Climb the Mountain

"If we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives."  Lemony Snicket

  This coming year International Justice Mission will be working to gain support for the "Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act".  They will also advocate to protect the funds distributed by the State Departments "Trafficking in Persons" Office.  In order to support this effort I have signed up to do the 100 postcard challenge with IJM.  

This campaign will do two things, it will show our representatives that the people in our state care about the abolition of modern day slavery, and it will help grow the anti-slavery movement here in Iowa.  I have already received the postcards from IJM and am planning out my steps to get them filled out and sent to congress.  

This will truly take me out of my comfort zone as I am a genuine introvert.  I am most comfortable tucked away from people and lost inside a book.  Over the past several years, I have filled my head with knowledge and facts about the injustice of slavery.  It is time for me to stop merely learning about it and go out armed with the understanding I have gained and join the fight.  I have felt a tug at my soul compelling me to place myself in a more active role in advocating for the oppressed for quite some time now.  

The idea of seeking out people beyond my family and friends and then taking the initiative to persuade them to sign on to support this cause is equal parts terrifying and exciting to me. I have found myself brooding over how to get started, stuck in introspection.  Yesterday, I stumbled across a quote on Pinterest, of all places, that truly spoke to me as I prepare to go forward:

“You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.”  Tom Hiddleston


I was inspired by this, because I had found myself just staring at the "mountain".   This massive, menacing mountain of evil called human trafficking.  As I contemplated the "mountain", I found myself paralyzed by the dark and foreboding nature of it.  That quote redirected my thoughts, and made me realize, that even as "a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step", climbing this mountain starts with putting one foot in front of the other.  Focus on one step at a time.  So how do I get started, I already have.  Signing up for the campaign was the first step.  My second step is publishing this blog post announcing that I am going to do it.  And from here, I will just go forward.   We'll see where the rest of the steps take me.  



Hope is wishing something would happen. Faith is believing something will happen. Courage is making something happen. - Unknown

Worthy of Outrage

I am amazed at the things that American's choose to get outraged over.  Today, my Facebook feed is full of "Duck Dynasty" posts.  Some people are outraged over the perceived racist and homophobic comments that Phil Robertson made.  Some people are outraged over the decision A&E made to put him on hiatus for making those comments.  It's all very polarizing with one group of people flocking to the support of the "Duck Dynasty" family and the other standing firmly behind the networks decision.

I do have to tell you, I have never watched "Duck Dynasty".  I am not even curious about the show, despite it being seemingly huge in our culture right now.  I don't care for Reality TV of any sort, it's just not my thing. So, the whole Duck Dynasty vs A&E is not something that is going to incite any kind of passion in me to get me posting on twitter or Facebook about it.  Quite honestly, I cannot see why it has anyone rushing to the virtual world's front lines to take sides.  No ones rights have been violated, and the people involved all seem quite capable of taking care of themselves.

I find it strange that truly crucial matters do not seem to incite enough passion in us to flood Facebook and trend all day on Twitter.  Our world is full of vital issues that, it seems to me, are much more pressing than a celebrity's opinion or the reaction garnered by that opinion. Three examples of the issues that I would deem more worthy of our ire include the injustices of human trafficking, hunger, and lack of adequate water and sanitation.

Human Trafficking.  29 million, that is TWENTY-NINE MILLION people are currently living in slavery today.  Every day there are people in this world who are being completely controlled by another person.  The control is maintained by using violence or threatening violence, the enslaved person is exploited and is unable to walk away from the situation.  The fact that we allow our fellow human beings to live under these conditions and just go about our merry way, many times supporting the modern slave trade by buying items that are produced by it SHOULD be an outrage.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/oct/17/29-million-people-enslaved-global-index
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/category/the-facts/

Hunger.  This world we live in produces more than enough food to feed every single person on it.  Despite the fact that there is enough food to feed every person, about 21,000 people die every DAY of hunger, or hunger related causes.  Malnutrition amplifies the effect of every disease, every injury.  The fact that we produce enough food to prevent these deaths, but yet do not distribute what we produce to prevent them SHOULD outrage us.  When the capability to prevent an unnecessary death exists, but the ability to prevent the death is not carried out that SHOULD be an outrage.
http://www.poverty.com/

Lack of adequate safe water and sewage facilities.  Water is a basic necessity of life.  If we truly believe that all people have a right to life, then providing the clean, safe water necessary to sustain it should be a given. However, 780 million people do not have a clean water source available to them.  It is estimated that 801,000 children younger than the age of five DIE from diarrheal disease each year, that is 2,200 children each day.   More than 35% of the world's population does not have access to improved sanitation.   According to the WHO, improving water, sanitation and hygiene has the potential to prevent almost 10% of the global disease burden.  We have the technology and the capability to supply clean safe water for everyone but are not providing it.  That SHOULD be an outrage.
(Safer Water, Better Health http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241596435_eng.pdf)
CDC WASH statistics  http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/wash_statistics.htm

With all the true injustice and oppression that exists in the world today, why are people allowing themselves to be so incensed by a celebrity's words, or by the response to the words?  One of my friends who was posting about the Duck Dynasty issue claimed that it is important because it represents an attack on our values.  I would say that when we are more outraged by a celebrity's opinion and subsequent squabble with a network than we are over true inequity that occurs every single day, then it is definitely time to reassess our values.

https://twitter.com/andiebeth76

Christmas Shopping

It's the most wonderful time of the year, right?  I love Christmas time.  I love the decorations, I love the traditions, I love the chopping down of the tree, I love getting together with family.  One thing I do not love however, is shopping.  I am not a big shopper the rest of the year either, but in December, shopping is crazy. Long lines and rushed people make for irritable people to say the least, and sometimes uglier traits come out.
Aside from the cranky people and crowded store and long lines, there is an even darker under belly to the commercialism of the season.  Here is a question for you:   Do you support human slavery?  If you are not careful about your purchases you do with your dollar.  Check out http://slaveryfootprint.org/ to get an idea of how many products slavery is involved in.

As consumers we have the power to make choice that fight slavery in the supply lines.  Supply is a result of demand.  When demand for a particular good or service goes up, supply will go up to meet it.  The inverse is true as well.  Remove the demand, and the supply will diminish as well.   If we remove the demand for items that are produced with raw materials gained by slave labor, then the market for exploiting men, women and children in the supply lines will dwindle.

It is very difficult to find out the history of the items that we buy.  The supply lines are so complex and tracing every item takes a significant amount of time and research.  When I first began examining where our money was really going when I bought an item is was so overwhelming.  I still don't have all perfect choices, but I have the knowledge to make better choices now.  And I will continue to research and advocate until we can have completely slavery free products.  For now here are a couple quick ideas to make more ethical buying decisions.

1.  Buy used.  You are no longer supporting the original supply line.  You are supporting the individual person who is selling the item.

2.  Buy local.  Check out the local craft fairs and small shops.  There is still a chance that the raw materials used in the making of their product have a history, but it is a great opportunity to share with the people who are selling the items about the issue of slavery and encourage them to find out where their materials come from.  Awareness is vital to ending human slavery.

3.  Buy a gift of freedom.  We all have that one person who has everything.  So, every year we buy them some item that they don't really need.  How about you buy a gift of freedom for someone in their honor. https://secure3.convio.net/ijm/site/SPageNavigator/Gifts_of_Freedom_Home.html   The person you are buying for will get a card that tells them what you have given in their name. The cutoff date for getting the cards in the mail by Christmas was December 10, but you could still chose to do this and the recipient will get their card from IJM in the new year, and you can have the opportunity to make a card to give to them on Christmas that shares what you have done.  You can also choose to have an e card delivered to their email.  This is another great opportunity to spread awareness and give a gift that is truly meaningful.

4.  Give time.  Instead of buying more stuff that people don't need, give the gift of your time with them.  If any of my children or my husband are reading this, I would love a certificate that says you will do all the dishes for a month.  :)

5.  Just cut down on the number of presents.  Our family stuck with the 4 present rule this year.  Everyone is getting something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read.  Going into it with a plan really helped us make ethical choices.

6.  Send an email to the company's whose products you use asking them ...  It only takes a minute and you are sending a message to these manufacturers that you care about where your goods are coming from.  This website from Made in a Free World makes it incredibly easy to do this:  http://madeinafreeworld.com/take_action

Those are just a couple ideas you can do this season, and every season to start to make a difference in regards to human trafficking.

https://twitter.com/andiebeth76

Beginning

I created this blog months ago, intending to write often.  Every time I logged in to start, I could not think where to begin.  I have finally decided to just jump in and start where I am at.  I am new to the world of blogging, and also to twitter, and I am hoping I will be able to learn quickly how to best use them to share my thoughts.

 I have been increasingly burdened of late with wondering why some people, such as myself, are so privileged, while millions of other suffer injustice in the world.  I have always believed that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem, so I am striving to be part of the solution.  I am currently taking part in the Dressember for International Justice Mission.  It is a campaign to raise awareness of human trafficking by wearing a dress every day in December.  It's a small start, but a start none the less.  You can learn more about the campaign by clicking on this link.

https://www.ijmfreedommaker.org/campaign/1851/Dressember-for-IJM/

If you are interested in learning more about social injustice, specifically human trafficking, along with me, follow my blog, and follow me on twitter @andiebeth76.