Production Planning Incorporate with Job Rotation and Work

Production Planning Incorporate with Job Rotation and Work Thesis/Project Title: Production Planning Incorporate with Job rotation and Work Injury by  Multi-Objective Criteria Courses Taken/Grades: Course Name Grade ME 460 Automation and Robotics in Manufacturing 84 ME 887 Introduction to Microsystems 85 ME 886 Advanced Engineering Design Methodology 88 BIOE 898 Special Topic 88 STAT 845 Statistical Methods for Research 90 GSR 960 Introduction to Ethics and Integrity CR Average Grade to Date:87% ME 990 Seminar:January 27th, 2016 Expected Completion Date:December, 2016 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.1. Background and Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.2. Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 LITERATURE REVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.1 Production Planning and Scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.2 HUMAN FACTOR IN PRODUCTION PLANNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3.2.1. Human Scheduling in Technical System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3.2.2. Human Work Related Injuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3.2.3. Leading Factors for Work Injuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.2.4. How We Reduce Work Injuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3.3 QUALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.3.1. Manufacturing Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.3.2. Dimensions of Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.4 JOB ROTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.4.1. Importance of Job Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3.4.2. Outcomes of Job Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3.4.3. Job Rotation as a Cost Effective Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3.5 WORK FORCE AGING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3.5.1. Aging Effect Worker Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3.5.2. Workforce Aging Effect on Production Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 TIMELINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background and Motivation In the last few years, the question of human well-being at the working place has come afore as a key issues in production planning and scheduling. The manufacturing productivity is affected by both the human and machine factors. However, much of the previous research has been focused on the machine aspect but the human aspect. The previous work considers not only the productivity but also the production cost, worker safety and machine utilization. Particularly, (Xu, 2015) demonstrated the significance of work injury to the total production cost. His work also showed that the effect of work injury can be reduced by designing a production system. Due to the increasing cost of work injuries as well as concern of health work place, both the government and industry have made an effort on preventing work injury occurrences. In 2005, the government of Canada paid approximately $6.8 billion dollars in benefits through its Workersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸ Compensation Boards (WCBs) organization. It is being realized that the cost incurred by work injuries contributes a large portion to the total production cost, and strategies are urgently required to tackle the problem of work injury. In 2000 to 2012 period, the total costs of occupational injuries to the Canadian economy was estimated to be more than $19 billion annually. The factors other than the production system design, which lead to work injury, are: employee boredom, fatigue, lack of motivation, lack of training, and mismatch of job and workforce age. Besides design of production systems, to remove or solve the issues related to work injury, there are three kinds of techniques: Engineering solutions, Administrative solutions and Personal safety equipment (Tayyari Smith, 1997). Job rotation comes in the category of administrative solution. It is about the rotation of workers among a number of non-similar workstations, where each worker requires different skills or techniques and responsibilities to do job (Azizi, Zolfaghari Liang, 2010). It enables operators to become multi-skilled by providing them with a greater ability to handle increased demand and large product variability (Michalos et al., 2010). When many jobs of different requirements and workers of different capabilities are involved, the job rotation problem becomes very complex. Due to the complexity of job rotation, there are implications of job rotation as well. If not done properly job rotation can increase the cost of production and also reduce the quality of the manufacturing system. Cost is a factor which is widely understood and studied but Quality is one of the most important but the least understood attribute of a system. Without quality, a system cannot comply with required goals and standards. Conventionally, production planning is mainly about materials resource planning. The materials include both the material for products and the machine tools for production of the products (Krajewski et al., 2005). Many techniques have been established to improve the effectiveness of production planning, to make a plan which meets the customer demand, satisfaction and cost with other features such as continuity and resilience of a system as referred to by Zhang and Lin (2010). Zhang defines resilience as a systems post-damage property i.e. the systems ability to recover its function from some damage. In the context of enterprises, Guelfi et al. (2008) defined the resilience as the capacity of a business process to recover and reinforce itself when facing changes. This calls for a scientific approach to solving this problem. 1.2 Research Questions The following questions come up: Question 1: How may job rotation significantly affect the cost of production especially with its connection to work injury (particularly related to the worker aging)? Question 2: How to define and model the quality of the operation of a manufacturing or production system particularly in terms of resilience or system disruption? Question 3: How to define and model job rotation in production planning and scheduling so as to make a balanced improvement in terms of the cost and resilience? 2. Objectives and Scope Objective 1 To model the job rotation for incorporating them into the production planning and scheduling. The model should consider the influence of job rotation to work injury (due to aging). Objective 2 To develop a model for the resilience of a production system with planning and scheduling in place. The resilience may simply refer to operation disruption. It is assumed that by meeting the customer requirement for products or jobs, the quality of a production system is guaranteed. It is also assumed that the product delivery time is satisfied by an effective production plan and schedule. Objective 3 To develop a production planning model for achieving the lowest cost and highest resilience. In this model, besides the decision variables such as production quantity, the variable for job rotation will be included. 3. Literature Review 3.1 Production Planning and Scheduling Production planning is a planning of production and manufacturing modules in any organization or industry. It utilizes the allocation of resources (employees, material and machines) in order to achieve the organizational goals. On the other hand production scheduling differs from production planning in that a schedule includes the information such as what system components (machines and/or humans) do what jobs at what times. Ideally, one may want to be the best for all the foregoing goals but in reality this is not possible as there may be conflicts among them. For instance, low cost production may likely lead to poor product quality. Nevertheless, an optimal trade-off among these elements does make sense. In fact, from a mathematical point of view, the problem is inherently a multi-objective optimisation problem. In practice, the multi-objective optimization problem is modeled as a single objective optimization problem while the rest of elements are considered as constraints or only implicitly assumed. For instance, often the quality is assumed to be fine as long as the production meets the quantity, and the time is implicitly represented in a way that the customer demand for a period of time say T is divided into a series of time segments (ti), and then on each time segment (ti), there will be the product quantity say di. Based on the foregoing discussion, the quality, quantity, and time are modelled. This research will further consider cost and resilience. The cost goal is conventional in the mathematical model for production planning and scheduling (Cramer, 2011). Elements that incur the cost are: material cost, machine utilization cost, human cost, human work injury cost, inventory cost, penalty cost, overhead cost, and so forth (Phruksaphanrat, Ohsato Yenradee, 2006; Swamidass, 2000; Gallego, 2001; Xu, 2015; Sule, 2008). The resilience goal is less known to the literature especially a joint consideration of the cost goal and resilience goal. There are some works on job rotation, which are categorized into the human factors in planning and scheduling, and will be discussed later in this document. Broadly, according to (Laperrià ¨re et al., 2014) Production planning does not work alone, it normally approaches with other production activities (Fig. 1) such as aggregate production planning, production scheduling and production control. Aggregate Production Planning (APP) determines what, when and how much the work force levels, inventory status and production rate required to achieve the market or customer demand. APP falls between the broad decisions of long-range planning and the highly specific and detailed short-range planning decisions (Chakrabortty Hasin, 2013).Production Scheduling determines the sequence of production for planned products on daily and weekly basis (Pinedo, 2005); see also the previous discussion. Production Controldeals with the real time information from the processes such as workforce and inventory level to take decisions to remove or avoid the system from disruption (Pinedo, 2005). In this thesis research, the scope is production planning and schedu ling. 3.2 Human factors in production planning Technological developments in the production system allowed the automation of the manufacturing processes and assembly lines, but employees or human operators still remain a serious factor in every production system (Chryssolouris, 2006). Employees or workers are the most important resources of any organization. The way in which workers are allocated to tasks can meaningfully affect a companys performance or productivity (Tharmmaphornphilas Norman, 2007). Therefore non-compatibility or mismatch of humans to technical systems may even cause injuries in the humans, which is the main concern of human factor engineering in production planning. To solve this problem, job rotation is the best technique to overcome this issue and it helps to increase the production efficiency or productivity (McKay Wiers, 2006). 3.2.1 Human Scheduling in Technical System Presently, industries assign tasks to employees according to their competence, skills or experience. This method helps to increase the system productivity and quality but it can results in worker to be assigned same task every time (Tharmmaphornphilas Norman, 2007). Performing the repetitive tasks may reason for musculoskeletal disorders, accrue stress, induce boredom, create fatigue and may lead to occupational illness and injury (Hagberg et al. 1995). 3.2.2 Human Work Related Injuries The behavior of a worker can be affected by several factors such as: (Digiesi, et al. 2009). Work Environment: (physical: microclimate, ergonomics, noise; social: human relationships, communication among the group). Nature of the Task: (discrete vs. continuous, repetitive vs. non-repetitive, motor vs. cognitive). Personal factors: (psycho-physical attitude, personal skill, age, sex). 3.2.3 Leading Factors for Work Injuries It has been noticed that there are some major factors which contributes to work injuries are: Employee Boredom: It can be related with performance reduction, general dissatisfaction, and accidents (Azizi, Zolfaghari Liang, 2010). Fatigue: Accumulation of fatigue causesmusculoskeletal disorders(Asensio-Cuesta et al., 2012) Repetitive Motions: Monotonous repetitive work has been identified as a major cause of work load related disorders (Michalos et al., 2010) Workforce Aging: In very repetitive short cycle operations, work-related musculoskeletal disorders tend to be more dominant in workers aged from 40 to 60 (Boenzi, et al., 2015). 3.2.4 How We Reduce Work Injuries There are three ways to reduce or overcome the work injuries (Tayyari Smith, 1997) .These are as follows: Engineering Solutions: It includes to redesign the work place, redesign tools and redesign job. Administrative Solutions: It includes the reconsideration of work schedules, workers rotation and career changes. Personal Protective Equipment:It includes safety shoes, hats, safety glasses and safety clothes. 3.3 Quality Quality is important property of any systems and usually refers to the degree to which a system lives up to the expectation of satisfying its requirements (Ivan et al. 2014). The definition of quality, standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) in 1978, is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy given needs. This definition suggests that we must be able to identify the features and characteristics of products and services that determine customer satisfaction and form the basis for measurement and control. 3.3.1 Manufacturing Quality In terms of manufacturing based quality, (Crosby, 1979) defined manufacturing quality as quality is about conformance to requirement. 3.3.2 Dimensions of Quality Garvin (1988) and Grady (1992) described the dimensions for quality analysis in their book are: Performance, Reliability, Conformance, Durability, Serviceability, Usability, Functionality and Supportability. Quality is often characterized in terms of attributes for system quality such as modifiability, durability, predictability (Ivan et al., 2014). 3.4 Job Rotation Job rotation is about the rotation of workers among a number of non-similar workstations where each worker requires different skills or techniques and responsibilities to do job (Azizi, Zolfaghari Liang, 2010). In other words job rotation can be defined as working at different operations or in different positions for particular set periods of time in a planned way (Jorgensen, 2005). 3.4.1 The Importance of Job Rotation Implementing Job Rotation as a manufacturing method is beneficial to increase production efficiency, operator satisfaction and helps to reduce Work-related musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSDs) and labor cost (Cramer, 2011). Job rotation using lateral transfers allows employees to gain a wide range of knowledge, skills and competencies (Jorgensen, 2005). It provides a benefit or increase the firms ability to deal with change (Kher et al., 1999). As a benefit of job rotation to workers, it may increase workers job satisfaction (Cunningham and Eberle, 1990). Job rotation also yields such benefits to workers as reducing the injuries due to performing repetitive tasks as well as the workers fatigue especially if the worker is exposed to various muscular loads during task operation in manufacturing (Hinnen et al., 1992; Henderson, 1992). Carnahan et al. (2000) studied several methods to integrate the safety criteria into scheduling algorithms to produce job rotation schedules that reduce the potential for work injury. Job design related applications began to take shape with a scientific management approach in the 1900s. The study of management scientists such as Taylor and Gilbreth on the subject of job design becomes a foundation for scientific management. Further, many models were developed, which are associated with job design, social information processing and job characteristics approach by Hackman and Oldman in 1976 (Hackman Oldham, 1976) and these models have enormously important effects on increasing the productivity of human resources. Job rotation prevents musculoskeletal disorders, eliminates boredom and increases job satisfaction and morale. As a result, an organization gains a skilled and motivated workforce, which leads to increases in productivity, employee loyalty and decreases in employee turnover (Asensio-Cuesta et al., 2012). Job rotation is considered as an appropriate organizational strategy to reduce physical workload (Paul et al., 1999; Boenzi et al., 2015) in human-based production systems and it is the most wide spread labor flexibility instrument in the case of repetitive assembly tasks (Paul et al., 1999). 3.4.2 Outcome of Job Rotation 3.4.3 Job Rotation as a Cost Effective Tool There are several appealing factors for job rotation but one major factor is the relatively low implementation cost. Job rotation policy is very effective tool to overcome or minimize the work injuries cost or helpful in reduction of repetitive tasks, which leads to work injuries. Job rotation itself cost effective to apply in any organization the cost which only related to job rotation is training cost. 3.5 Work Force Aging The phenomenon of population aging affects the ageing of work force which determines work force availability. Industrial and academic research are required to investigate the influence of workforce aging in formulating new working time models and job rotation planning solutions. Field investigations on the effect of workers aging on production performance were carried out at the BMW plant in Dingolfing, Bavaria (Loch CH et al., 2010). 3.5.1 Aging Effects on Worker According to (Tokarski, 2011) aging affects the workers performance in three aspects are: Physically: (physiological, perceptual and motor processes, and declines in abilities, such as dexterity, strength and endurance. Cognitive: (Decision making Skills, Learning skills and forgetting phenomena) Emotions:(Boredom, fatigue and lack of motivation) 3.5.2 Workforce Aging Effect on Production Performance Changes in workforce age structure may have an impact on production system performance or productivity. According to Sà ¼lzenbrà ¼ck et al. (2010) age-related impairments have a negative effect on working capacity and productivity. In assembly lines the higher the average age of the assemblers, the higher the risk they cannot meet all the requirements (Buck Dworschak, 2003). The effects of ageing on employees physical and cognitive performances negatively affects the flexibility of human based production system (Boenzi et al., 2015). The factors which may affect the performance of a worker with respect to ageing are: Muscular Strength. Dynamics Actions. Endurance (Aerobic Capacity). Reaction Time (Responses). Awkward Postures (Flexibility). 4. Proposed Methodology A mathematical model will be developed in terms of Production cost. Components of production cost will be work injury cost, work injury prevention cost, inventory cost and conventional production cost. Different Scenarios will be developed considering workers of different age groups and how they can be rotated between job positions, when there is a work related injury to one of them. When scenarios are made, mathematical model formulated in the earlier step will be applied on the scenarios. The mathematical model for each scenario will form the basis for the use of Multi Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA). This Aggregate production planning problem emphases on developing a Multi objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) method to find the optimum production plan for meeting forecasted customer demand by controlling the work injury during the production. Multi objective function will be inserted along with its constraints. A general description of steps for implementing MOGA are as follows: Step 1: Generate random population of n chromosomes (suitable solutions for the problem) Step 2: Evaluate simultaneously the Multiple fitness f(x) of each chromosome x in the population Step 3: Create a new population by repeating four steps (Selection, Crossover, Mutation and Acceptation) until the new population is complete. Step 4: Use new generated population for a further run of algorithm Step 5: If the stopping condition is satisfied, stop, and return the best solution in current population Step 6: If the stopping condition is not satisfied then go to step 2 follow loop. MOGA parameters will then be inserted. Assumptions No worker is working on full capacity. It is assumed that a worker only utilizes 60 percent of his/her work capacity to fulfil the job requirement. Material is always available during production. Trivial solutions will be ignored. No hiring and lay off during the planning horizon. It is assumed that age is not a contributing factor towards work injury. 5. Conclusion There has been some work done on the concept of production planning in terms of work injury cost. But upon doing literature review, I realized that there has been no work done when it comes to applying work injury cost and job rotation to make a production plan. My work will focus on developing a production model by considering work injury cost and job rotation. There are quite a few benefits of this approach. Firstly, it will give us a model where workers of different age can be used in an optimized way in a production based environment. Secondly, in case of any absentee or injuries, an organization can develop a plan in such a way that workers of older age (above 50) are minimally exposed to physically intensive work. Furthermore, a model for job rotation will be made considering age of the workers so as to reduce work injury by minimal exposure of aged work force to physically demanding work. Lastly, due to application of work injury and job rotation, a cost effective way to model and run a production line (in terms of manual labor) will be done. 6. Timeline MONTH ACTIVITY January (2016) Preparation of set of research objectives and scope. Literature review. Presentation preparation for Seminar ME 990. February (2016) Identification of appropriate decision variables and constraints for model. March (2016) Completion of research proposal. April- September (2016) Advisory committee Formulation of model. Validation of model. October-November (2016) Compiling the final results. Thesis preparation. December (2016) Defence of thesis 7. References Buck, H., Dworschak. B., (2003) Ageing and work in Europe. Strategies at company level and public policies in selected European countries, in: Demography and employment, IRB, DE. Carnahan, B.J., Redfern, M.S., Norman, B.A., 2000. Designing safe job rotation schedules using optimization and heuristic search. Ergonomics 43, 543-560. Chakrabortty, R., Hasin, M. (2013). Solving an aggregate production planning problem by using multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) approach. International Journal of Industrial Engineering Computations, 4(1), 1-12. Chryssolouris G (2006) Manufacturing Systems: Theory and Practice. Second edition. Cramer, Scott Douglas, Increased production capabilities by job rotation through simulation. (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 287. Cunningham, B.J., Eberle, T., 1990. A guide to job enrichment and redesign. Personnel, pp. 56-61. David A. Garvin, (1988). Managing Quality. The Free press. F. Boenzi, S. Digiesi, G. Mossa, G. Mummolo, V.A. Romano, Modelling Workforce Aging in Job Rotation Problems, IFAC-PapersOnLine, Volume 48, Issue 3, 2015, Pages 604-609, Frazer, M.B., Norman, R.W., Wells, R.P., Neumann, W.P. (2003): The effects of job rotation on the risk of reporting low back pain. In: Ergonomics, (2003), vol. 46, no. 9, 904 919. Gallego, G. (2001). IEOR 4000, Production Management, Lecture 5. Columbia University. George Michalos, Sotiris Makris, Loukas Rentzos George Chryssolouris., (2010). Dynamic job rotation for workload balancing in human based assembly systems. CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology 2 (2010) 153-160. Gert Zà ¼lch, Wolfgang J. Braun, Emmerich F. Schiller, Analytical approach of determining job division in manual assembly systems, International Journal of Production Economics, Volume 51, Issues 1-2, 15 August 1997, Pages 123-134, Guelfi, N., et al., 2008. SERENE08: Proceedings of the 2008 RISE/EFTS Joint International Workshop on Software Engineering for Resilient Systems, 17-19 November 2008, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. New York, NY, USA: ACM. Hackman, J. R., Oldham, G. R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: Test of a theory. Organizational Behavior Human Performance, 16(2), 250-279. Hagberg, M., Silverstein, B., Wells, R., Smith, M. J., Hendrick, H. W., Carayon, P., Pà ©russe, M. (1995). Work related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs): a reference book for prevention. London: Taylor Francis. Hinnen, U., Laubli, T., Guggenbuhl, U., Krueger, H., 1992. Design of check- out systems including laser scanners for sitting work posture. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health 18, 186-194. Ivo Tokarski, (2011). Health of ageing staff on success of job rotation strategy. J. Jà ³zefowska, A. Zimniak, (2008) Optimization tool for short-term production planning and scheduling, International Journal of Production Economics, Volume 112, Issue 1, March 2008, Pages 109-120. Jian-Hung Chen, Shinn-Ying Ho,(2005) A novel approach to production planning of flexible manufacturing systems using an efficient multi-objective genetic algorithm, International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture, Volume 45, Issues 7-8, Pages 949-957, Jorgensen, M. (2005): Characteristics of job rotation in the Midwest US manufacturing sector: Ergonomics, 48(15), 1721-1733. Kher, H.V., Malhotra, M.K., Philipoom, P.R., Fry, T.D., 1999. Modelling simultaneous worker learning and forgetting in dual resource constrained systems. European Journal of Operational Research 115, 158-172. Kurtulus Kaymaza. (2010): The Effects of Job Rotation Practices on Motivation: A Research on Managers in the Automotive Organizations: Journal of Business and Economic Research: Vol 1, No 3, pp. 69-85. Laperrià ¨re, L., Reinhart, G., the International Academy for Production Engineering. (2014). CIRP Encyclopedia of Production Engineering, Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Loch CH, Sting FJ, Bauer N, Mauermann H (March, 2010) How BMW is defusing the demographic time bomb. Harward Bus Rev 88(3):99-104. McKay, N. K., Wiers, C. S. V. (2006). The human factor in planning and scheduling. Handbook of production scheduling, Springer US, 23-57. Mistrik, Ivan Bahsoon, Rami Eeles, Peter Roshandel, Roshanak Stal, Michael. (2014). Relating system quality and software architecture.Books24x7 version. Nader Azizi a, Saeed Zolfaghari b, Ming Liang a., (2010). Mode

Education reform Essay

MSU essay choice #2: Describe a significant experience from the past two years which required you to interact with someone outside of your own social or cultural group (ethnic, religious, geographic, socioeconomic, etc. ). How did this impact you? What did you learn and what surprised you? During my junior year of high school, I went on a mission trip/volleyball expedition with my club team. We traveled down to Nicaragua because this was a new experience for everyone involved. When we first got off the plane it was a completely different atmosphere than what any of us were used to. As soon as you leave baggage claim, you are greeted by a large sea of people. The only thing keeping the two of you apart is a tiny glass door which leads to the streets you exit from. After we left the airport and checked into our hotels we were on the road to do our first part of community service. We met in this large dusty field with make shift bases and a small pitcher’s mound. We later found out that it was home to a youth girl’s kickball league. The girls were from the ages of eight through sixteen. You could tell that they didn’t have much and kickball was there whole life, but they always had a smile on their face and made the best of everything. When we were playing with the girls, we got to talk with them a little bit but there were some barriers because they couldn’t speak English, and we didn’t know much Spanish. Despite that, we were able to laugh and joke with the girls. Seeing the way they smiled and how they were able to make the best or most out of everything showed me that you don’t always need the material things in life that you can be alright and still find happiness. On our next mission trip, we were split into groups to do different assignments. My group was assigned to an elementary school out in the countryside to work with preschoolers. The drive out was very far from town and the smell of animal waste and disease burned your nose. When you finally arrived to the school, it was the size of a traditional school house from early pioneer days. When we walked inside, we learned that it wasn’t only a school for preschoolers, but it was also class rooms full of kids from first to sixth grade. Each classroom was divided by age to try and keep kids learning as much as possible. When we took the children out to play, they looked surprised yet fortunate. I had never seen such a bright smile on a person’s face till I got to play with those kids. When the play time was over and we went to donate the school supplies we brought down for them, they gave us big hugs and much gratitude. At first I didn’t realize why someone would be thanking me for an eraser and five pencils, but then I later realized that theses were all of the school supplies that child would have for the rest of the year or even the rest of their school career. When it came time to leave, not only were we sad, but so were the kids. Later on through the day, we found out that since that school was so far from the main town we were staying in, they never had any visitors and they hardly ever get donations. The school only went up to grade six because by that age, kids could either continue to go to high school, or start working. Hearing all of that made me realize just how blessed I am to live in the country and have the opportunities that I do. Those children may have no say in whether or not they can finish up schooling and go to college to live successful lives. Not every person in life has the choice to better themselves or to change their social status in life.

Womanist - Alice Walkers Term for Black Feminist

A black feminist or feminist of color, according to Alice Walker, who first publicly used the term; someone who is committed to the wholeness and well-being of all of humanity, male and female.  Womanism identifies and  critically  analyzes  sexism, anti-black racism, and their intersection. Womanism  recognizes the beauty and strength of embodied black womanhood and seeks connections and solidarity  with black men. Womanism identifies and criticizes sexism in the African American community and racism in the feminist community. Origins Alice Walker introduced the word â€Å"womanist† into feminist parlance in her 1983 book In Search of Our Mothers Gardens: Womanist Prose. In the book, she cites the phrase â€Å"acting womanish,† which was said to a child who acted serious, courageous and grown-up rather than girlish. Many women of color in the 1970s had sought to expand the feminism of the Women’s Liberation Movement beyond its concern for the problems of white middle-class women. The adoption of womanist signified an inclusion of race and class issues in feminism. Alice Walker also used womanist to refer to a woman who loves other women, whether platonically or sexually. Walker used examples from history including educator and activist Anna Julia Cooper and abolitionist and womens rights activist Sojourner Truth. She also used examples from current activism and thought, including writers bell hooks and Audre Lorde, as examples of womanists. The term â€Å"womanist† is thus both an alternative to and an expansion of the term â€Å"feminist.† Womanist Theology Womanist theology centers the experience and perspective of black women in research, analysis, and reflection on theology and ethics.  The term arose in the 1980s as more African American women entered the theological field and questioned that white feminist and black male theologians spoke adequately to the particular experience of African American women. Womanist theology, like womanism in general, also looks at the ways in which black women are portrayed in inadequate or biased ways in the works of white women and black men. Quotes About Womanism Alice Walker: Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavendar. Angela Davis:  Ã¢â‚¬Å"What can we learn from women like Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday that we may not be able to learn from Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, and Mary Church Terrell? If we were beginning to appreciate the blasphemies of fictionalized blues women—especially their outrageous politics of sexuality—and the knowledge that might be gleaned from their lives about the possibilities of transforming gender relations within black communities, perhaps we also could benefit from a look at the artistic contributions of the original blues women.† Audre Lorde: But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women. Yvonne Aburrow:  Ã¢â‚¬Å"The patriarchal/kyriarchal/hegemonic culture seeks to regulate and control the body—especially women’s bodies, and especially black women’s bodies—because women, especially black women, are constructed as the Other, the site of resistance to the kyriarchy. Because our existence provokes fear of the Other, fear of wildness, fear of sexuality, fear of letting go—our bodies and our hair (traditionally hair is a source of magical power) must be controlled, groomed, reduced, covered, suppressed.†Ã‚   Womanist Writings: A Selection bell hooks  Aint I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. 1981.Walker.  In Search of Our Mothers Gardens: Womanist Prose.  1983.Paula J. Giddings.  When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America.  1984.Angela Y. Davis.  Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday.  1998.Barbara Smith.  Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology.  1998.Nyasha Junior.  An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation. 2015.

Understanding Mayan Human Sacrifice

Why did the Maya perform human sacrifices? That the Mayan people practiced human sacrifice is not in doubt, but providing motives is part speculation. The word sacrifice is from the Latin and it is associated with the word sacred—human sacrifices, like many other rituals in the Maya and other civilizations, were part of a sacred ritual, an act of appeasing or paying homage to the gods. Grappling With the World Like all human societies, the Maya grappled with uncertainty in the world, erratic weather patterns which brought drought and storms, the anger and violence of enemies, the occurrence of disease, and the inevitability of death. Their pantheon of gods provided some perceived control over their world, but they needed to communicate with those gods and to perform deeds showing that they were worthy of good luck and good weather. The Maya performed human sacrifices during particular societal events. Human sacrifices were conducted at specific festivals in their annual calendar, at times of crisis, at dedications of buildings, at the ends or beginnings of warfare, at the accession to the throne of a new ruler, and at the time of that rulers death. Sacrifices at each of these events likely had different meanings to the people who conducted the sacrifices. Valuing Life The Maya valued life highly, and according to their religion, there was an afterlife so human sacrifice of people they cared for—such as children—was not perceived as murder but rather placing that individuals life into the hands of the deities. Even so, the highest cost to an individual was to lose their children thus child sacrifice was a truly holy act, conducted at times of crisis or times of new beginnings. At times of war and at rulers accessions, human sacrifices may have had a political meaning in that the ruler was indicating his ability to control others. Scholars have suggested that public sacrifice of captives was to display that ability and to reassure the people that he was doing everything he could to stay in communication with the gods. However, Inomata (2016) has suggested that the Maya may never have evaluated or discussed the legitimacy of a ruler: sacrifice was simply an expected part of the accession. Other Sacrifices Maya priests and rulers also made personal sacrifice, using obsidian knives, stingray spines, and knotted cords to draw blood from their own bodies as offerings to gods. If a ruler lost a battle, he himself was tortured and sacrificed. Luxury goods and other items were placed in sacred locations such as the Great Cenote at Chichen Itza and in rulers burials along with the human sacrifices. When people in modern societies try to come up with the purpose of human sacrifice in the past, we are prone to put our own concepts about how people think about themselves as individuals and members of society, how authority is established in our world, and how much control we believe our gods have over the world. It makes it difficult if not impossible to parse out what the reality might have been for the Maya, but no less fascinating for us to learn about ourselves in the process. Sources: Ardren T. 2011. Empowered Children in Classic Maya Sacrificial Rites. Childhood in the Past 4(1):133-145.Inomata T. 2016. Theories of Power and Legitimacy in Archaeological Contexts: The Emergent Regime of Power at the Formative Maya Community of Ceibal, Guatemala. Political Strategies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. p 37-60.Pà ©rez de Heredia Puente EJ. 2008. Chen K’u: The Ceramic of the Sacred Cenote at Chichà ©n Itzà ¡. Tulane, Louisiana: Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (FAMSI).