Gvg: 109

Second, GVG 109 challenged the assumption that engagement requires grand gestures. We spent two weeks on the concept of “proximity justice”—the idea that ethical global citizenship begins with how we treat the person next to us. Our service-learning component (a requirement of the course) asked us to volunteer locally while mapping our activity to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. I chose a community food pantry. On paper, sorting canned goods seems trivial. But through GVG 109’s framework, I realized that food waste in my town contributes to methane emissions, which accelerate climate change, which displaces farmers in the Global South. By reducing local waste, I was, in a small but real way, participating in climate justice. The course taught me that scale is not a barrier; it is a choice. You do not need a passport to be a global citizen.

However, the most difficult lesson of GVG 109 was confronting the . With so much interconnected suffering—war, inequality, ecological collapse—how does one person avoid paralysis? The course did not offer easy answers, but it did offer a tool: the “sphere of influence” model. Instead of trying to solve everything, we were taught to identify the ring where our action has leverage. For me, that was digital literacy. After a module on disinformation and democracy, I began fact-checking before sharing news on social media. It sounds small, but as our final group project showed, a single false narrative shared by 10,000 people can swing an election or incite violence. GVG 109 did not demand that I become a hero; it demanded that I become a responsible node in the network. gvg 109

If you meant a different GVG 109 (e.g., a railway locomotive, a firmware version, or a military document), please clarify and I will rewrite the essay. Course: GVG 109 – Foundations of Global & Civic Engagement Assignment: Final Reflective Essay Second, GVG 109 challenged the assumption that engagement