Respect

Introduction

Respect is a quickly diminishing character quality, in which we as a society can not effectively function without. To a lot of people here in Billings, respect goes hand in hand with self discipline, honor, and self acceptance, yet it is the best most honest value that is really undervalued and put in the back of minds by many. Also see The Golden Rule

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Respect should be increased because it creates a wholesome community and a vibrant community. If everyone had respect for one another, the world would be such an easier place to inhabit. The value of selfishness would be most likely decreased in order for respect to be increased. It is preferable that respect is increased because it is the seed that starts the growing and forming a positive community.
There are definitely signs all around Billings that respect has been neglected, and at time, just completely forgotten. Everyday situations lack respect on a regular basis, for instance the roads of Billings are not as friendly and respectful as they ought to be. People talking and texting on their cell phones while driving is a huge display of disrespect to fellow drivers, pedestrians, and people that are not driving (perhaps bicycling or walking). Also graffiti and vandalism have become a problem in the Billings area. Just another example of people being disrespectful. It is not just the victims of graffiti and vandalism that are being disrespected, but the people in Billings who have to see these on our buildings, street signs etc… One of the biggest signs that respect has been lost is the amount of litter around Billings, how is throwing your garbage out your car window going to earn anyone any respect?

Juridic controls may be that when a home is vandalized such as, graffiti, a home owner has a specific time frame to clean up the graffiti. This is an unfair situation for the home owner due to the fact that they were not the vandals. This juridic control should simply be eliminated. Another issue that comes up is for bikers, the fact that they are not given a place to bike because they are not allowed on the sidewalks and drivers find them to be a nuisance on the roads. The graffiti can be solved by providing the home owners the resources to clean up the mess. A way to minimize the biking issue is to provide a place for them to bike safely, which could be to an extra space specifically for the bikers along side the road or even their own sidewalk.

Proposal

Life swap:
We have thought out a plan of action to enhance respect in Billings.
Getting as many diverse families as possible to participate is the goal. Anyone in the Billings area is welcome to take part.
One person from each family, preferably the mom or dad would switch places with another family member of a different family for one week.
In order to get a good turnout, it is important that the event is advertised frequently, and effectively. We will advertise for three months prior to the event. The advertising includes: Billboards, Billings Gazette, Kulr 8 news, interviews and public event notices, and flyers.
The board will send out questionnaires to all households in the Billings area, which is around 120,000 households, approximately 6 weeks prior to the swap and have to be returned one month prior to event. Anyone who wants to participate will fill out the questionnaire and drop it off at their local Albertsons, Wal-Mart, Post Offices or the center court at Rimrock Mall.
All the families that send in the questionnaire will be reviewed and then paired up with a family of different values or background. (Though it is only one person from the family who switches)
Next the families that sent in a questionnaire will receive all the information they need that will let them know who they are to switch with, when, where and for how long.
All the switches will take place for one week, during the same week for every participant.
After the week is over there will be a “Respect Rally” at the Metra/Rimrock Auto Arena, which will be rented out for the day just for the participants and the people that weren't able to participate, to come and talk about what was learned and gained from this experience.
During this rally, members from the family will be able to talk to other families about the obstacles, difficulties and the good things too, that they learned from their life swap.
After experiencing, reminiscing and talking about these swap’s, hopefully people will be more respectful of other people in their city of Billings. Just a small step to change.

Budget

The projected cost is approximately $3150, but $1950 will be donated. This is a very small budget considering this will be such a big event. Billboards, for 1 month of advertisement cost $650. The public event notice, the interview on Kulr 8, and the Billings Gazette ad will be free because our event is non-profit. The material needed to carry out this event is paper and ink for the flyers, questionnaires and the boxes for each of the drop off locations. These materials will all be donated.

Responding and Co-Existing

Generally, any person who is willing to work for the common good of all people will be a respecting individual. People who are willing and open-minded towards diversity, as well as tolerant of others tend to respect each other based on first hand experiences, as opposed to prejudiced people, who tend to rely on traditional hate values. On the other hand, race supremacists, anti-Semitists, and gangs tend to interfere with respect. Along with race and religion, gender and age can also cause individuals or groups to become disrespectful. While gangs usually accept one another in a single unit, the disrespect between anyone different than that gang is immense. Today’s younger generation seems to have more difficulty respecting elderly people. As society becomes faster paced, it seems respect itself is reducing.
Families within our Billings community will be our participating individuals. We as the board for the Life Swap event are also participating individuals as well as producers of the event. This event will be accomplished by following through with our goals and plan. The intra-groups will cease to exist because we plan on dispersing people within different cliques. The extra-groups will be our community as a whole that is to be involved within the event.

Conclusion

Through our event we would expect a greater amount of respect to be shared between many people of Billings and the surrounding areas. Although we are aware that is not realistic for every person in every family to have a positive outcome of the event, we are hopeful that others experiences will inspire them.
We would expect these results because people would slow down their fast world to consciously take the time to care about people other than themselves.

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Footnotes
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