Kaitlyn N. Lentulo's Blog

3 Small Businesses Actively Fighting Human Trafficking

A common sentiment I hear from people who want to fight modern-day slavery is, “I don’t know what to do.” Another one is, “I don’t have any special skills.”

GOOD NEWS! You need absolutely no special skills to online shop, and there are many incredible small businesses you can support that are tackling the issue of human trafficking head-on.

Not all of us have the resources, time, energy, or frankly, motivation, to start our own organization or business, but I can say with bold certainty that everyone reading this has the motivation to purchase unique, beautiful jewelry…so let’s get to it and do what we can do to bring healing through supporting survivor-focused small businesses.  

BRANDED Collective –

BRANDED Collective simultaneously tackles the issue of sex trafficking and forced labor by providing employment to survivors of human trafficking through ethical jewelry-making.

It is not uncommon for survivors who are not able to find employment to go back to their trafficker for survival purposes. BRANDED gives survivors the power to control their future through economic freedom with the hope that “each survivor will be inspired to rediscover the dreams she has lost and be motivated to go forth and pursue them.

BRANDED “[seeks] to unite a collective of survivors and patrons who work together to advance the abolition of human trafficking.”

Each piece of BRANDED jewelry has a number hand-stamped into the metal, representing the physical branding that many undergo while being trafficked. Traffickers often use force to “brand” their victims with a number or marking that will identify that person as their “property.”

Along with the stamped number, each BRANDED item also has the initials of the survivor who created that piece, allowing you to look up those initials and read part of her story on their website.

I personally have a cuff bracelet from BRANDED and wear it every day. It’s quality-made, beautiful, and an easy conversation starter.

Read the story behind BRANDED Collective:

https://www.brandedcollective.com/blogs/brandedcollective/just-one-number

Shop Here:

https://www.brandedcollective.com/

Starfish Project –

Starfish Project focuses primarily on assisting survivors of human trafficking in Asia.

They invite women to leave the sex industry by physically entering brothels and offering an alternative, assisting survivors of sexual exploitation as they build a new life through holistic care and life skills training, and helping survivors develop careers that can support them moving forward.

A challenge often faced in the fight against human trafficking is the severe shortage in aftercare housing facilities for survivors.

Starfish Project is confronting this challenge by providing women who decide to leave brothels with safe housing and social services.   

So far, this organization has “employed and trained over 150 women and served thousands more through [its] community outreach.”

This organization donates 100% of the proceeds garnered from selling fair trade jewelry to its anti-human trafficking mission.

Shop Here:

https://starfishproject.com/

Jars of Hope –

Jars of Hope sells handmade, ethically-sourced necklaces filled with different shades of glitter and uses 25% of the proceeds to support a variety of anti-human trafficking organizations while also hosting events that bring greater awareness to the issue’s prevalence.

Each necklace is named after an organization fighting human trafficking or advocating for kids in the foster care system, and you are immediately told how much of your purchase will go directly to that organization.

Although exact statistics related to human trafficking are difficult to acquire due to the crime’s hidden nature, it is estimated that 60 percent of trafficked children recovered by the FBI were in the foster system.

“In the United States, traffickers prey upon children in the foster care system. Recent reports have consistently indicated that a large number of victims of child sex trafficking were at one time in the foster care system” (2019 Trafficking in Persons Report).

“When you buy a necklace you help write a new narrative for those enslaved. We long to see captives set free and their lives restored.” – Jars of Hope

https://www.jarsofhope.love/

2019 TIP Report: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019-Trafficking-in-Persons-Report.pdf

More small-business highlights coming soon!

It’s incredible, really, how easy it is to question yourself, to question your abilities, your decisions, your risk-taking. I was reminded of this the moment I approved my poetry book for publishing. It was like I was back in college and had just finished working on a research paper that was over 10,000 words long. I’d really given my time, energy, and heart to the project. I focused. I proofread. I proofread again, and again, and again. Finally, the edits had to stop. I decided it was time to move forward because there was nothing more I could find that I wanted to change. I felt it was as good as it was going to get. My eyes knew the pages by heart. And vice versa, my pages knew my heart.

And then there it was, I clicked submit, and the doubt crept in. Did I even submit the right file? Ok, now back to current time. Way out of college and sitting in my living room in Kansas. Did I approve the right book, the most updated version? Oh my gosh, what if I submitted the draft. What if people buy my book and receive the DRAFT?! I genuinely had those thoughts. What if, what if, what if I messed up? Even though I spent months making sure I would not. Why is it so easy to doubt? Why can’t I just TRUST that I cared as much when I submitted that book as I do right now, that I would not make that kind of mistake because I made sure that my process was slow and steady and careful?

This question is lingering with me. What is the root of this lack of trust? To have a lack of trust, I must have broken some sort of promise to myself at some point prior to now. I must have trusted, failed to follow through, and broken my own heart. Otherwise, I would feel no pit in the bottom of my stomach that I might have done something wrong with absolutely no evidence that this is true. So what really did go wrong? Where did my trust get lost?

And here’s what I’m finding, as I sit here and honestly reflect on my soul. My trust got lost in so many places, at so many different times throughout my life. How many times did I promise, deep down in my soul, that I would not compare my personality to others, that I would not conform to those around me to be more “liked”, that I would not automatically consider myself lesser than? How many times have I promised myself that I would love the body God gave me, only to seconds later look in the mirror, suck in my stomach, and immediately feel sick because I don’t like what I see? How many times have I promised myself that I would be content where I am, only to arrive right back to the “I wish I was somewhere else/doing something else” mindset two days later? This is me. This is not God. This is not of God.

Imagine if your best friend broke his or her promises to you over and over and over again. Some of us don’t have to imagine this situation because we’ve experienced the reality of it. It hurts. It hurts so badly, and the pain is inflicted from someone on the outside of you. You can shout, get angry, and work out your issues openly with a friend. You can navigate through the pain out loud. So when the betrayal comes from yourself, from within, it only makes sense that the pain would stick with us even longer, oftentimes without us even knowing it. I feel like it’s safe to say that the vast majority of human beings don’t lay in bed yelling at themselves about breaking a promise they made to themselves (If you do this, more power to you…I think?). We walk around feeling this heaviness, this burden of frustration and doubt and guilt and hopelessness because we fail to protect our own promises to ourselves, and we keep it all boiled up, simmering inside of us. This burden is not meant for us.

So while I’m practicing being trustworthy to my own self, I’m also practicing being forgiving and merciful because I know that promises will inevitably be broken. I will probably look in the mirror unsatisfied more times than one; I will likely forget that I’m supposed to be content with where the Lord has me, but I can practice forgiving. And this is one of the most challenging things to do, to forgive yourself of offenses committed against yourself. We tend to hold trust and forgiveness in such high regard when it comes to our relationships with other people, for good reason. And for just as good of a reason, for the sake of rest, and freedom, and joy, let’s practice forgiving ourselves and trusting. . .and forgiving again if necessary.

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As most of you know, if you’ve been following my life, my husband and I recently PCS’d to Fort Riley, Kansas. This whole Army wife thing is new to me, and it’s definitely an adjustment on many levels. I’m trying to find my place, and I’m trying to determine what my role is supposed to be. Until I fell in love with Frankie 3 or so years ago, never once did I envision marrying into the Army. It was actually my top fear. My #1, scarier than spiders, fear (um, woah). I have a full page about it in one of my journals from 2013 (the semester before I met Frankie). The idea of loving someone who was going to be across the world from me for long chunks of time, absolutely terrified me. (still does, but ya know, God is so funny. Guess that’s why we get along.)

Anyways, point is, I’ve stopped planning too far ahead (or just ahead). If my 20-year-old self drew a diagram of how I imagined my life looking now, and I set it next to a diagram of how my life actually looks now, I’d probably roll my eyes and say, “Oh reallyyy 20-year-old Katie. THAT plan makes sense.” Because I’m really not that great of a planner when it comes to life. (Fact check: true). (Reality check: None of us are). From the deepest parts of my soul, I thank the Lord for disrupting my plans, for putting Frankie in my path, so I would learn to trust Him more than I fear deployments. So I would see that God is infinitely more massive than my greatest fears. The Lord does not demand a fearless life, but He does sometimes demand us to follow Him with blind obedience into whatever it is we fear the most. Already, being where I am right now, in Kansas in the middle of corn fields and K-state fanatics, I am being taught a multitude of things that I’m not sure I would’ve learned from the comfort of my hometown.

Of all the ways God is stretching me, I feel Him stretching me the most in one area. Contentment. I need to have it, and my track record shows that I quite simply do not. I’ve been here for about 1 month now, and I’m itching to DO things. I’m not sure what things, but just THINGS. But I can feel God telling me to allow for this time of calm, of silence, of rest. Maybe you can relate, or maybe you can’t, but what I tend to do is I jump into whatever opportunity is placed in front of me first because I just want to feel useful. OR I go frantically searching for opportunities, and even if I feel a sense of “Ugh I do NOT want that to be how I spend my days,” I often jump into it anyways because at least it’s something rather than nothing. The problem with my usual mindset is that the things I tend to jump into don’t really have anything to do with God’s purpose for me. I end up committed to 10 different things (which means I’m not fully committed to any of them), none of which I actually want to be doing. I jump in so quickly that when the thing comes along that the Lord DOES want me to focus on, to pour my energy, resources, time, and passion into, I’m already burnt out and bursting at the seams with the other things. I can’t count how many times I’ve thought to myself, “Wow, I can FEEL the Lord putting that on my heart, but there’s no way I can fit it in.” I push His nudging aside and eventually forget about whatever it was He was pushing me towards. This is not what I want for my time in Kansas. This is not what I want ever again.

So I’m practicing something new. I’m practicing listening. I’m practicing patience and trust and contentment. Trust that He is not wasting me but that He is shaping me and that where He has me now is where I am supposed to be, doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And that if this ever becomes not the case, that He will nudge me gently, or aggressively if need be. Trust that this is not a waiting period right BEFORE my purpose will start being fulfilled, but that it is already happening. This is the hardest thing for me to wrap my mind around, that I can be fulfilling my eternal purpose without running myself ragged, without pursuing an ambitious career, without filling my days with endless activities.

How peaceful it is to realize that I don’t create my purpose. It is set out for me, waiting to be embraced. I can’t plan my purpose any better than I can plan what my life will look like in a year. There’s some rest to be found in that fact, sweet friends.

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Turns out there’s a lot to be learned from substituting in a jr. high history class during a mock election. It was fascinating to listen to their opinions and emotions play out with their classmates, and as loud as it got in that classroom today, I was entirely ok with letting it happen once I recognized the content of the noise.


 


I have never heard junior high students debate with such passion and with such educated responses to each other as they did today. I sat in the front of the classroom and for a while considered silencing the room, but I stopped myself. What I was witnessing was incredible. Those kids cared about their country. The Hillary supporters cared. The Trump supporters cared. The Stein and Johnson supporters cared. All of them had reasons for their vote, and they expressed them with fire in their lungs.


 


Regardless of who wins tonight, what I witnessed today is why we should all remain grateful to live in this nation. We are allowed to argue, feel frustration, and verbalize that frustration in public places. Do you realize that isn’t a privilege every country allows its citizens? As obnoxious as political Facebook posts get (oops), the fact that we’re allowed to post our opinions at all is a gift given to us by this country. Sure, it might be an embarrassing moment in American history depending on who you ask, but to say you don’t still love America is just remarkably ironic. America itself is what allows you the freedom to verbalize your disdain for it.

 

This election cycle is a doozy. We could probably all agree on that. (Agree? Woah) Earlier this week I started asking myself some questions. How is the state of my heart? Not toward the candidates. I know how the state of my heart is towards them. But how is the state of my heart towards other people, particularly people who disagree with my viewpoints? For those of you who haven’t noticed (how?), I’m a very, very opinionated person, and I’m all about debating controversial issues (Bless my fiancé’s soul).

A couple weeks back, Pastor Chris preached an incredible sermon about the fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, and self-control). He explained how the “fruit” of the spirit is singular. To have the fruit we need to have ALL of it. If there’s an outstanding absence of one characteristic, then we are missing the entire fruit and have not grasped the Gospel and its message of grace and redemption.

Convicting, considering the fact that on an everyday basis I’m pretty impatient, not super joyful, and “gentle” is most likely quite far from how people would describe me. That was before the election cycle and before I was confronted with issues and topics and people that I severely struggled with on an hourly basis. Gradually, and without me noticing as it happened, my impatience turned to anger; my lack of consistent joy turned to fear, and my not so gentle spirit turned to even harsher rhetoric and judgement. I lost sight of love and its power to reconcile. I forgot that Christ calls us to have peace with everyone so long as we are able. I forgot that soaking words in kindness is more effective and warm than spewing out opinions with no sugar to sweeten them. And I forgot that sometimes we don’t need to say everything that’s on our minds. Somewhere along the line of my life, I picked up the brilliant idea that to say what I think without filtering is the most honest and real way to go about life. False. What I believe is often less sharp than the words that spew out of my mouth, but I am not careful. And so I spew.

This election is bringing out a very aggressive and cruel side of many, many people. A lot of us are pulling a “Katie” and spewing. Politics are messy. They bring up emotions in us that are unparalleled in most other societal areas. These raw emotions have potential to be good. Controversy is healthy and stimulating. Debate leads to growth. But what I am seeing, in myself and in others, is a desire to convert people to the “other side,” or to prove the other side wrong, with such ferocity that we are forgetting the fruit. It is being tossed to the side of the road as if it’s rotten and useless when it actually has the power to transform this nation, as it needs to be transformed.

The question has to be asked, how might Jesus act if he was here in the flesh, right now, living in our America? My human mind imagines that He might sit there calmly and tell us we can vote, we can have our opinions but to leave those votes and opinions away from our relationships IF they are going to be used to harm or degrade. Jesus doesn’t do that. He doesn’t harm or degrade. He has the fruit in all its perfection. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Let’s soak our opinions with the fruit and see how it changes our conversations.

Debate on, brothers and sisters. It’s healthy if it’s filled with grace.

A lot happens in 3 1/2 years. You don’t even realize it’s happening. Then college is over, and you’re sitting on a couch at 3 am wondering what in the world just happened. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. Some people get sad. Some get really, really happy. For me, I’m in neutral territory. It’s easy to predict that I’m completely ready to be done with research papers.  The thought of never having to take a Dr. Sellers test ever again in my life is incredibly appealing. It’ll be GREAT to not get ticketed by campus safety for parking in a visitor parking spot. Still bitter about that. I could go on for a while. There are a lot of wonderful things about graduating. But with graduation, there is also the knowledge that I am getting closer to leaving a few select things that I can’t remember how I ever lived without, particularly those friends that hear every thought I ever have whether they want to or not. They’re my human journals. I think a lot of us have people like that who we don’t ever want to leave. Good thing we only graduate from schools and not from people.

College didn’t teach me anything profound. It taught me pretty basic things that seem like they should be just innately understood. Looking back at who I was in high school compared to who I am at the tail end of college, I barely recognize myself.

#1: The first fatal flaw of my high school self: I found my identity in athletics. Joke’s on me because once college hit, that little shindig ended and really no one could care less that I played a sport at a small school in a town no one knows about. I live with a bunch of freaking collegiate athletes, and I’m sitting here like “I’ll go grab my mini van, practicing to be a soccer mom.”

#2: In high school I viewed my peers in categories. The party people just partied because they didn’t know how to have fun without alcohol.The emos were just depressing and didn’t want anything to do with anyone. The girls who got all the guys and somehow got away with wearing shorts to school, well, I could never be friends with them because we had nothing in common. And so on and so on. If I could go back and change one thing about how I handled high school, I would take myself out of the stupid little isolated world I was in. College forces relatability. And that is such a good thing.

#3: So then freshman year of college comes around, and I just think I’m so freaking cool because I’m in COLLEGE. I’ve really made it now. I’m in my prime, rollin’ high, doin’ big things. And then I realize, oh wow there are literally 2,500 other girls here who look and act exactly like me and who all are way nicer than me and make significantly funnier jokes. So then the crisis of confidence comes into play, and I desperately try to figure out where I’m going to place my identity because people have to know me for something. I have to stand out somehow!

Spoiler alert: going straight to the end because who really cares what happened in the middle. Made it to last semester of my senior year after flailing around for 3 years, and I finally figured it out. God lets us flail sometimes. Most of the time in some cases (ex: my case), but He lets us flail because He’s sitting back like, “Yeah…she’ll definitely get tired eventually.”And I got tired so many times. And every time I stopped running around desperately pulling at stupid things to make myself feel purposeful and worthy, God would show up and be like, “Hey, um, you know you don’t have to do that right? It’s actually kind of a complete waste of your time.” *rough translation* I flailed around this last year trying to find worth in my career goals. For a while I thought I’d found it. False alarm. I tried to find it in good grades, in making my teachers like me, in working out. I pushed some boundaries a few times to see what I was missing out on, thought maybe that’d make me feel fulfilled. Everything came up short.

And then, during a Sunday morning church service, Pastor Chris solved my identity crises in a matter of seconds. That man knows Jesus. He said, “God owes us nothing. He will use us like clay. Take yourself off the throne.” Take yourself off the throne. Ok. Yep. I’ve been running around for 3 1/2 years trying to figure out how to stay on that throne. The throne isn’t a thing. All the worth I’d been trying to manufacture for myself, IS NOT A THING. God’s throne is real, but ours isn’t. Our worth exists only because Christ decides it does. He doesn’t owe us worth, but He tells us we can find it in Him. If we take ourselves off the throne, and acknowledge that we are at the foot of God’s throne, the weight of every ounce of worth and purpose we’ve ever tried to gather and hold onto is lifted in an instant. We don’t need to chase after worth. We need to slow down and realize that we already have it.

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PC: Rachel Kehlee Photography

“In today’s world, all we have to do to “disappear” is delete all our social media accounts. Without those, only the people who see you outside of a computer or phone screen will actually know you, instead of knowing the person we create through a profile.” – Tori O’Connor

I have a confession to make. My Facebook and Instagram make my life look exponentially more extravagant and perfect than it actually is. Shocking right? Believe it or not I don’t go to the river every day. I don’t attend beautiful weddings every weekend. My friends and I aren’t always smiling and laughing when we’re together. I did do a lot of studying last semester. I only hiked in Yosemite a few times. (Ok, that last one digresses from the point because “a few times” is still genuinely AWESOME, but you’ll get over it). I don’t actually have over 1,000 friends. In real life I can only invest in so many people at once. I think I’m more of a Jerry Seinfeld kind of person: [image error]

Also, you’d never know this by looking at my profile pictures, but according to my High Sierran friends, my looks resemble a mixture of the llama, Kuzco, from Emperor’s New Groove and a mermaid…I accept that with open arms. But that’s one of those stupid little things that I’m actually kind of hoping you don’t understand unless you know me apart from social media. My point here is that I don’t tend to put pictures of me looking like a llama on Facebook. “Why” you might ask? Figure it out.

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Anyways, you get the point. My life isn’t as grand as it may seem on social media, and I would bet my entire college student bank account that yours isn’t either.

So clearly this is not some new, profound discovery that I’m expressing. But lately I’ve gotten more fed up than usual. I get tired of seeing everyone’s best life, and this summer I’ve been more guilty than ever of making my own life look remarkably more perfect than it is. My Instagram pictures show the best moments of the best days. I mean, no one wants to see a picture of my crappiest moments. That’s not the way of the social media world.

I don’t want to ignore the fact that those super rad things you and I are posting are actually happening. But I also have to say that if you didn’t post it on Facebook, I’m not sure I would ever hear about it at all. So what does that say about social media? It says that, for many of us, our relationships are being built through a screen, through something that filters out all the unattractive, messed up parts of our lives and puts out a clean, sparkly version of who we are. Well some of us (aka my main girl Tsizzle and I) are tired of seeing everyone’s sparkly lives and are tired of making our own look sparkly. If I was to be completely realistic and vulnerable with you all, if I was to be completely open about everything that goes on in my annoyingly complicated brain (which I’m not gonna do), then I think my life would end up looking a lot less like I’m living a fairytale and a lot more like I’m living a life with a lot of battles similar to yours. Some struggles would naturally differ, but I think we would all be a little surprised by how many of them overlap.

What would happen if we took the time and expended the energy to really get to know each other? Oh yeah, you’re right. The world would probably explode. . . or we would have meaningful relationships with the people who take the time and put real effort into our lives. I realize it’s unrealistic to not use social media these days. Obviously, I’m just as into it as most people. But I think it’s important that we examine our relationships more deeply.

Tori prompted me to ask myself this question: If I was to leave all social media behind, who would I disappear to forever? And who would be the people who come looking for me when I do disappear? Because those people are the ones who can handle the grime hidden beneath the facade of perfection. Those people might actually be forced to be bold. They might actually have to risk rejection in a more painful way than just not getting a response on Facebook. Timidity has no place in meaningful relationships. People respond to boldness.

I challenge you to think about this: If social media didn’t exist, who would pursue a relationship with you?  And just as importantly, who would you pursue?

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1 out of every 3 women worldwide has been sexually assaulted. 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men will be sexually assaulted before they are 18. In America alone, someone is sexually violated every 2 minutes. Earlier this month, a 6 year old was raped at her school in India. During the FIFA World Cup, children as young as 10 years old were forced to sell their bodies for 50 cents.

Are you seeing the same words I’m seeing? Are you comprehending what these words mean? I recently had a discussion with my boss regarding these questions. Based on the action being taken by people I know, nobody has read these statistics; nobody knows the reality. But I’m calling you out. You do know the reality. I know the reality. So why in the world are we not doing anything? Why do people no longer seem shocked, no longer bothered, no longer deeply disturbed by news and statistics of sexual violence? I don’t have an infallible answer. I’m genuinely asking you.

I can’t speak for people who don’t live where I live. I really can’t even speak for anyone but myself. But just for now, I’ll throw out my theories as to why people appear to be growing frighteningly comfortable with news of rape.

First theory: People ARE initially shocked. They read the news or meet someone who has personally been sexually assaulted, and they feel for them. They wonder why people do such disgusting things to other people. They wonder why the world is such a dark place. They wonder about how horrible it would be if that happened to them. They wonder if it is possible to end such atrocity. And that is all they do. They wonder.

Second theory: People don’t see it as their responsibility to end sexual violence. They would rather live in comfort, counting on the idea that someone somewhere will do something about it. But there’s no way it could be them. They’ll sit comfortably on their couch watching the news about the girls gang-raped in India, and they’ll be saddened. They can’t believe that happens to people, and they wish it didn’t. Then they’ll scroll through social media and see countless articles about the same story and others like it, but it won’t have the effect it had on them the first time. They’ve already heard about that.

Third theory: People want to do something, but they don’t know where to start. So instead they just forget about it and let the disturbance leave their mind. Soon enough they’ll grow comfortable again…while people all around the world are being raped.

If you fall into any of my theories, and if you don’t; if you’re a human being, you don’t have an excuse to be comfortable anymore. Sorry to ruin that for you. But here, I’ll fix it again. You can stay where you’re sitting, or you can keep zombie-walking with your iPhone wherever you are. And simultaneously you can prove that you aren’t comfortable with the way the world currently is. All you have to do is sign this petition (http://www.change.org/petitions/un-general-assembly-end-sexual-violence-through-education-and-training), and you can know you have DONE something. You’re no longer subject to being a wonderer, a person running from responsibility, or someone with untapped passion to create change. I am giving you a way to change the nightly news by changing the world. If you are determined to remain in your comfort, I’ll ask you this final question: At whose expense are you comfortable?

SIGN Petition link:

http://www.change.org/petitions/un-general-assembly-end-sexual-violence-through-education-and-training

 

Resources:

George Mason University, Worldwide Sexual Assault Statistics, 2005

Finkelhor et al., 1990

https://rainn.org

http://www.ryot.org/child-prostitution-brazil-world-cup/724729

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-28340617

{“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” – Woodrow Wilson}

Going into this summer, my goal was to find a way to put what my heart was telling me into action. I have done some international traveling in the past, to Cameroon, Mexico, and Ukraine, and in each place, I was exposed to new forms of social injustice. Because of these experiences, every time I returned to the United States, I recognized injustices occurring in my own country that I had been entirely ignorant to before. Human rights are being violated everywhere, all over the world. It makes me uncomfortable. Frankly, it should make you uncomfortable too.

About a month ago, I was blessed with the opportunity to intern for Thirdway Human Rights and Development, and I have already learned an invaluable number of things. Coming into the internship, I knew that I was especially passionate about ending sexual violence. The fact that people get raped, assaulted, and trafficked is horrific to me, as it is to everyone else I’ve ever talked to. That is why, when Christoph Damalie, Founder of Thirdway, told me we would be launching a campaign in an effort to end sexual violence, I was beyond thrilled. This is the first time in my life that I have been an active participant  in the fight for human rights. Of course, no solution will be easily reached or accomplished, but what Thirdway has shown me is that no goal is too large. I believe there are more good people in the world than bad, which is why I also believe this campaign will be a success if our supporters bind together. Being a part of marketing for this campaign is exciting because I can see tangible evidence that progress is being made in the right direction.

I want to thank everyone who has signed the petition so far, and I encourage you to keep spreading the news about what Thirdway is doing. If you are interested in a volunteer or internship position, I highly recommend applying. If you’re at all like I was before this internship, and you want to make a difference but are clueless as to “how,” Thirdway is your “how.”

Thirdway’s Campaign to End Sexual Violence petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/un-general-assembly-eradicate-sexual-violence-through-education-and-training

 

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Ok folks, here’s the thing. I’m about to share my thoughts. My thoughts are not reflections of what everyone else should think. They’re simply my own, so if you get offended, that’s a bummer because I don’t want to hear your thoughts. (I can already sense you getting angry, so if you don’t know me very well, let me clarify…I’M KIDDING!) I want you to share your thoughts with me because I know you will have them after reading this post.

I’m assuming that you all know about the #YesAllWomen movement. If you don’t, you should, so look it up. I’m also assuming you know about the counterproductive #NotAllMen movement. Yesterday I was scrolling through the social media world, reading the posts by these men and women. What I got from it is: 1) Women are sexually harassed and treated like crap a WHOLE lot more than a lot of men realize. 2) Men who are actually respectful and decent are offended because they feel like they are being targeted alongside rapists and dirtbags by the #YesAllWomen movement even though that’s really not the intention. Ok. So. Here come the thoughts….

Yesterday, I was sitting in an airport terminal ready to head to LA. I decided to go grab a cup of Starbucks, and on my walk back to my seat, I noticed a man (probably around his mid to late 40s) staring at me. I was traveling by myself. There were people all around, but I suddenly felt like they all dissipated, and it was just me and this man who seemed to be indulging himself with his eyes. I didn’t feel anger towards him; I felt fear. Later on, the same man walked up to the group of people I was sitting with. At that moment, he looked completely unsuspicious, kind, and friendly. He asked if any of us had an iPhone 4 charger. I did, but I didn’t offer it to him. Why not? I talked myself through it. {I probably read into the whole thing. He stared for a while. But I do that to guys! Yeah, but it was kind of creepy. But he seems genuine and kind!} In the forefront of my mind, I saw him as a danger, and only in the background, did I think of him as a man who really did just need to charge his phone and might’ve just stared for a bit too long. This may seem paranoid to some of you, and some others will understand my fear. But either way, it was real for me.

Society has taught me, and continues to teach me, to be afraid and suspicious of people, especially men. I hate that; I understand why; I get it. But there also has to be a limit to the distrust because living in such a state is very unenjoyable. I wouldn’t even give the man a phone charger in a public place where he could do nothing to me. Where is the line? Because I think there needs to be one.

Chances are high that most of you are not on the same page as me. All I know is that I need some refreshment because all this hype about how terrible so many men are to women is bringin’ me down people! I don’t want to discredit the #YesAllWomen movement AT ALL because I agree with it on many levels. Every woman, at some point in her life, has or will experience some form of sexual harassment. As disgusting as it is, it’s the truth. However, as a young lady living in today’s society, it upsets me that so many decent and kind young men are getting smashed by this movement because of enormous blanket statements that are being made, even if it is not intended to do so.

I think there needs to be a new movement, a movement that reminds women that gentlemen definitely still exist. This wouldn’t be like the #NotAllMen movement because it’s not saying “Well I’M not like that.” It’s not saying, “I don’t sexually harass women,” so this doesn’t apply to me. It’s coming from a woman’s perspective, and it’s saying “I empathize with your fear, and I met a man today who treated me well. There is hope! He did this….” I wonder how I might react differently to people if I was aware of all the good things they are capable of and not only the bad. We are not meant to live in fear. Some people are very sick, but some people are still very well.

Here’s my first reminder: “He opened the door for me when I walked into Starbucks. #ThatOneGentleman”