7 Great Christmas gift ideas that also change the world

• Still looking for some last minute Christmas gifts? Here are 7 ideas that are great gifts and change the world at the same time: 

1. Try Shop Good in Oklahoma City. It is located at 3 N.E. 9th Street next to Sara Sara Cupcake. When I went in to check out the store I found the cutest clothes, accessories, and jewelry. The quality reminded me of something I might find at Anthropologie. The best part is that some of the items had a percentage of profits going to good causes like refugees in Uganda. Check it out.

2. TOMS: For every pair of TOMS shoes you buy Tom (Blake Mycowskie) will put a pair of shoes on a needy child. I have a pair in silver sparkle. They are super cute.

3. Microfinance gift cards. Microfinance is helping to pull people in developing countries out of poverty by empowering them with a small loan to start a business. Here are a couple of non-profits you can buy a gift card from.
a.  World Vision: buy a gift card with a note to your friend or family member and they can go online and choose their entrepreneur
b. Kiva: buy a gift card and send a note to your friend or family member and they can go online and choose their entrepreneur

4. Buy a fundraising gift from a good organization like Fistula Foundation.

Fistula Repair: Women without access to good medical care can have a fistula tear during childbirth. This tear can cause a leakage of bodily fluids. This is a very serious issue and women with this condition are becoming the new lepers.  A fistula is fixed by a simple procedure. The Fistula Foundation is bringing women around the world access to these procedures.

Fistula Foundation: You can give a certificate in the name of a loved one or a necklace, bracelet, earrings, scarf or thank you card in a loved one's name.
http://www.fistulafoundation.org/whatyoucando/catalog.html

5. Blue Seven in OKC has some beautiful jewelry made by "ember". Ember is a group of 27 women in Uganda who are selling jewelry that is transcending women's lives. http://emberarts.com

6. Books

• The hole in the Gospel by Richard Stearns, CEO of World Vision, Great Book
• Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Great Book!
• Richard Stearns, World Vision CEO, suggested reading. (http://www.theholeinourgospel.com/recommended-reading/social-justice/
• Terrify No More: Young Girls Held Captive and the Daring Undercover Operation to Win Their Freedom by Gary A. Haugen and Gregg Hunter, of International Justice Mission, (A Christian NGO that fights human trafficking and other injustices) 

7. Movies

• Invictus
• Amazing Grace (one of my favorites)
• God Grew tired of Us: Lost Boys of the Sudan
• Blindside

Good Shopping! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!

Up to 70% of foster kids end up in human trafficking, you can help stop this

Foster kids are very vulnerable to being trafficked in our society for several reasons:

1. Often foster kids are sexually abused and have been conditioned since young children that this is the norm.

2. Often girls in foster care run away to be with their boyfriend, who often turns out to be a pimp (trafficker).

3. High percentage of youths who have been in foster care end up homeless or in shelters leaving them vulnerable.
4. Children can slip through the cracks of the DHS system, which makes them more susceptible to traffickers. 


Some Information on kids that go through the foster care system:

• Some experts estimate that 45 percent of those leaving foster care become homeless within a year
• An FBI agent in Florida estimates that 70% of trafficked kids are out of the foster care system *
• A Florida shelter director estimates that 8 out out 10 kids come out of the system *
• A California study in Contra Costa County found that a third of children placed in foster care eventually end up homeless, and 35% are arrested while in foster care
• According to the 1994 Green Book Overview of Entitlement Programs: "Several surveys conducted during the mid-1980s showed that a significant number of homeless shelter users had been recently discharged from foster care."
• A New York City survey found that between 25 and 50 percent of the young men in the homeless shelters were former foster care wards
• In Calgary a study consisted of interviews with so-called "street kids." It was found that an astounding 90 percent had been in foster care prior to winding up living on the street. 
• A study in an Illinois prison showed 80% of prisoners spent time in foster care

What we as a community can do to protect the most vulnerable of our society:

1. Get involved in a Foster Care ministry or outreach:

In OKC, Church of the Harvest is a partner of RFKC, Royal Family Kids Camp, a ministry that provides camps and mentoring to kids in the DHS system. 
In OKC The Anna's House Foundation is a special ministry working with babies in the DHS system. 
In OKC  the YWCA that helps women and children who are victims of domestic violence. 

2. Become a local CASA volunteer, Court Appointed Special Advocates.
3. Volunteer with organizations that help teach parenting skills like Family Expectations in OKC 
3. Think and pray about becoming a foster parent. This decision could literally change a young persons entire direction in life. James 1:27 says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." Foster kids are America's orphans. Keep in mind some foster kids have never had a birthday party or even know their birthday. They desperately need someone not only to take care of their physical needs for a while but to believe in them and speak to their God given potential. Every person is precious and valuable to God. 


There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children- Nelson Mandela

*The information and statistics are from from the websites below:
http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/most_trafficked_children_used_to_be_foster_children

Here is some information from The Dream Center in Chicago on human trafficking and who is the most vulnerable. 

http://www.chicagodreamcenter.org/ministries/human-trafficking/
Statistics on Foster Care kids and homelessness:
http://www.liftingtheveil.org/foster14.htm

Why in the U.S. do we still criminalize most trafficked children?

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children- Nelson Mandela

Why is it here in the U.S. that the majority of states criminalize most domestic trafficking victims? There are hundreds of thousands of runaways and throwaways in the U.S. that are living on the streets. These children are often so abused at home that they resort to the streets for refuge. 


Girls as young as 9 or 10 are picked up by ruthless traffickers. These men are often older men somewhere around thirty to forty years of age. The classic scenario goes as follows: an older man may befriend a young girl, age 9 or 10. He may fill in some father figure role. He convinces her he loves her and wants to take care of her. He will take her away from the abuse. He then systematically destroys her identity, and any self-esteem left with physical and emotional abuse and drug dependency. He finally has complete control over her. Remember this is a child. These girls can be found here being trafficked on 1-40 or at truck stops and neighboring motels here in Oklahoma City. 


The victims are subject to psychological trauma, abuse, disease, social ostracism, drug dependency, unwanted pregnancy, forced abortion, malnutrition and poor mental health. Often these girls are murdered or commit suicide. 


Or, the girls are picked up for prostitution. They are prosecuted and serve time. They are stigmatized for being prostitute even though they are not even legally able to consent to sex. 


According to the Polaris Project, largest anti-human trafficking organization in the world, and the U.S. State Department, any person under the age of 18 caught in the commercial sex trade is considered a trafficking victim.


So why isn't that a reality in this Country. Hopefully it will be, if people will continue to raise their voices to help the oppressed. There have been some advances made. 


New York has just passed the New York Safe Harbor for Exploited Children Act.


Overview of the Act: The Safe Harbor Act would allow for the presumption that a person under 16 years of age who is charged as a juvenile delinquent for a prostitution offense is a severely trafficked person. This presumption permits the child to avoid criminal charges of prostitution and instead be considered a “person in need of supervision.” The statute also provides support and services to sexually exploited youth who are under the age of 18. These services include safe houses, crisis intervention programs, community-based programs, and law-enforcement training to help officers identify sexually exploited youth.- Polaris Project Action Page


Isaiah 58:9-12 says, "If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,our shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.


Let your voice be heard to ensure that trafficking victims are not sent to jail when they desperately need shelter, trauma counseling, and help becoming whole. 


Things you can do:


1. Enroll in OATH (Oklahomans against trafficking humans) awareness training,  http://oathcoalition.org/events.aspx


2. Enroll at OATH advocate training, http://oathcoalition.org/advocate.aspx


3. Organize a trafficking awareness party, fundraiser or garage sale. 


4. Write your representative or senator your views on criminalizing trafficking victims or organize a letter writing campaign with some of your friends.


5. Or get a youth group from church to go and visit girls in Juvenile Correction Center. 


6. Get connected to an anti-human trafficking organization that is advocating for girls in courts and providing refuge. Some are listed below:


GEMS (doing amazing stuff in NYC, advocating girls in courts) http://www.gems-girls.org/


A 21 Campaign (Trafficking in Europe, fastest rising group)  http://www.thea21campaign.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=132&Itemid=305


All Things New(work in OKC) http://www.allthingsnewcampaign.org/


OATHcoalition http://oathcoalition.org/advocate.aspx


Veronica's Voice (amazing testimoney) http://www.veronicasvoice.org/


Don't forget Proverbs 31:8-9, "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy."
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". -Martin Luther King Jr. 
Below are some articles and videos discussing this topic:


More info on the New York Safe Harbor for Exploited Children Act: http://actioncenter.polarisproject.org/take-action/advocate-for-policy/227
16 year old girl in jail for life without parole for killing her abusive pimp who trafficked her since she was 13
http://www.alternet.org/rights/143635/16-year_old_got_life_without_parole_for_killing_her_abusive_pimp_--_should_teens_be_condemned_to_die_in_jail/

a 13 year old girl in Texas is prosecuted for prostitution even though she is living with a 30 year old who is her pimp. 

http://issuu.com/gems/docs/v2/26-31_sextrafficking_low
several stories down on this blog discusses that an FBI agent from Florida believes up to 70% of trafficked children are out of the foster care system.
http://www.oathcoalition.org/blog/default.aspx

Human Trafficking info for U.S. and Oklahoma

This is my blog from the Human Trafficking Conference that took place this summer May 4, 5, 2010... More info on Human Trafficking around the world to come....

Well, it took me a little while to get my mind wrapped around everything we learned at the Human Trafficking Conference here in Oklahoma City.  Mark Elam and the OATH coalition did a wonderful job on organizing the conference and presenting us with the information we need. The conference brought in amazing survivors, veteran trafficking advocates and great educators on this crisis that is happening around the world. The three survivors I heard were all American women with gruesome but very different stories. Two grew up in good homes.

It also took some time to process the horrific experiences that people are subject to every day that honestly left me feeling a bit overwhelmed. After  a day and a half of intense education and watching three different amazingly brave women tell their testimonies of survival, I know that God has brought me across this injustice and that I have chosen not to look away.

I can give you a few statistics and a little information on what we as the community can do but I urge you to educate  yourself on this issue. I know a lot of us like to think if we had been in Germany during World War II we would have  helped rescue people from the concentration camps, or if we were alive a couple hundred years ago we would have been adamant about stopping the legal slave trade in our country, but the fact is we are alive today. Today we are living at a time when there are more slaves on the planet than ever. There are 30 million people around the world trapped in human trafficking, the majority of them children, and history will judge us. What did we do? Are we those people who decided it wasn’t our business and did nothing, or are we those people who stood up and didn’t let it happen on our watch. Here’s just a few statistics on Human Trafficking in the U.S. that are pretty shocking.

Definition of a trafficked person: loss of freedom to another’s control by force, fraud or coercion for commercial exploitation. 

Trafficked people could be foreign nationals who were willingly or unwillingly smuggled here, or Domestic, U.S. born citizens who are often women and children.   Most were preyed upon as part of a vulnerable group: runaways, low-income, children of abusive parents or drug addicted parents or single parent homes.  Some are vulnerable to predators simply because they feel neglected. Some children are being targeted online from seemingly good homes. All American children are at risk.

• 17-50 thousand brought here each year
• Unknown how many taken from here
• 90% of trafficking victims are female
• 300,000 children sexually exploited annually
• Child reported missing every 20 sec. / 4300 per day / 2 million year / plus an estimated 500,000 not reported.
• USA #1 destination for child sex trafficking  

Oklahoma Statistics

• 2002 India workers lured to Tulsa and forced labor (Pickle manufacturing)
• 2004 FBI sting operation recovered 16 children as young as 13 who were being prostituted in truck stops – from OKC. 
• 2009 FBI “Innocence Lost” program recovered minors trafficked from Okla.
• Oklahoma cities rated in top 10 cities for Internet searches of porn

How to get involved:

• Educate yourself  www.OATHcoalition.org. Awareness / Action / Prevention
• Partner with Anti Trafficking Organizations to provide services (see websites below)
• Organize a H.T. Training for your company staff, church or neighborhood
• Develop a protocol assessment procedure to identify possible victims and offer treatment.
• Create a community coalition of law enforcement, service providers, business leaders and faith community leaders

Organizations dedicated to stopping Human Trafficking

Oklahoma Trafficking Safeline:           (800) 522-Safe (7233) (if you thinks someone is being trafficked)

National Trafficking Hotline:                 888-3737-888 (if you think someone is being trafficked)

http://oathcoalition.org/

http://www.allthingsnewcampaign.org/home

http://www.thea21campaign.org/

http://www.ijm.org

http://www.crisisaid.org/

http://www.veronicasvoice.org

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead