WESTMINSTER INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY IN TASHKENT

Lecturer’s name: Israil Kurbaniyazov

Entry 1: Summary of Listening

Topic: Society

Word count: 171

Grace Kim (2017), in the video “How cohousing can make us happier”, describes what the loneliness

is and gives life – based examples of being socially isolated as well as explains possible solution to avoid

social isolation. She states that loneliness is a function of how socially connected people are, however,

despite being surrounded by thousands of people, one can still feel loneliness. Also, Kim (2017) gives an

example of being incredibly isolated: when she was in an elevator and made an eye – contact and said -

“Hello”, the person put off his headphones and asked – “What did you say?”. Thus, Kim suggests an

isolation antidote – the concept of cohousing. She explains that this is a type of living concept still exists in

non – European countries. In cohousing everyone knows each other and care about neighbors. Moreover,

in cohousing everybody shares significant space of his/her home, hence, living collaboratively and

developing social interaction. At the end, the speaker wants to highlight that cohousing as an antidote to

isolation can save our lives.

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Reference List

Kim, G. (2017). How cohousing can make us happier. YouTube. Available from

https://youtu.be/mguvTfAw4wk [Accessed 31st October, 2021].

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Entry 2: Summary and Response Essay

Topic: Society

Word count: 636

Bayram Uzun and Mehmet Çete (2004), in the article “Solving the problem of informal settlements” discuss

reasons of rehousing people from favelas and slums to improved facilities and explain an impact of this trend

on wealth, health and the environment. Firstly, the scheme that might be helpful to tackle some problems in

Kiberia. Secondly, how rehousing can reduce the disease and poor health. Finally, its influence on the

environment. According to the authors` assumptions, there will be five billion people living in urban areas.

However, by the time of writing this article, there were over one billion people, who live in informal

settlements that are also known as favelas, slums and etc.

In 2009 Kenyan the government with the help of UN -HABITATANT developed a plan of rehousing the

habitants of settlements cost over $ 1.2 billion in Kiberia that included constructing low – rent houses that

provides with water and power. Moreover, this scheme had a couple of financially advantageous aspects for

the city such as tackling problem with the poverty and increasing the economy. However, this scheme for

residents of Kibera would create another problem that experienced in the past. Firstly, people who were

encouraged into rehousing will have a strong desire to get back to their old communities (Patel, 2011).

Secondly, despite its low costs for living, it will be expensive for people in Kibera to afford house renting,

due to the high level of unemployment (International Labor Organization, 2011). Having said that, the

establishment of informal settlements is a phenomena related with the wave of urbanisation that occurred in

various post-communist cities throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In some cases, the phenomena is linked to the

1990s surge of immigrants and refugees.

According to authors (2004), another positive aspect of this trend is that it can diminish the disease and

poor health. Because of the fact that people would be separated from their families as well as friends, which

can negatively affect his/her physiological health, some government authorities are were in favor to invest in

informal settlements. A good example can be a project of the government of Colombia that intended to
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improve its infrastructure in poor district named Medellin and invested $ 6.7 million in a tremendous

escalator to make it easier for people to walk up and down from their homes to works and vise versa

(Tamayo, 2011). I agree with the authors` statement, because loneliness can depression that might lead to

suicidal mindset.

The next advantage is that in informal settlements everything is recycled – it is part of residents’ daily

routines, moreover, the land in Kibera (Uzun and Çete, 2004) is dangerous to build new houses, that is why

rehousing is the most appropriate approach for its habitants. I fully agree with this statement, due to the fact

that today recycling is playing tremendous positive role in clime change. But, moving to new houses can

cause risks on Kibera`s infrastructure and finite sources such as electricity. Authors give example of one of

the biggest settlements in India – Dharavi, where recycling played a huge role on the life of Indian people.

For instance, 250 000 people every day were involved to taking over 4 000 tons of Mumbai`s waste, however

in the case of disappearing this industry, that can worth as much as $ 700 million (MacDougall, 2007),

Mumbai citizens would be literally covered by waste.

To sum up, the project of rehousing itself has partial success that offer comfortable and clean

accommodation at the expense of being far from family members and friends, occupation and community. It

might be the most effective approach in the case of lands that have no rights or when the land is unstable.

Moreover, authors mention that people are encouraged in process of planning to establish new housing is

affordable and successful community is created.

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Reference List

Tsenkova, Sasha. Informal settlements in post-communist cities: Diversity factors and patterns. Available

from https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=241893.

[Accessed 21 September 2010]

Raaj, R., Bora, R. W., and Fengqi You. Waste Polypropylene Plastic Recycling toward Climate Change

Mitigation and Circular Economy: Energy, Environmental, and Technoeconomic Perspectives. CS

Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2020, 8, 43. Available from

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c06311

[Accessed 16 September 2020]

Uzun, B. and Çete M. A Model for Solving Informal Settlement Issues in Developing Countries.

Available from

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261877764_A_Model_for_Solving_Informal_Settlement_Issue

s_in_Developing_Countries [Accessed 19 May 2004]

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Entry 3: Reflection
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Word count: 301

At the very beginning of the semester I was excited with the amount of works that we will have to do.

However, I found the portfolio one of the most challenging. Firstly, because I cannot consider myself as

a very good user of English language, and when we were said to write 6 writing tasks, I had no a single

word to express my feelings. Personally for me, reading the articles several times, taking notes and

reading again and again makes young students mentally tired. When it came to the listening, I was self –

confident because I got used to listen to podcasts in English. Secondly, I consider myself as lazy person,

and despite the deadlines we were given I did not want to take the tasks as serious as they should have, so

it put me even into twice worse situation, when I had to do my home tasks a long with extra – lessons and

Academic English works. Having discussed my mistakes with our lecturer, I feel I could significantly

improve my English skills. Now I have a little bit more ideas about succeeding in my course works as

well as submitting them on time. During my course work I developed soft as well as social skills, from

time to time I with my groupmates found it helpful to collaborate to work on some topics. Moreover,

thanks to my teachers feedbacks it was quite easier to manage final versions of my works, she always

was open -minded and supportive person and was ready to help us or give an small, but useful advices

for us.

Even though I feel noticeable improvement, I think I will have to put even more efforts in upcoming

semester in order to master my skills in English of course with the help of my lecturer

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