Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Finally feeling empowered instead of just depressed...


Many of my family and friends know that Jess and I, along with some family and good friends have finally launched Child Rescue. Yay! It's off the ground and running and I can't believe the miracles that have taken place in the past 5 months.

There are so many wonderful people (Lindsay you know who you are) who have been gone above and beyond donating time, and resources. We've even had people call us asking what they can do or if they can donate, it amazes me. I wasn't expecting this sort of response.

It's just like Justin
Dillion (from Call and Response) says There are children crying out , literally, now it's just up to us: How we are going to respond?

When I first started learning about trafficking and the sex trade, I felt hopeless, kind of paralyzed by my discouragement, how do you fight something so big? But, I continued along Jess' side anyways. It's not like I could say,
"I realize these horrific things are actually happen to children, but it makes me too sad to hear about." (although that's how I felt, it's still hard to hear about). Some days I can tell the children's individual stories and not skip a beat, other times it just hits me, my throat constricts, and I know I could just have a cry fest all by myself (today was one of those days).
Interestingly as I continued to learn and research I began to feel inspired and empowered by all the good works going on all around me. While it's true that there are brothels and children being exploited in just about every North American city, there are also good people fighting and responding to these crys in every city as well.

While there are great people fighting against these evils, there aren't yet enough to make a permanent societal change. That's where Child Rescue comes in. We hope to educate everyone we can about what's happening a few blocks from their houses, at local truck stops, spas, salons, old wearhouses.

Our hope is that you will get fed up enough that you will respond with an outraged voice loud enough for the lawmakers and politicians to take action and provide the local law enforcement agencies with enough funding, manpower, and legislation to end child slavery.


Please stay tuned for ways you can get involved and respond. They're are so many ways you can just help in only a few mins or just from home. Thanks for reading friends, this is dear to my heart.


5 comments:

Stacey said...

That's a great video Steph. I need to get that book. In order to not deprive you of your Ipod, tell me the title and I'll get it from the library.

Stacey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Stephanie M Larsen said...

The book is called "The Loss of Innocence." by Samoly Mam. Her website is wonderful as well, I just love this woman and I don't even know her.

Over The Moon X 5. said...

Wow Steph, i have seen little snippets of what you have been up to latley, but haven't got the scope of it in its entirety. IF you ever need help, just let me know. Good for you, making a difference in the world :)

Stephanie M Larsen said...

We do need help thanks so much for offering. I'll let you know as we become more clear, right now everything is a whirlwind, just trying to get things ready for this huge concert in Salt Lake. Thanks so much for offering help, it's a great work to be involved in,, and it's a way to not only protect our babies but other little ones too.