer, research, management and administration. PROMOTION AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CENTER (MARDI KUALA TERENGGANU) Objectives To develop a technology transfer system can improve efficiency and effectiveness of technology innovation and commercialization of Mardi Increase and accelerate the use of technology among small farmers and traditional producers of agricultural products. To develop small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) in technology-based agricultural production and agro-based products. To introduce the new technology that provides Test-Bed food processing facilities and products for entrepreneurs. Programs Entrepreneur Development Program Entrepreneur Support Services Entrepreneur Guidance Service Adoption Scheme Special Projects of Entrepreneur Development Industry Liaison Program Technology promotion Technology Forum Industry Information Development and Technology Transfer Program Technology Development Technology Transfer Publishing Technology Test-Bed Technology System Test-bed technology system MARDI is one of the forms of support organized under the Entrepreneur Development Program. This system aims to improve the success of the small and medium enterprise in the production of food products through the use of technology. It was launched and opened up on 7th June 2012 by Y. Bhg Dato Mohd Hashim bin Abdullah, Chief Secretary Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry. The two main functions of this system are processing laboratory equipped with machinery, equipment and small-scale production facility for selected food products and stimulate technology innovation process among entrepreneurs who want to expand and improve the quality and competitiveness of products in the market. Services Offered in Test-Bed Production technology Handling machine and equipment Formulation and use of appropriate materials Packaging, designing, labeling and presenting of products Quality assessment and product analysis GMP and HACCP certificate Supporting technology Innovation DESCRIPTION OF TASKS AND ACTIVITIES Production of Keropok Lekor Overview: Some call them fish fritters, fish sausages or fish sticks but in Terengganu, they are called keropok. All districts produce their own keropok but the famous ones are none better than those found in Kampong Losong in Kuala Terengganu. Keropok lekor are actually made from processed fish meat mixed with salt and sagoo flour. This mixture is then rolled into sausage shaped around 6 to 10 inches long and immediately cooked. It is a great afternoon snack normally dipped in Terengganus equally famous chili sauce. They are made up of fish, flour and other ingredients. For Keropok Lekor, you can eat it in two ways. Deep fried or boiled. If you dont really like the fishy smell, then better to take the deep fried as sometime the boiled one will have some fishy smell, especially when they are no longer hot. Ingredients: Selayang meat Tamban meat Sagoo flour Sugar Salt Ajinomoto flavor Ice Methods: Minch the fish meats in surimi blocks cutting machine. Add some ice cubes and continue mincing the fish meat. Add sago flour and water. The mixture is stirred until it becomes soft dough in cross mixer machine. The mixture is made into a cylindrical shape by forming machine. Boil the water in versatile cookware. Add in one or two knotted pandan leaves. Drop the keropok lekor into the boiling water for about 30-35 minutes. Wait for it to cool before keep in freezer for storage and also can be eaten like that without fry. Notes: By using several machines in the processing, the making of keropok lekor become easier compared to traditional hand method. Besides, the shape of the keropok lekor looks nice and uniform. Production of Modern Frozen Sata and Otak-otak Overview: Sata is a concoction of fish meat with shallot and ginger paste, bask in coconut milk, are wrapped in banana leaf, folded into a shape of a cone, and stuck on the bamboo stick and barbequed over a low charcoal fire. Most famous are the sata from Kuala Kemaman. Through word of mouth, the place is flocked by locals as well as visitors from other states to get a taste of this delicious delicacy complete with coconut drinks. The stalls are actually the extension of villagers house and visitors can also get a taste of slow-paced traditional way of life. But today, sata can be available in frozen packaging. Rather than the usual mince fish otak-otak most people have accustomed to, this otak-otak or fish mousse is a fish based delicacy of which slices of fish are marinated and soaked in a thickly coated spices, mince shallots, onions, ginger, chilies and wrapped in banana leaves. The concoction is then wrapped in coconut leaf and cooked over a slow charcoal fire. Some places minced the fish meat with its spices while the famous ones in Kuala Kemaman still concocted the whole fish meat coated with spices. Some otak-otak use concoctions of prawn, squid or crab meat which gives choice of preferences to food lovers. Frozen otak-otak are becoming popular nowadays. Ingredients: (Sata Otak-otak) Fish meat Grated coconut Surimi Onion Sugar Chilies Salt Modified starch Ice Methods: All the ingredients are mixed up well by using the surimi blocks cutting machine and rotary mixer machine. The dough form is shaped by using nugget forming machine. The sata and otak-otak are baked in oven for about 20 minutes at 170-200Â °C. After that the sata and otak-otak are blast-freeze by using blast-freezing equipment. Then they are packing and keep under -20Â °C. Notes: Sata and otak-otak processing techniques have been improved with the use of appropriate machinery and proper packaging material suitable for freezing. The use of coconut milk powder reduces the fat content to 2%. The quality of frozen sata and otak-otak can be maintained up to 5 months at -20Â °C. Production of Soy Milk Overview: Soy milk is made by soaking soybeans, grinding them with water. The fluid which results after straining is called soy milk. Soy milk is most commonly found in aseptic cartons. Most of the soy milk available in the market is flavored and fortified with extra calcium or vitamins. Some producers add thickeners to their soy milk to give it a mouth feel of cows milk. Traditionally, soy milk has a beany taste which is well accepted by the Chinese, but less by the Western palate. Ingredients: Soy beans Water Sugar Pandan leaves Methods: Clean the soya beans and soak them in water before tossed. Grind the soy beans with water in ratio 1:7. Filter the mixture through a cheese cloth and recover the soy milk. Heat the soy milk till boiling point, add sugar and continue boiling for about 5 to 10 minutes. After cooling, the soy milk is ready and can be kept in the fridge for another 3 days. Notes: Can keep fresh soy milk for up to 3 days in the refrigerator. This is totally preservative-free. Production of Tau foo fa Overview: Tau Fu Fa, also known as soy custard or silken tofu pudding is a silky-smooth Chinese dessert that seems to glide effortlessly down your throat. Some like it hot, some like it cold, and there are quite a few different ways to enjoy this dessert. The process of making the tau fu fa is almost similar to that of making soy bean drink, and what makes it different is the additional step of adding in a curdling agent to set the dish. Usually the curdling agent is either gypsum powder or glucono delta-lactone (GDL) mixed with a small amount of water and corn flour, and they work to harden the soy mixture and help it set. Ingredients: (Tau Foo Fa) Soy beans Water Glucono delta-lactone curdling agent Corn flour (Syrup) Rock sugar Knotted pandan leaves Water Methods: (Tau Foo Fa) Blend soy beans in batches with water in ratio 1:5. Strain the soy bean mixture through a muslin cloth into a large cooking pot and discard the residues. Bring soy bean milk to a boil over medium heat. Mix curdling agent, cornflour and water in another bowl. Pour mixture into boiling pot and mix thoroughly. Turn the heat off and cover the pot with a lid. Set aside in a heat proof container for approximately 30 minutes to let the mixture set. Do not open the lid until after 30 minutes. (Syrup) Mix rock sugar, pandan leaves and water in another smaller pot. Boil over low heat until mixture thickens to reflect syrup. (Tau Foo Fa Syrup) Dish out set Tau Foo Fa, layer by layer onto a bowl. Ensure you use a flat ladle or a turner to scoop out the layers. Drizzle with sugar syrup. Notes: I would advise using GDL powder, which is a naturally occurring food additive, instead of gypsum powder, which is made of calcium sulphate as it is said to be disadvantageous to our health. Production of Fish Burger (Tilapia) Overview: Ingredients: Methods: Notes: Production of Breaded Fish Fillet and Cutlet (Tilapia) Overview: Ingredients: Methods: Notes: Activities to Meet MARDI Adopted Entrepreneurs Overview: Meet the MARDI adopted entrepreneurs to see their business progress and to make sure that they follow MARDI evaluation and instructions. Apart from that, MARDI need to ask the entrepreneurs about their problems or difficulties and help them by giving they advise, information, and together find solutions for their problems. Entrepreneurs problems: SINKU Food Industries Sdn. Bhd. Market improved, ask MARDI to develop MA center auto keropok lekor cutting machine. Ask MARDI to contact the SME MARDI to overcome the difficulties to get the GMP for modification the cool room which is delayed due to no provision. NURIQ Enterprise Experiencing problems in obtaining halal certification for lack of capital for plant modifications. In the process of obtaining a halal certificate Malaysia. Hidayah Mohd Nasir Enterprise Ask MARDI to help to solve problems regarding soft texture of cincau. Ask for fried tofu course. BM Food Industries Sdn. Bhd. HACCP problems no writing explanation on sauce cooking temperature of 90-95 degrees Celsius, ask MARDI for the analysis of why the protein content in the oyster sauce is reduced. MADURA Industries Sdn. Bhd. Facing problems in the product the Sparkling Juice contain precipitate and cloudy. Activities in Test-Bed by Entrepreneurs Overview: AROMA WARISAN Entrepreneur: Ahmad Sabri Omar Product: Keropok lekor Duration: 3 months POK NOR SATA Entrepreneur: Mohd Sahir bin Mohd Nor Duration: 3 months Project of Sweet Corn Hibrimas Tested Using GenKimo Fertilizer Overview: Sweet corn hibrimas is one of the successful products from MARDI. We have an opportunity to visit to the Corn Farm located at area of Kuala Berang at twice. The first visit was to employ the Genkimo fertilizer and examine the effect to the corn trees. This type of fertilizer was applied immediately afler planted the tree. Then, the second visit was to measure the height of corn tree that have used Genkimo fertilizer. Under research: Project Title Survey of Farmers acceptance of Organic Fertilizer (GENKiMO) application on sweet corn field in Kuala Berang, Terengganu. Project Objective To investigate the effectiveness of using GENKiMO bio-organic fertilizer in improving the growth of Hibrimas among selected farmers To evaluate the viabilty of the projects Brief Description of Project (please include justification, key areas of research to be undertaken, and related research if any) GENKiMO is a biotechnology product, which means healthy probiotic microorganisms. It is a type of probiotic that contains live microorganisms which are mainly comprised of small bacteria such as lactobacillus-celled, yeast and photosynthetic bacteria. GENKiMO produced by natural fermentation and characterization using 100% of the local environment. Beneficial bacteria / effective, enzymes and acids help to increase the organic matter of internal health of livestock, improve environmental quality, enhance growth and disease resistance of plant growth, accelerate the decomposition of organic forces, restoring soil fertility and others. Background of Hibrimas: In 2008, MARDI collaborated with Green world genetics (GWG) and tropical fruit network (TFNET). The main purpose of this collaboration was is to evaluate 26 sweet corn hybrids for fresh consumption as well as canning purposes. From the preliminary evaluation, five potential sweet corn hybrids were selected. Selection were made based on the early maturing hybrid (65-68 days after planting), high yield (average yield of 250-300 g/cob), golden colored kernel with good kernel arrangement and uniform shape cob. From further evaluation over locations, the sweet 601 was found to the most leaf blight and the sweetness is within the range 14-15 brix. Besides, it also has tropical sweet corn hybrids which have the sh2 gene for sweetness. Potential of Commercialization: The mature Hibrimas are suitable for fresh consumption besides they also can be applying to many ways of cooking like boiling, grilling or steaming. However for hibrimas the most suitable way of cooking is by steaming fro not more than 10 minutes. This is to ensure the sweetness of hibrimas is retained. The kernel of the sweet corn can also be eaten as corn in cup or canned. Baby corn can also be harvested and eaten as vegetable. After harvesting the cob, the whole plant can be harvested and transformed into silage for animal feed or as composed fertilizer. Advantages of Hibrimas Corn: Hibrimas tree grows at an altitude of 200-220 cm capable of high productivity with an orderly arrangement of content. Good farming practices, proper drainage system and application of appropriate fertilization, capable high yield. Resistant to leaf blight disease. Able to provide results that many of the nearly 22.000 hectares of land and increase productivity because it is more fruitful in a shorter period of about 68 days after planting. CHALLENGES SOLUTIONS Along 8 weeks of internship, I have faced many challenges which need me to go through it and overcome them as quickly and proactively. The problems came sometimes can be handle but sometimes cannot. The most challenges I had faced was the skill to operate the machines that are used in food processing. Besides, the lack of knowledge about food processing cause by different study or course I sit for in university limit my actions and make me feel burdensome or boring. In addition, the working environment here is a bit challenging because I need to communicate and working together with the other senior staffs, need to do new things that I never done before this especially in food handling process which I had never learned before. At the same time, I need to stand with some of the male staffs whom like to tease five of us include me, the industrial training students which sometimes a bit annoying. The unpleasant stories heard from the staffs also one of the challengers to me. Although there are several challengers coming, I had never give up but always take it easy and manageable and see it from the positive side. Hence, the challengers in handling the machines and the tasks given which are likely not related to my study, I take it as easy and new matters in order to increase my experiences and knowledge thus, I can adapt with these situations quickly. Apart from that, the teasing and unpleasant stories heard, I take it as a spirit to prove them that I can do it and Im here not only to be an observer. I tried my best to involve in the activities and followed all the instructions and task given. Usually, if I faced a problem regarding my tasks, I would refer to my supervisor, En. Mohd Faiz bin Musa and other senior assistants and staffs that have many experiences and knowledge. They were always ready to help me so; I learn many new things from them and try to become creative thinking and ready to solve problems. The understanding in many fields of knowledge is not waste because it is important as a backup for us to face in everyday life and works soon. KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS THAT HAVE BEEN ACQUIRED Throughout the industrial training period, I have learned a lot of new knowledge and application which I did not get from my study in kuliyyah before. Here, I was assigned to do food processing of fish-based products, handled machines, involved in sensory evaluation and analyze the data, involved in new still ongoing research on the use and effect of GenKimo fertilizers on the hybrid sweet corn crops compared to other organic and chemical fertilizers and also some office tasks. Besides, I was participated in project with entrepreneurs for varieties of food processing and development. In term of skills, I learned to operate machines with standard of operation procedure (SOP). This includes ho

Jacqueline Kennedy Essay -- Biography

Jacqueline Kennedy is probably best known for her style, love of art and history, and family values. She never looked to be First Lady but took on the role she needed to. Sometimes people seemed more interested in her than the president himself. Jackie was more appealing than previous First Ladies. She was original and dignified. She helped increase the popularity of her husband. She did what was called from her while still maintaining who she was. She was an inspiration to women everywhere. She will always be remembered for being a powerful woman. She knew she wasn`t the classic First Lady material. â€Å"The trouble with me is that I`m an outsider. And that`s a very hard thing to be in American life† (Perry 53). She knew who she was and she went with it. She didn`t try and change for what people wanted her to be. Many people try to change to the image people want them to be but she didn`t Family was the most important thing to Jackie. â€Å"If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much† (Karen 37). She set a standard for mothers everywhere. â€Å"I’ll be a wife and mother first, then First Lady† (Klein 98). All that mattered to her was to be a family. She understood, no matter how important a position, family came first and always would. â€Å"The children have been a wonderful gift to me, and I’m thankful to have once again seen our world through their eyes. They restore my faith in the family’s future† (Anderson, 176). Her children were her world; everything she did was for them. She tried her best to be the perfect mother. She also valued her marriage. â€Å"Jacqueline wore a choker of pearls and a diamond bracelet that was a gift from the groom† (Bowles 63). She kept it simple and with great mea... ...ld have been very hard to tell her what to do. When someone is that comfortable with whom they are you cannot help but admire them. They are who they are and no one will ever be able to change that. They are above the trivial ways of trying to fit in to get people to like them. She had all she wanted, her family and the rest didn’t matter. No one would ever be able to shape her into what they want. She wasn’t out spoken but she didn’t let people use her. Isn’t that what makes heroism? She was someone who would never do something just because society told her. Isn’t that which make progress possible too? There are few ways progress can only be made by those who are willing to be different and not conform to society. Maybe that is what everyone liked about her, how she couldn’t be manipulated. She was always aware what was going on but it never caused her to change.