Sarah McLachlan - World On Fire

Hello amigos.

Many of you may have seen this music video made my Sarah McLachlan, but if not, here it is. It's wonderful. I like it. It's a little bit too thought provoking.

Watch and think. It's pretty self-explanatory.

-C&C

selling girls on Craigslist...?

Well, hello folks.

I know it's been quite a while. I've been traveling across the universe this summer (oh you know...New Jersey, South Carolina, India - the usual). But I wanted to jump back on track with this post about how the internet can be used to support and stabilize human trafficking. Here's an article on how children can be sold on Craigslist to men or anyone (in the US and other countries). Not to blame or condemn Craigslist or the internet - it's just something to think about.

Here's the link, check it out:

Q+A: Selling Girls on Craigslist

Seems kind of pointless to boycott the site or something like that. It seems more like this new "adult services" (which sounds rather sketchy to me...oh wait, it is) is a window for all sorts of creepiness. So what? Email them? Maybe. Never hurt to try.

-C&C

like sufjan?

Like Sufjan?

Well, you can buy his music AND help provide freedom for women on the other side of the world. Sufjan Stevens teamed up with Welcome Wagon (a cute couple duo: Thomas Vito & Monique Aiuto) for Purity of the Heart is to Will One Thing, a four-song EP of the group's signature folksy tunes; it includes an early demo of "Up On a Mountain," recorded around a kitchen table with Sufjan and Vito playing guitars (so artsy), as well as the first song Vito ever wrote-- "There is a Fountain Filled With Blood." And you can buy it (exclusively) from iTunes for (only!) $3.96-- and each cent of that will work towards freeing women from sex trade in India.

Welcome Wagon and Asthmatic Kitty (their producing record label) are partnering with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship's Urbana 2009's International Poverty Track and FreeSet Global in an effort to help end the sex trade industry in the Sonagachi red light district, Kolkata, India’s most infamous sex trade community.

SO what should you do?

• Download Welcome Wagon's EP from iTunes.

All the proceeds will go toward launching a new dignified career for women who want to escape the sex trade.

And where exactly do the proceeds go?

FreeSet Global is an organization based in India (my mother country) that works to sustainably employ women out of the sex trade industry. Since their inception, they've come to be known for a variety of fair trade, organic jute handbags (which you might want to check out here). Looking forward, the company is reaching to increase the amount of women they can rescue from the sex trade industry in Sonagacchi, by developing a new T-shirt line.

The proceeds from The Welcome Wagon's EP will be solely donated to the development of FreeSet Global’s new T-Shirt facility.

every

single

cent

Downloading the EP will help to save over 45 women trapped in the sex trade industry (including their families) and create a sustainable work for future generations of women in Sonagacchi who are working towards climbing the ladder of economic development.

Kind of awesome. So if you like music, and you want to help people, what are you waiting for?

check it out

Peace out, peoples. Enjoy your new muzac. I know I love it. So much love for Sufjan&co.

-C&C

how to be like gary neville in one easy step (plus lots of working out)

Do you play (or try to play) soccer? Football? Basketball? Or do you own one of those super cool sports balls required to play said games? It's probably from Dick's; at least, I'm pretty sure that's where all my soccer balls are from. Well, those sports balls, among a million other things as well, are generally made somewhere across the universe, then shipped to your doorstep (or your Target or whatever). And guess what? Yeah, a lot of times they're made by children in foreign countries (like the one million hand-stitched soccer balls that come into the US from India every year). As in: kids in Pakistan under the age of 14 work up to 10 hours a day stitching leather balls for about $1.20 a day (uh, that would by you roughly 1/3 of a Big Mac : click here to read more). And to boot, the people who take over after the kids use creepy chemicals and such which make people die and pollute everything under the sun. Yup.

So this guy:

does not like creepy chemicals (or slave labor I should hope). You should be like him, because clearly he's awesome. (He's also Gary Neville, the captain of Manchester United, a beastly football [as in soccer] team that plays in the English Premier League [in other words: he's a professional soccer player who plays better than you ever dreamed you could]. ManU's basically the top football team in Britain. Essentially. Mostly.) Yes, he may be a green-frenzied hippy (people of that sort happen to be awesome), but he's doing good things with his life.

And then there's these people who call themselves Fair Trade Sports, and they are also cool like Gary Neville-- mostly because they make soccer balls that look like this:

And then, also, they don't use slave labor. Or creepy chemicals. So if you're thinking about buying a soccer ball, a football, a basketball, a squash ball, a rugby ball (or whatever they're called), well then, you should go here:

fairtradesports.com

Then, someday, you may be like Gary Neville.

--C&C

to·ma·to

YO. I ate this tomato a couple weeks ago.

It was rather tasty. And then I read this book that talked about tomatoes. And I didn’t really want to eat tomatoes anymore. So I suppose this post will tell you why. It’s not to tell you to stop eating tomatoes. I hope it just makes you think about the little choices we make—and how they affect other people.

I ate my tomato in January, which is in the winter (in case you didn’t know). Most of the tomatoes that are eaten in winter months come from Florida. Florida is nice and sunny—and thus, it’s ideal for the year-round growing of tomatoes. It grows almost the entire crop of fresh tomatoes bought by restaurants and supermarkets throughout the US (aka McDonald’s).

But those very tomatoes—the ones we often seen in our homes and/or favorite fast food restaurants—are picked by workers who work in horrible conditions right in the US! In Florida, almost all tomato-pickers are workers who have immigrated from Latin American countries or Haiti. Managers of tomato-growing farms will hire these immigrants, because they’ll usually work for low wages. The workers choose tomato-picking because that’s often the only job they can get a hold of; they are scrambling to find a job, so that they can send some money back to family members in their native countries. And this is why they put up with the abuse they face as workers on tomato farms. To get a job picking tomatoes, the immigrants are required to purchase their own food from the very farm on which they work; these farms have—too often—unscrupulous supervisors who charge ridiculously exorbitant amounts of money for the food. The workers are also required to rent their lodging from the farm on which they work, and the charge for housing is also excessive and presented dishonestly.

For example, on a farm in Florida, some supervisors were charging their workers $50 dollars a week to rent a tiny trailer that they had to share with seven other men—so eight men were all crammed into a tiny trailer, and each one had to pay $50 a week. This way, managers can house huge numbers of workers in just a few buildings—and cut costs. And they end up "cutting" workers at the same time. Situations like these mean that if—or rather when—workers fall into dept, they’re indebted to the very people who employ them. This results in a cycle of debt—and it means that workers rarely see money for their labor: many farm owners manipulate systems, so that workers remain in continuous debt.

It’s situations like these that have the potential to turn into forced labor and slavery. The US government has repeatedly discovered slavery rings at farms in Florida. In 2008, five owners of farms were prosecuted for beating tomato pickers, chaining them inside U-Haul trucks and forcing them to pick tomatoes against their will (read more here). And not only harm of this type: tomato harvesters’ health is also repeatedly compromised by an unprotected exposure to toxic chemicals. They are also subject to abuse, harassment, intimidation, and, for female harvesters, sexual harassment. They endure all of this in a job that provides them under two hundred dollars a week (compare this to the average weekly incomes in the US here).

Senator Bernie Saunders, an independent from Vermont, stated in 2008, “While slavery is, of course, the most extreme situation in the tomato fields, the truth is that the average worker there is being ruthlessly exploited. Tomato pickers perform backbreaking work, make very low wages, have no benefits and virtually no labor protections.”

Measures have been taken to bring about improvement: oppositions have come about where farm workers have boycotted large fast-food chains (like Taco Bell—a major buyer of tomatoes harvested through injustice). These workers who stand up demand that the chains take responsibility for the human-rights violations in the fields where their produce grows. Boycotts like these combined with efforts from non-profits, religious and human rights groups have proved themselves to be partially successful. In 2005, Taco Bell agreed to raise the wages of workers by paying more for the tomatoes it buys. Similarly, former President Jimmy Carter helped negotiate a deal where McDonald’s agreed to pay a penny more per pound to field hands who pick the restaurant chain’s tomatoes. I guess a penny more per pound doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but that extra penny would have nearly doubled the wages earned by the workers. DOUBLED. But deals like these continued to be squashed by various groups—including the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE). The FTGE has taken legal steps to block increases in wage, calling the boycotts and efforts “un-American.”

Okay, so what to do? Just stop eating tomatoes? Boycott Taco Bell? (I know that that’s impossible for many of you.) It may not seem like it, but in the food choices we make, we define our moral character. Choosing to support certain practices, even if by default, that exploit or harm others is a moral decision.

As teenagers, I don’t think a lot of us are doing the shopping at home; our moms or pops do that. Our own money probably lands at Taco Bell or McDonald’s every once in a while if we stop off to grab something quick. But what can we do so that our choices actually do something?

1) Consider talking with your parents—or whoever does the shopping in your house—and explaining the situation. Offer alternatives. Give suggestions.

• Consider paying more. Buying organic tomatoes can be (significantly) more expensive, but they cost more because workers are being properly compensated.
• Consider eating tomatoes less. Eating them two or three times a month instead of twice a week will make the price tag less of a problem.

2) I guess, the next thing to do is to think before you buy something. When I’m not at home eating whatever my mom’s put on the table, where does my money go? What’s in the burger that I’m about to chow down on with my friends? Where am I buying it? Are they honest about where they get their tomatoes from? Do they care? Do I want to support them?

3) Consider how you can encourage others to think similarly. Many people simply don’t know what goes on. Raise awareness. (Rah rah!)

4) Consider supporting the efforts already established to bring about justice for workers. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is a group of current and former workers founded in Florida that seeks everyday justice by opposing unjust practices and helping improve the lot of tomato pickers in their area. Check out there website here.

5) Research other vegetables and/or fruits you eat frequently. Where do they come from?

Finally, just think about some of those choices that seem really simple—eating a hamburger? Maybe it’s not that easy. Maybe considering this will help us see that we can't make choices without thinking about the consequences.

Camille (and Calvin too)

The Child Protection Compact Act (HUZZAH!)

HI PEOPLES.

So. I'm sorry for the lateness of this post. Life is life is life is life. And the Olympics is also a big distraction... :)

I said I would write about the Child Protection Compact Act (CPCA), and I'm here to do just that.

Here's the gist of the Act (from IJM):

"The Child Protection Compact Act will provide assistance to select “focus countries” through the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP). These focus countries will receive support in building public justice systems that effectively investigate crimes against children and prosecute perpetrators in numbers sufficient to deter and eventually eliminate the crime. The legislation also authorizes increased assistance for care for survivors of trafficking."

Um. Ok. So what does that mean? Alright, to start, the CPCA was introduced into congress in June of 2009 by Representatives Chris Smith (Republican from NJ) and Carolyn Maloney (Democrat from NY). (A collaboration between a democrat and a republican?! Who would have thought?) Essentially, its goal is to lessen human trafficking in specific countries. Human trafficking ranges from all kinds of wrongs committed against humans, but at its core it's simply modern day slavery. Children and women are often the biggest victims, since they're very vulnerable and often helpless. The specific wrong can consist of being forced into various lines of work such as agricultural labor, factory work, restaurant work, you name it. To learn more check out wikipedia (in all its brilliance). The CPCA is directly targeted at helping children, those under the age of 18.

In congress, a bill goes through these 6 steps:

Step 1: Introduction

Step 2: Referred to Committee

Step 3: Reported by Committee

Step 4: House Vote

Step 5: Senate Vote

Step 6: Signed by President

After the CPCA's initial step one (its introduction), it was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The bill is still being reviewed by this committee; it has not moved onto step three yet.

--

Here's a breakdown of what the bill stands for (Once again, some help from IJM):

1. "The purpose of the bill is to increase protection of vulnerable children in selected countries by providing assistance to address institutional weaknesses within governments." This means that the bill's aim is to improve legislation in certain countries in order to offer more protection to children who are at risk for being trafficked/who have been trafficked.

2. "The bill authorizes assistance to be administered by the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons for countries that meet certain eligibility criteria and enter into a Compact. The bill authorizes $50 million over three years for this purpose." SO the bill has 50 million bucks (!!) to make these improvements in legislation that are referred to above.

3. "Countries are selected on the basis of demonstrated political will by the government to confront child trafficking, including by enactment and enforcement of law, cooperation with local and international NGOs, and treatment of victims in accordance with international standards." In other words: the bill is looking for countries who agree to accept help in improving the conditions. Many countries do not want to make this big step, so the US is ensuring that the countries they move to help (with the $50 million) are actually willing to undergo serious reform to help children.

4. "The compact is an agreement between the U.S. and the eligible country that contains specific objectives in a “national child protection strategy” and indicates benchmarks for measuring the achievement of them." Before doing anything within a country, the US will sit down with the partner country and create precise and clear goals to ensure that things get better instead of staying the same or getting worse.

5. "The executive branch shall consult with Congress prior to negotiating a compact with a country and shall notify Congress after entering into such compact. In addition, not later than 180 days after enactment and annually thereafter, the President shall submit a report on the achievement of objectives for each country for which a Compact has been negotiated." The executive branch (aka the president & co.) will meet with Congress before having any agreement with a country. After, the President report on the "precise and clear goals" stated above.

--

Out of the 535 Senators and Congressmen, 91 have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill. That leaves 443 Senators and Congressmen who do not officially support the bill. Sometimes this means they don't know enough about it; sometimes this means they don't agree with it; sometimes this means they think this isn't what their constituents care about.

I was able to hear Jesse Eaves from World Vision speak about the CPCA. He said that the most effective way to express a community's interest to Senators and Congressmen is 10 phone calls/10 letters into the representatives' offices shows; this shows that the people they're representing think that this issue is important. And after all, those Representatives are there to represent their people, so if this emerges as an issue among constituents, those Representatives will be listening.

Yes, I know a lot of us can't vote, but I can't imagine what it would look like for a bunch of young people--who can't even vote--to show their passion for an issue. It would be beastly in the least.

If you can vote, and you feel like this is something you'd like to support, you can let your Representatives know by calling their office or writing a letter and letting them know that you, as a voter, support this bill.

If you can't vote, you can still contact your representatives to let them know that this is an important issue for you--even as someone who can't vote. Remember, the children being protected in this bill are those under 18, just like you (and me!).

If you decide you'd like to make contact, but you're not sure who your representatives are, first you can check here to see who your Senators are and here to see who your Congressmen are; second you can check here to see if these representatives are already co-sponsors of the CPCA. If so, you can reaffirm them by thanking them, or encourage those whose representatives aren't on the bill to contact their representatives. If not, go ahead and make contact!

If you do decide to call, here's a telephone script for VOTERS, so you don't sound like a fool (ha-ha...):

Hello. My name is ________ and I am from __________.

As a constituent, I'm calling to ask Representative _______________ to co-sponsor H.R. 2737, the Child Protection Compact Act. This bill will help countries protect children from trafficking and exploitation and prosecute those who abuse children.
Thank you.

(From World Vision)

(Do not laugh at me.)

If it turns out that, like me, you cannot vote, go ahead and call! You can say you're a "future constituent" who's calling to let your representative know that you care about this.

Well, I guess that's about it. If you have any questions, leave a comment chastising me for my failure to fully explain. Or you can email me. Or Facebook me. Or call me. Or stalk me. Preferably not the last one.

I just think it would be really awesome if a bunch of people who can't even vote took initiative to express their passion and intelligence and awesomeness, encouraging people who can vote to get on the ball!

Well. I'm off to watch some ice dancing. Whatever that is.

--Camille & Calvinski

Big thanks to the following sites:

• www.worldvision.org


• www.ijm.org


• www.govtrack.us

Thanks to the fam, Katie and Peter, Chels, and Sreya.

To read the full text of the CPCA, click here.

To read an article about the CPCA by some smart people who work at NYU, click here.

To give your eyes a well-deserved rest, click here.

BOOYAH

Hi guys:

Well, I guess this blog is up and running! I hope it can offer ideas, thoughts, and discussion for students—so that we can feel like there’s something we can do about whatever’s going on in the world.

I think that we, as young people, have extraordinary power to influence: we’re the next generation, and whether or not people like it, we hold the future. I hope this blog can give students something to be passionate about: a goal, an idea, a message.

I’m going to try to get the first post out in the next few days/week about human trafficking and the Child Protection Compact Act, a bill in the US Congress, which deals with trafficking of those under 18. The idea will probably involve contacting our congressmen and women (with lots of help for those terrified of phones/letters/email/all forms of communication :).

Hey, Sue Myrick.

--Camille

BTW: Leeland kind of gave me the title for this blog… :)

PS: anyone who has superb blogging skills, please message me on Facebook! Or email me! Your brilliance is greatly needed.