Emma Tynan
Emma Tynan Biography
What Water Means to Me: Growth
Howell, Edward. “Flower Growing Pictures: Download Free Images on Unsplash.” Flower Growing Pictures | Download Free Images on Unsplash, 8 June 2020, https://unsplash.com/s/photos/flower-growing.
Bio:
My name is Emma Tynan and I am from Columbus, Indiana but am a third-year student at Indiana University Bloomington. I plan to graduate in May 2024 with a major in Political Science and a Minor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. I wish to attend Law school after completing my undergraduate studies at Indiana. I am currently a student in Professor Abegunde’s Contemporary and Social Issues in African American Communities: A236 where our focus for the course has been on water disparities disproportionately affecting African American communities. Being a student in this class has opened my eyes to water security issues in the US and through studying these issues, has grown my passion for environmental sustainability, particularly in disadvantaged communities.
Project Summary:
“How to Win the Water Wars?: Offense vs Defense,” is about African American communities suffering from old pipe lines and water sources throughout the United States and how communities, states, and the country can come together to work as one. My partner and I looked at cases in the United States of families and communities still suffering with water injustices to this day. We attend a college in Bloomington, Indiana so we wanted to see how close to home water disparities were occurring around us, hence our focus on the United States. This lens was intended to show how even if one’s own community has high water security, communities nearby, mostly being prominently African American communities, are suffering from low, hazardous levels of water insecurity every single day. Although our lens is just focused on the Midwest, water wars where communities are fighting against the intended officials, government, and world to help them occurs everywhere in the United States. Our presentation included various videos, articles, and personal experiences from across the country and how one major issue can cause numerous unique issues in different places. Facts were gathered through the Internet, images, and articles to highlight how having sides to a water war will not work. With that being said, our presentation demonstrated how local efforts have shown progress and with growth and funding can help impact communities at large. When institutions, government officials, citizens, and elected leader start to listen to local impacted communities, both sides can work together to cause change towards safer water. This project hopes to share the issue, stories related, and progress towards ending the war.
Personal Relationship:
My personal relationship with water is very gracious, influential, and loving. I have grown up a water bug- loving water, playing in water, always drinking water, bathing, showering, cooking, etc. I used water in my daily life constantly throughout the day. I have also grown up around lakes my entire life, so naturally water has been a source of joy and comfort for me since a young age. Not only has being in this class strengthened my love of water but has also made me more aware of how grateful I am to have such an amazing relationship with water. I am very fortunate to have had the access to safe, clean, and non-harming water my whole life. This comfort motivates me to help others receive their right to having clean, accessible, safe water.
Thoughts on Pumzi:
Compared to the first time I had viewed Pumzi to the last time I had viewed Pumzi, my thoughts had shifted from a futuristic dystopia to a what our future could look like if we do not start making changes now. I initially thought the filmed was centered to be an extreme of what will happen if we lose total access to water. However, I have settled on the conclusion of this is what is an extreme of allowing others to control water access/ who receives clean water. The memories of the council seem to creep in during the beginning of the movie when water and plants were abundant, yet now these ideas are nonexistent in anyone’s head. Water could have been as abundant as it is in our present now as it was in the past of Pumzi. The film showed how not taking water security seriously can have damaging future effects and the effects of these damages are already taking place in the present today by not holding those responsible to provide safe access to water.