One question came up during the meeting, “What makes us (Not For Sale) different than the other organizations?”  This question actually came up several times during this last week.  I think that that discussion during the Town Hall and all of the other discussions on that very same topic, were all perfectly placed at the beginning on my fellowship.  And I am thankful for that.  It verified that I am exactly where I am supposed to be and doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing.  So what makes us different the other organizations?

During the Town Hall Dave broke down the projects.  The partnerships between our International Projects and our Social Enterprises have now merged together to be Social Ventures.  How does Social Ventures work?  I think that Not For Sale’s Methodology explains best what Social Ventures is; Stage I: Safety and Sustainability, which means, rescue, shelter, health care and legal services, these are the necessary means of life.  Stage II: Life Skills and Job training, formal and non-formal education or vocation training is provided.  Not For Sale believes that equipping at-risk communities with basic skills will prepare individuals for sustainable long-term opportunities.  Stage III: Dignified Work and Sustainable Futures, where Not For Sale promotes economic opportunities that lead to long-term employment.  And finally repatriation, which is integrating an individual back into society.  Not For Sale does not focus on one stage, but focuses on all stages.  It is taking those survivors, those that are vulnerable and those that are highly at risk and their families and ensuring that they are provided everything in every stage that will cultivate and promote prospective futures.

Not For Sale does it differently.  They work to rescue and prevent victims of human trafficking and then provide them with necessities in life AND then provide education and vocational training so that they can cultivate healthy futures for themselves and their families and do not fall back into human trafficking.

I stand behind Not For Sale, because I also believe in the well being of the whole of an individual and helping them regain their dignity by starting over and receiving shelter, healthcare, legal services, education, vocational training and job placement.  So to answer the question, why are social enterprises important to creating change?  It is placing the survivors and those that are at risk into jobs that cultivate and promote beautiful futures.  Without social enterprises, what would the survivors know what to do after they have been repatriated?

I am so ecstatic that I get to spend the next six months working with Not For Sale Social Ventures.

While I was living in Bangkok, Thailand I heard about an organization that helps combat human trafficking by offering women in the red light district (Patpong) alternative work such as making jewelry. Women from the organization would go into the clubs and begin talking to the girls, building a rapport with them and eventually offering them an alternative lifestyle. This sounded like excellent work, so, I sent them an email asking if they needed any help. What I received back from them was a message telling me that the only work they had available for me was in administration work. I then realized that, as a male, it isn’t as simple as going into clubs and helping girls get out. The dynamics revolving around gender and the movement are complicated and need to be carefully considered.

Going into clubs in Thailand and trying to help victims of trafficking as a male (especially without fluency in Thai) was a foolish thought that I didn’t hold for long. Nothing was wrong with my intentions, but practically speaking it just wouldn’t work.  As a male going into such situations much more caution needs to be taken. Not only would I be addressing the issue of human trafficking, but I would be challenging traditional gender roles. After all, the majority of the sex trade is perpetuated by my gender.

I believe that a big part of helping a victim of trafficking feel comfortable and safe is them being able to relate to those trying to help them in some way. How significant it is, I can’t be sure, but I do believe that a sort of ‘female solidarity’ exists that creates a means of breaking through barriers between victim and those looking to help. It seems like women would be more comfortable sharing their feelings and emotions with other women rather than a male.

Now, I’m not saying that a male can’t do all of these things, I just believe that it is more difficult and may take more time. From the first moment a female being forced into sex slavery sees a male that has come to their business they judge him as a customer. That means that, as a male, that viewpoint/judgment must first be addressed before you can begin really communicating with the victim. If a victim who was working saw a female come into their business they would be less likely to have that judgment. Also, often victims of human trafficking are told by their captors that they can’t trust law enforcement

This has only been a discussion on the difficulty of being an interventionist in situations of sex slavery as a male. I am by no means saying that men can’t be interventionists in the manner previously discussed, just that it may be more difficult. There are more barriers that you must break through before you can make a difference. However, breaking barriers and challenging traditional gender roles in order to break about more equality between the sexes is precisely what we need to do.

Even in countries that claim to have egalitarian gender roles, there is still a need to address and discuss gender ideology, such as the objectification of women that is one of the reasons the sex trade exists. Whether you’re male or female there is an endless amount of work you can do to help the movement, but it is important to always consider the gender ideology and roles of yourself and the culture you are working with/within.

I was privileged to hear David Batstone speak this week at one of our weekly meetings.  David talked to us about the need to build scalable, intelligently designed social enterprises that will have a global impact.  He talked to us about seeing a project from 40,000 feet in the air, and how we should always be thinking proactively of the consequences and results we want to see from the projects that we conceive.  I am reminded that even though we may have the best of intentions for a project that we create, we may not think them all the way through, and the implications that they may encounter.

I called to mind several fantastically large projects that have had a global impact, but weren’t necessarily thought out to the end product.  I thought of the ongoing campaign to provide mosquito nets to malaria stricken zones and how we as an international community, banded together to provide nets to those in need.  Where we thought we were doing good for a community, we forgot about the local business enterprises that already existed, and that providing free nets massed produced in a foreign country led local entrepreneurs, who were making a living by making mosquito nets, driven out of business and away from the opportunity of providing for their own family.  Could we have invested differently in this project and perhaps ended with the same result?  Of course.  It’s difficult to determine how and when good situations can turn sour, and when and how we measure if one project is doing more good than harm.  What I’ll take away from what David said is – we have to see the end result, 40,000 feet in the air, and work backwards from there.  Only then can we better predict the impact we will make, and better assess the steps we have to take to get there in the future.

During a particularly overwhelming day last week, where I could feel the hopelessness slowly creeping up, I went to the news section of Not For Sale’s website in search of an uplifting story to keep me going. Luckily, stories filled with hope and rehabilitation are frequent around here, and it didn’t take long before I stumbled on a news update from Thailand entitles, ‘Stateless Young Man Receives Lifesaving Medial Care.” The article shares the story of Kru Nam, a local abolitionist who Not For Sale has been working with since 2009. Kru Nam works with stateless individuals in Thailand who are not recognized as citizens by the government and therefore not able to receive the education and healthcare that is free to Thai nationals. Often these people have fled to Thailand due to war and poverty in their country. However, because they were not born in Thailand and do not have citizenship, they remain in poverty.

In 2009, Not For Sale facilitated the donation of $1.9 million worth of medical supplies to the hospital, local government, and Not For Sale Thailand. Since this time, 535 people have been treated, and an additional 13,000 have been visited in their homes for medical care and check-ups.

“Alak (20) was born into a minority tribal group along the southern border and was forced to flee when his village was caught in the middle of an on-going battle between the Burmese army and a local militia. His family arrived in Mae Sai when he was 6-year-old. Earlier this year, Alak was stabbed during a drunken altercation in Myanmar and his friends took him to the government hospital. As a stateless person, Alak’s safety and human rights are often ignored but doctors kindly agreed to treat him given his critical condition. While in the emergency room, he was informed that he had lost a lot of blood and would die if he didn’t receive a blood transfusion. The only blood available was infected with malaria but given the option of dying or catching malaria, Alak chose to receive the transfusion and then used his meager savings to buy the expensive malaria medication.”

The medication and supplies are also being used at the drop-in centre, where stateless people can go for medical check-ups and washing facilities. They are also offering daycare and drug rehabilitation for the women.

It’s one thing to hope and actively make things happen. It’s another to hope, but sit around and wait—sitting, waiting, dreaming (a great song by Jack Johnson!). I’m inspired by the action that NFS takes. There is a passion that fuels each staff member along with a drive to be innovative. They all hope for the same thing. To end modern-day slavery and human trafficking in their lifetime. To re-abolish slavery. It’s not a fantasy for them. It’s a genuine ambition. The difference between NFS and others is their effort. What most people read about in the news is the outcome of a situation, the finale, the result. What they don’t really hear about is the labor that went behind it. Our fellowship director is the queen of multi tasking. I don’t think that I’ve met another person who wears so many hats. During our first meeting, she repeated a couple phrases that were constantly echoed by every staff member. “Think outside of the box!” “Just do it!” “Ruthless execution!” Their encouragement is contagious. Here at NFS, it’s okay to fall. It’s okay to fail. Have an idea? Try it. If it doesn’t work, tweak it. They’re constantly on the move with new ideas and learning from mistakes— they don’t hold it against you!

One psychologist said that, “hope literally opens us up… and removes the blinders of fear and despair and allows us to see the big picture, thus allowing us to become creative and have belief in a better future.”

Modern-day slavery is the world’s despair [which is actually the antonym of hope and defined as hopelessness and misery]. Let’s open those blinders of despair through hope and believe that one day it will vanish.

Somaly Mam is a woman whose commitment to ending modern-day slavery inspires me. I have no qualms with saying that she is my hero; a woman I admire, a woman I would love to meet, a woman I would feel lucky to work side by side with. Her Cambodian NGO, AFESIP (Agir Pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire, or Acting for Woman in Distressing Situations) was founded in 1996, to care for those victimized by trafficking and sex slavery. With the long-term goals of successful and permanent rehabilitation and reintegration, AFESIP has since transformed the lives of thousands of victims by offering care and teaching occupational skills to those vulnerable or victimized, providing outreach in HIV/AIDS prevention, and actively advocating to end human trafficking. Fast forward eleven years later, and The Somaly Mam Foundation was founded by two men introduced and ultimately moved by the movement, and by Mam herself. Her vision to create a U.S. based organization to support her mission and her life’s passion came to fruition and Mam is now one of the leading activists in today’s movement to end modern-day slavery.

Mam has since collected numerous awards recognizing her achievements; among them, she “was honored as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2009 and was featured as a CNN Hero. She is also the recipient of the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation, The World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child (WCPRC), Glamour Magazine’s 2006 Woman of the Year Award, and has won accolades from the US Department of Homeland Security.” But her success today came at an unfortunate price.

Mam herself is a survivor. Around the age of 12 her parents sold her to her “grandfather,” a loose term in Cambodia simply meaning elder man, who made her his indentured slave, and eventually, after attacking Mam himself, sold her into a lifetime of slavery. She was forced to marry a man who would treat her exactly as her grandfather did, and then spent her entire childhood forced to work in brothels, being brutally tortured and raped on a daily basis. She was even forced to watch as her friend was shot in the head by a pimp for disobeying. Her full story is recounted in her autobiography, The Road of Lost Innocence.  

I do not relay that last paragraph to upset or depress, only to prove her heroism. Her book both broke my heart and renewed hope that one individual, no matter what their past is, can rise above the life they have been given and even one person can make a difference in this world. Mam was one of the lucky ones. She eventually got out of the business and married a Frenchman, who helped to start and fund AFESIP. Today, Mam continues to work in her safe houses in Cambodia and throughout South East Asia, giving the love she never received to the thousands of girls she has saved.

I’ve read and watched numerous interviews of Mam and the same thing always astounds me; Mam would never consider herself a hero. She accepts her awards in vain, never feeling as though she has deserved them, or has ever done enough. She’s admitted to bouts of depression and thoughts of suicide. She has been held at gunpoint and her life has been threatened numerous times. She has lived through her daughter being kidnapped and raped by pimps who do not appreciate the work that Mam is doing. She does not know how old she is, who her parents are, or what her real name is. Yet Mam continues to risk her life, raid brothels and take care of as many girls as she can. Her story is what led me to this movement, and it is her story that will continue to inspire me as I do what I can, with what I have, to support her mission.

I have always found ‘activism’ to be a difficult term to conceptualize.  To me, it’s because activism covers far too much ground to be encapsulated by a single definition.  I also realize that the term carries a lot of baggage and can even have negative connotations attached to it.  Activists are often perceived as individuals who are against something.  They comprise the crowds of people at sit-ins, rallies, marches, and hunger strikes.  They are anti-this and boycott that.  But I see far greater effectiveness in being an activist that is for something.

During my childhood, activism was about putting together shoeboxes of toys and hygiene items for kids from distant countries through the Operation Christmas Child program.  It was about going out into the community with my parents and sister to bring plates of food to seniors who lived alone and needed ‘cheering up’.  It was helping our church raise money for missionaries that were ameliorating suffering overseas, or putting together baskets of basic household supplies and gifts for low-income families in our community at Christmas.

When I went away to study Human Justice at university, I began taking electives that attempted to define the core essence of activism.  Textbooks and lectures taught me that activism was an action, or a series of actions, which could range from formal political campaigning to acts of civil disobedience.  This definition seemed incomplete to me. I read much about lobbying tactics to persuade governments to change or create legislation, but I didn’t hear much about what it meant to genuinely be an activist; to have an activist lifestyle.

Even though I firmly and unequivocally believe in the paramount importance of education, I also recognize that sometimes, the most valuable lessons are learned beyond the walls of a classroom.  So it wasn’t until after I graduated from university when I finally began to understand what it means to be an activist.  At the time, I had been working as a missionary in Mexico, and was listening to a song that a friend had recommended to me.  As I listened to this song one quiet evening, I was deeply moved by the haunting words of an impassioned young woman who had made a promise to a child she met in Rwanda that she would tell the world about the places she has been and the injustices she has seen.  The line that will be forever embedded in my heart is:  “Now that I have seen, I am responsible.” 

In that moment, I understood.  It is not merely an action, however frequently it may be repeated, that encompasses what it means to be an activist.  When an individual has reached a point of accepting responsibility for injustices, he/she has reached the point of authentic activism.  When he/she has moved beyond being against something and focuses on being for something—that is when justice can truly be served.

To me, that is exactly what Not For Sale stands for, which is one of the many reasons why I am absolutely thrilled to be part of the NFS team.  Of course, the founding premise of NFS is the acknowledgement that human trafficking should not exist.  Yet NFS departs from the traditional dogma of most nonprofits or human rights organizations that focus exclusively on fighting slavery, and instead emphasizes “smart activism” to proactively build more ethical mentalities and communities.   If you were to spend even five minutes in the NFS headquarters in Half Moon Bay, California, it would be immediately clear that the NFS team is for something—and that is justice and freedom.

Let’s start with the first question. Who am I? As the great Muhammad Ali said, “I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.” I believe he was talking about me! All silliness aside, here are a few things about me. I’m a girl—Jerry, is, in fact a unisex name.  After high school, I received hundreds of recruiting letters from the army, military, etc. Of course I was flattered… but needless to say, I rejected them all. I’m a Virginia Tech Hokie! Go Hokies! [p.s. Danny Coale was definitely robbed of that amazing touchdown catch in the Sugar Bowl.] Aaaaaand, I have my first confession. I am indeed a shopaholic. My heart starts pumping, the adrenaline starts flowing and my eyes tend to glaze over when I see a good sale. It tends to get a bit out of control. My mom mistakes the term shopaholic for hoarder. She just doesn’t understand that, yes, there are differences between each of those black pumps. I’m also addicted to chocolate and all things sweet, minus licorice and jellybeans. On the topic of food, I am also a huge foodie—in particular, Korean food! I spent the past two and a halfish years in Seoul, South Korea and have become a huge fan of Korean food. Growing up, I used to hate kimchi and all things Korean. But, after experiencing the amazingness that is Korean food—I can’t live without it. I will, however, spare my roomies the foul smell of kimchi by not keeping any in the community refrigerator.

So, what led me to the movement?

While in Seoul, I worked as an English teacher for a year and at a public relations firm for another year. I consider my time in Seoul to be some of the best moments and experiences of my life. It was in Seoul that I learned about modern-day slavery and human trafficking from David Batstone and the Not For Sale Campaign [NFS] at the Onnuri English Ministry. Who knows how long it would’ve been before I heard about the issue and NFS if I had not attended the service that very Sunday. Like most people, I remember sitting in shock and disbelief after hearing what David had to say about modern-day slavery being alive and well, today, and in our very backyards. I couldn’t even comprehend that very statement. I might not have realized it at the time, but from that moment onwards a passion ignited in me to somehow help fight the war against modern-day slavery across the world. I started researching human trafficking along with the NFS campaign, where I came across the fellowship program. I found the program to be unique in that it prepared its “warriors” to be abolitionists, like Harriet Tubman, with all the knowledge and tools to battle the crime that is human trafficking.

And so, here I am in Half Moon Bay, California. 2,735 miles from home. Thirty minutes to the closest Trader Joe’s. 20 minutes to the movie theater. Nineteen miles to J.Crew. And one short block away from the beach and those HMB surfers. To say this first week has been overwhelming would be an understatement. But, I’m so excited to be a part of all that NFS has in store for 2012. NFS Fellowship, let’s do this!

I have recently graduated from my Master’s program in Environmental Applied Science and Management in Toronto, Canada.  Over the next six months I will be taking part in a 6-month non-academic based fellowship in Half Moon Bay, California.  The Not for Sale Campaign is a global organization, which works towards developing innovative solutions to re-abolish slavery locally and abroad, by equipping smart activists around the world to utilize their own skill set to be part of this movement.  The concept of unity, collectiveness and one’s own agency is what drew me to this organization, as no matter what your background, everyone has a role to play in being part of an answer towards solving modern-day slavery.

I am a firm believer that you learn from experience.  When these injustices started to break me, I searched for an answer.  I found it in working with student groups, becoming informed, getting involved, and volunteering my time while always listening to others.  For me the answers were in the journey I had set out for myself, and the people that I would meet along the way would be my roadmap.  The same friend that had told me to search for a solution was also the compass to my path for social justice.  Together, with a group of friends, we started a student club.  What we all thought would just be a student club developed into a Canadian registered NGO that sends over 200 students a year to school and university in vulnerable communities in Africa.  This taught me that no matter how small your initiative; it can develop into measurable change, and to never diminish your efforts with the word “just.”

This same friend also recommended the book Not for Sale to me.  After reading the book, I affirmed that this is where my passion belonged.  The Not for Sale Campaign has given me great confidence, that I could see one of the many problems that weigh down our society, solved within this lifetime.  To idealize that my children, or my children’s children, may grow up in a society that has one less problem to face, only reemphasizes how important it is for us to work together to address this cause.

I am very excited for the next six months.  I am taking part in a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to work with a group of dedicated, likeminded individuals that are all working towards the same movement.  I am very excited to collaborate, discuss, debate, and learn from the NFS staff and the other fellows as we each bring our own unique backgrounds to the table and find our path to the solution that is out there.

When I graduated this past spring with a Bachelor of Human Justice, I was slightly overwhelmed by the possibilities before me.  Should I dive straight into graduate studies? Would it make more sense to gain practical experience through an internship first?  Do I want to join forces with an NGO or should I pursue formal political work within the government?

Instead, I ended up in rural Mexico as an Art teacher for kids with special needs.  Having no experience or training in Spanish, let alone any other qualifications for the job, I was a bit over my head for the first few months … But despite how far I was out of my comfort zone, I fell in love with the children I was teaching, and developed such a fierce affection for them that I couldn’t bear the thought of them being faced with any kind of harm, especially in the form of modern-day slavery.  When one of the little girls I had grown extremely attached to disappeared for several weeks, my worst fears came alive.  It was then that I felt affirmed in my calling to join the movement to end human trafficking.

After saying good-bye to my family (both those back in Canada, and the new family I had formed in Mexico), I moved to California to transform my passion into vocation with the Not For Sale Campaign.  Since my arrival just one week ago, I’ve been marvelling not only at the breathtaking beauty of Half Moon Bay, but also at the overwhelming amount of work that Not For Sale does to engage people of all backgrounds in the abolitionist movement.  I’m thrilled to be part of the NFS Fellowship program with the other six Fellows from all across North America, as we collectively work to bring justice to a world that, one day, as a whole, will no longer tolerate the selling or purchasing of a human life.