Last year I wrote about Malala Yousafzai, an amazing young woman. Her story is so inspirational. Named for an Afghan folk heroine, the activist Pakistani teenager was shot in the face and left for dead by the Taliban in 2012 — but recovered and went on to speak out about the gross injustices in girls’ education in her country and around the world, winning the Nobel Peace Prize along the way. The Malala Fund, which she co-founded with her father Ziauddin Yousafzai, is building schools in Jordan, Pakistan and Lebanon. I was so inspired by the film made about her, He Named Me Malala and the 25-minute conversation I was fortunate to be a part of with Malala herself, along with my tween-aged daughter by my side.

The documentary offers a look into Malala’s life both before and after the attack. She was 15 at the time of the incident, when she was singled out, along with her father, for advocating for girls’ education. The shooting sparked an outcry from supporters around the world. Malala miraculously survived and is now a leading campaigner for girls’ education globally as co-founder of the Malala Fund.

#HeNamedMeMalala to Premiere on National Geographic Channel

For all these reasons and more, I’m excited that National Geographic Channel, in continuation of its partnership with Fox Searchlight Pictures, will be airing the documentary commercial free on Monday, February 29, on National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo MUNDO in the U.S., with a global rollout planned within a week in 171 countries and 45 languages.

The robust education program for the film includes free education resources, discussion and curriculum guides, a service learning Toolkit, Books for Change, a Map Maker Interactive, and can be found here. Additionally, efforts to expose students to Malala’s inspiring story resulted in over 180,500 students globally seeing the film in theaters, and in the U.S. reaching students in all 50 states.

Disclosure: I was not compensated to write this review but am working alongside Women Online & The Mission List to help promote the film.

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Social media is changing the delivery of humanitarian aid. The  2015 Social Good Summit spearheaded a session about this subject, led skillfully by reporter Lara Logan. The panel consisted of Naomi Gleit from Facebook, Dr. Pranav Shetty, Health Coordinator, International Medical Corps and Matt Petronzio, Social Good Editor at Mashable. They stressed that when social media is used to reach people, it makes people aware and sheds light on situations they might not otherwise understand or take as serious.

With the surge of social media over the past few years, it’s now easier to get information to people in mass quantities. The conversation focused on how important it is to use these streams for social good, particularly in times of crisis. From the earthquake in Nepal to the current refuge crisis, it is possible to galvanize masses to really do something. It has never been so easy to help people.

Part of the reason of the uptick in social good is that the generation of millennial really cares. They have the tools. Social media is a huge factor in terms of what is happening all over the world, with the rise of usage in platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook has 1.5 billion users all over the world in its community and Gleitt says that the company feels a responsibility to help people, so they started a team dedicated to social good. The company has worked to push out Amber Alerts to find missing children. They’ve built a feature called Safety Check to notify friends and family that you’re safe during a disaster and a Donate Now button to raise money for charities like ALS during the viral Ice Bucket Challenge and after the Nepal earthquake. The latter recently raised $10 million from 700,000 users for Nepal relief. About Facebook’s efforts, Gleitt said, “We feel like are doing a lot of good.” And they are.

Shetty, who works with the Medical Corps, said that his organization’s partnership with Facebook has allowed them to help more people exponentially. “After the Nepal earthquake, we were able to get there faster,” he said. Having that speed translates to a huge impact, which has the greater effect.

The refugee crisis is a good example of a situation that is going viral through the use of social media. Petronzio said that the devastating photo of the Syrian boy’s body on the body galvanized everyone. Mashable covered it, and so did everyone else. But even more than that, readers stepped up and asked what they could do. So Mashable built a “How to Help” series. This single post got more than 65,000 shares, an indication that people were truly interested in the topic.

The panelists agreed that there needs to be more of a framework, an infrastructure to make more of this happen and that ensuring broadband internet in Africa and other developing countries will change the world. It will allow for easier, quicker delivery of service. It will impact families and communities.

Disclosure: I was working at the Social Good Summit and was also there as media. As always, any opinions are my own.

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As a proud supporter of everything ONE supports and pushes, it made me smile to see actor & Water.org founder Matt Damon is this month’s curator of @ONEGirlsWomen! He’s my hero of the day.

This is why he stands for women & girls:

My daughters do not know what it is to spend hours collecting water.  My girls may suffer the occasional stomach upset, maybe even miss a day of school because of it, but they will never lay dehydrated and dying with only the water available, the very same water that made them sick in the first place. Before I went to Haiti, India and Ethiopia and saw these situations firsthand, I would have found them unfathomable.

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Now this is a campaign I’m thrilled to get behind…every step of the way. It has to do with girls, equality, equity and fighting extreme poverty to make the world a better place. The name of the campaign: POVERTY IS SEXIST.

According to new analysis published by The ONE Campaign today, International Women’s Day, girls and women are hit hardest by extreme poverty across every area of life, but they also hold the key to change. ONE’s report, “Poverty is Sexist: Why girls and women must be at the heart of the fight to end extreme poverty” shows how unlocking women’s economic potential could improve the lives of everyone in society, and highlights how two summits hosted by two world-leading women this year represent an historic opportunity to turn things around.

Poverty and gender inequality go hand in hand, whether you look at health, education or work. Not only are girls and women worse off than those in wealthier countries, but the gender gap in these areas between males and females is greatest in the poorest countries. This double disadvantage means that:

• A woman in Sierra Leone is 183 times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in Switzerland
• Working women in the least developed countries are three times more likely to be in vulnerable employment than women elsewhere
• In the poorest countries, literacy levels are a third lower for women than men

35 high profile women, including academics, politicians, business leaders, actors and musicians, have added their names to ONE’s call for action. They have signed an open letter to Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany and the chair of this year’s G7 summit and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the chair of the African Union Commission – both of whom are key decision makers this year. The letter reads in part:

“If we get this right, we could help lift every girl and woman out of poverty by 2030 – and by doing so we will lift everyone. Get this wrong and extreme poverty, inequality and instability might spread in the most vulnerable regions, impacting all our futures.”

The new Sustainable Development Goals, due to be unveiled in September, will set out a plan to end extreme poverty by 2030. ONE’s report argues we will fail to reach this aim if girls and women aren’t firmly at the centre of the goals. As part of that process, this summer’s G7 and African Union summits, under leadership of Chancellor Merkel and Commission Chair Dlamini-Zuma, could pave the way for new policies and financing that empower women and girls.

ONE has looked at the impact of gender on a range of key sectors, from agriculture to technology, and from education to energy. They have found that dismantling the barriers to girls and women leading productive lives could have a profoundly positive impact across society. For example, giving women farmers the same access to resources as men would drive up productivity and could spare 100–150 million people from a life of chronic hunger. Every year a girl spends in school boosts her future income by 10–20 %.

Empowering women—giving them the power and tools they need to change their own status—allows them to take hold of equal opportunities, break from cultural and social constraints that may be holding them back, and become drivers of poverty reduction.

Over the next several months, ONE.org will provide stories, stats, and actions that will delve further into the issues as seen through the lens of girls and women and I’ll be reporting every step of the way.

But for now, there are steps you can take to help:

1.             Sign and share ONE’s petition calling on world leaders to put girls and women at the heart of the development agenda.

2.             Share ONE’s open letter, signed by more than 35 high-profile women including Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Meryl Streep.

3.             Share ONE’s launch blog

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If you’ve read my blog before, you know of my passionate and fervent interest to help others. Using it and other streams over the years, I’ve raised large amounts of money for St. Jude Hospital and the Haitian Amputee Mothers Alliance. I’ve raised awareness for Every Mother Counts, Mothers 2 Mothers, Save the Children, Dress for Success and ONE. I write over at The Broad Side and BlogHer when given the opportunity and really try to raise the bar on issues I care about, most pertaining to women and children.

Yet I am not known for this work. I’m the quiet social gooder, raising my hand but perhaps not diving in deep enough. I have been searching for a new cause, an organization that will appreciate my efforts, and I think I have found one.

After several years of watching the significant and important work of Shot@Life through fellow members of the blogging community, I signed up to attend their summit in Washington, D.C., paying my own way, hoping it would bring me in deeper. I’ve been so impressed by their social media and marketing initiatives over the years but haven’t been able to jump in on the scale I would have liked to. This trip would inform me about what they are doing, why they’re doing it and how I can help. It would be a chance to jump in on a very real level by hitting my congressional leaders to advocate to protect children in developing countries from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Shot@Life does such important work, and the first day of the conference was spent zeroing in on what they do. There are 400,000 children born in America every year. Imagine 200,000 of them dying. That’s what would happen if we didn’t access to vaccines, and that is what’s happening globaly – not enough people have access. Vaccines are the safest and most simple and cost-effective ways to save children worldwide. Immunations give chilren around the world a chacne at more “firsts” – 1st words, 1st days of school. They are more likely to celebrate their 5th birthdays, do well in school and go on to become healthy, thriving adults.

Shot@Life raises funding in the U.S. to make this happen by working with policymakers in Washington, DC. Currently, funding is less than 1% of the total U.S. budget, but this budget saves 2.5 million lives every eyear.

After a day of learning, I ventured onto Capital Hill with other New York consituents. Several in my group were doctors, one was a nurse, one was the mother of a young girl who died from Meningitis, a preventable illness, but not one she was told to have her daughter vaccinated for. The look in her eyes went through me and stung my heart, and as a mother, our mission gained significance. We were on Hill and had real work to do.

Together we would inform our Congressman about how in other countries, mothers do not have the luxury of choice unless they walk many miles to get these vaccines. Many have witnessed the unnecessary death of tehir children under the age of 5. It only costs $20 to immunize a child and get the support they need. The campaign’s partners, UNICEF, World Health Organization, and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, are making this happen and their work has already contributed to a 99% reduction in polio, a 75% reduction in measles-related deaths and the introduction of vaccines for two of the most deadly childhood diseases, pneumonia and diarrhea. And the woman who had lost her child would look each congressman in the face and tell them that no mother or father should ever have to go through what she had been through.

As a mother, as a women, as an individual who believes that every person should have a chance, an opportunity, a shot at life, I feel that together, my group made a difference. When I heard that Shot@Life garnered 20 signatures from Congress on a letter to support and increase funding for critical global health and vaccine programs at the end of our day of lobbying, I was elated. Everyone who came for the summit, whether a new Shot@Life champion, had a story to tell and a voice to carry its simple but so important message.

Because that’s what it’s all about – our voices. Together, we can make a difference and change the world. I took the dive and I’m ready to swim. Stay tuned to this space.

To make a donation to Shot@Life, head here: http://shotatlife.org

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How are you observing International Women’s Day? I get to go hear Cherie Blair speak. She’s the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a leading lawyer and committed campaigner for women¡¯s rights and the founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, which supports women entrepreneurs in developing countries. You can count on the fact that I’ll be live tweeting and blogging about what she has to say right here on The Culture Mom. 

Having just come from the Shot at Life conference, I am more inspired than ever to make a difference in the world and help disadvantaged people in far away parts of the world. International Women’s Day is the perfect time to continue the dialogue aboutinequality in the workplace, pay gaps, stereotypes in the media and female empowerment. For women in further flung corners of the globe, the issues run much deeper as they face serious health issues, illiteracy and discrimination.  I’ll be writing about the conference next and tell you how you can help children around the world, but I got the following tips from Global Vison International (GVI) on how to get involved in the lives of disadvantaged women around the world and had to share:

1)                  Help women in India learn English

As a fluent English speaker, volunteers have the ability to impart their knowledge to women in India, teaching them the English language and opening up a world of job opportunities that require this skill. English is such a sought-after language that many jobs insist on it and for women who never had the chance to learn at school, this is a tool that is invaluable to them.

2)                  Educate young women in Fiji about sexual health

There are some lessons we learn from our mothers but in places where sexual health is taboo, the most basic information from periods to pregnancy is unknown and misunderstood. Even for those who have been through it. By assisting with sexual health classes volunteers can help give young women more control and understanding over their own bodies.

3)                  Help build real toilet facilities within high-schools in Nepal

There can’t be a woman who doesn’t remember the awkwardness of puberty but in some areas of Nepal, girls are attending schools at which there are no proper toilets. Appalling amenities and a lack of privacy can lead to teenage girls quitting school when they reach a certain age due to embarrassment. By assisting professional builders to install brand new facilities in schools, volunteers are offering a practical and simple step that will help more young women receive an education.

4)                  Impart your business skills and work experience on women in South Africa

No matter the level of business knowledge, if travellers know how to use a computer then they can work with women in South Africa teaching them the basics of business. In doing so, local women can turn their talents into micro-businesses and money-making opportunities that can last a lifetime. 

5)                  Teach ‘hard skills’ to women to make them more employable

The ability to make your own clothes is still invaluable to many women in disadvantaged countries, and by giving them such hard skills GVI volunteers are widening their employment opportunities as well as providing options for opening their own business. For many women who think their only option is being a mother and wife, learning such a skill opens doors they never thought possible. 

6)                  Introduce women in Fiji to the basics of wellness

For many women in places like Fiji, there is limited knowledge on the importance of nutrition and exercise. Why not help educate women on how to ensure a balanced diet and get them out moving while teaching them about healthy body image. Volunteers will run casual aerobics classes and teach them how to cook basic healthy recipes.

7)                  Start the conversation about equality

By helping run Conversation Clubs GVI volunteers can help get a discussion going with both boys and girls about breaking down stereotypes of gender. Let them see that females can play sport, work outside the home and be an equal part of society and subsequently invest in the future of women in these countries.

8)                  Educate women on pregnancy and children

Pregnancy and bearing children becomes a more dangerous venture than it needs to be when women don’t have all the facts and options to hand. By providing insight into how people fall pregnant (or prevent themselves falling pregnant), how to take care of themselves through all stages of the pregnancy as well as post-natal care travellers can help improve family health and reduce infant and child mortality rates.

9)                  Build women’s self-esteem in India and help out in a self-defence class

Sometimes something as simple as joining together with other young women and girls and talking about issues they are facing can work towards building someone’s self-esteem. Focusing on the positives, strength, inner beauty and intelligence will have a positive effect. In a more practical step, being involved in self-defence classes for women can help build their confidence and give them skills to cope in difficult situations.

10)              Be a positive role model as an independent woman who works, travels and makes her own choices

Sometimes by just bringing stories and positivity from your own world, no matter how far-removed  from their own lives they may be, it provides a window to these women that there are females around the world who have careers, who are mothers, who make money and stand equally with their male counterparts. It may be a long path for them to achieve the same level of equality but the first step is them believing they deserve it.

Global Vision International (GVI) was formed in 1997 to provide support and services to international charities, NGO’s and governmental agencies. Through their international network of over 150 personnel in 13 countries, GVI continues to support many critical conservation and humanitarian projects around the globe.

GVI is a non-political, non-religious organisation, which through its alliance with aid-reliant organisations throughout the world provides opportunities to volunteers to fill a critical void in the fields of environmental research, conservation, education and community development. To date over 24,000 volunteers have joined projects resulting in the direct financial support of over £20,000,000 / US $32,000,000.

GVI run a Women’s Empowerment Programme in Nepal, India, Fiji and South Africa from between two to 12 weeks starting at £850. More information here.

 Disclosure: I was not compensated to write this post. I fervently believe in the mission of GVI.

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A little over a year ago, I wrote a piece on Jessie Kahnweiler. Her video series called Meet My Rapist spoke to me on many levels. It was a blunt response to her own rape that occurred as a college student while in Vietnam by playing herself being followed by her rapist. She took an extremely bad moment in her life and used it to teach people through storytelling and it was really powerful.

Since then, Kahnweiler has gone on to do more great things that wake people up, including me, every single time. Using the power of comedy and video, she produces programming that teaches people how to make real change. The Skinny, her current project produced by Wifey TV., is another example. The project follows a feminist comedian living in LA who struggles with bulimia. Addressing bulimia head-on, she hopes that her project will be part of a larger conversation about disordered eating.

Kahnweiler is currently raising funds on Kickstarter to complete post-production the pilot. About The Skinny and why she is looking to raise funds to complete the project, she says:

Every movie I see depicting eating disorders makes me want to barf. Aside from the occasional Lifetime movie there are no television shows out there authentically exploring eating disorders in a way that is both raw and vulnerable. Perhaps a bit naïve, I excitedly pursed funding figuring that since everyone I knew had some kind of issue with food/body (or had a loved one that did) I would have no problem finding a market audience. I mean I was the girl who made rape funny, naturally bulimia was the next step! Yet as I began the process of pitching I quickly realized even the mention of the words eating disorders freaked people out. It was as if I was serving my potential investors deep fried Ebola sandwiches. Ashamed, I watched as one by one each executive’s eyes quickly glazed over as they looked for something, anything to look at besides me. At the end of my pitch, (insert white dude name) would sweetly reveal,“there’s nothing funny, or more importantly, sexy about eating disorders.” Were they right? Was “The Skinny” both too much and not enough? I left those meetings hungrier than ever.

….I refuse to wait for “the man” to give me permission to speak. 

The Skinny features one of my favorite actresses, Illeana Douglas, as her mother. About this effort, she said: What’s making movies in NYC with Scosese when I could be making a web series in Atwater village with Kahnweiler?

With the funds raised, The Skinny will be completed by spring 2015. Kahnweiler has over 10 years as a guerrilla filmmaker and a proven track record of executing a totally cool “idea” into actual living breathing movies. Your funding doesn’t go into an idea but rather a tangible product that will be able to speak for itself. I should know, I supported this on Kickstarter.

Back The Skinny here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1179494099/the-skinny

And report back to me in the comments to let me know you’ve joined the effort to stop shaming women about eating disorders!

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This past weekend I had the ultimate experience for a female culture vulture like myself at the Athena Film Festival. Several days prior to the festival, I interviewed Melissa Silverstein, editor of Women & Hollywood and co-founder of the festival,  about the event. We were talking about why there is a need for a festival for and about women’s equality in 2015 and she told me this:

“There is not a lack of talent for women in film, there’s a lack of opportunity.”

She and her co-founder, Kathryn Kolbert, weren’t the only ones aware of the lack of strong female leads in movies, but they felt a need to address a Hollywood disconnect – why were there so few opportunities for women in film when movies with female protagonists gross 20% more than films about men.

And so the festival was born. Named after Athena, the Greek mythological goddess of both arts and war, it highlights women who appear on screen, but also celebrates women and leadership in the filmmaking industry. This was my first experience attending Athena and I have to say that it was far superior to anything I’d ever imagined. I knew I’d be surrounded by fellow film lovers, feminists, students (it takes place at Barnard, after all), people with similar interests but I don’t think I realized how many people attend or just how amazing the programming would be. As someone who seeks out chances to improve social justice and human rights and tries to make a difference, the line up spoke directly to me.

Here are a few highlights of the festival:

Going in, I needed inspiration and I got it at my first screening of Chicago Girl: The Social Network Takes on a Dictator. It’s the true story of a Alaa Basatneh, an American teenage girl who used social media to coordinate the revolution in Syria. Armed with Facebook, Twitter, Skype and camera phones, she helped her social network “on the ground” in Syria brave snipers and shelling in the streets to show the world the human rights atrocities of a dictator. The story is compelling, heart-breaking (as we watch her friends get murdered in Syria for striking back), and most of all, inspiring, as we watch how one young girl used social media for social good and made a major difference in the world.

Dear White People is a modern take on racism, sexuality and gender, written and directed by Out writer Justin Simien. It focuses on four diverse black characters navigating life in a predominantly white university. In the age of #BlackLivesMatter, this film comes across like a comedy, but it’s actually a very serious look at racism. Black students, whether they’re politically involved or assimilating, have trouble fitting in and are more vulnerable than ever on college campuses and beyond, and that translates to the reality all over America. The film includes news clippings about real life racist attacks and brings the truth home in a very big way. The cinema was completely packed, largely with students, everyone riveted and glued to the screen. I hope it gets serious distribution in the days to come and you have the opportunity to see Dear White People.

Rosie O’Donnell: A Heartfelt Stand Up featured Rosie O’Donnell doing a little bit of everything in a “hybrid” standup that talks about her recent heart attack and her experience with heart disease. Presented by Sheila Nevins and her superb documentary team at HBO, the film is an hour long intimate look at Rosie’s family, using humor to bring the conversation to the time she had a massive heart attack. I was lucky enough to hear from the comedienne and three cardiologists about the  severity of heart disease and how much more common it is to have heart problems than cancer nowadays. It was the day after her announcement that she is leaving The View and splitting up with her spouse, and she was full of jokes about her next gig and sincere that every loving thing she said about her soon to be ex-wife is true.

I was only able to go to the festival for a day. Next year I plan to go for the festival in its entirety, no question. To stay on top of ticket information and more for next year, sign up for festival announcements here.

Disclosure: I was provided with a press pass to facilitate an article I wrote on The Broad Side, but all opinions expressedare my own.

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Meeting Olivia

I can’t believe that I had my first daughter 11-1/2 years ago.  It feels like yesterday, and for some reason, the images are more vivid than when I had my second child a few years later.

It was an induced pregnancy, so we went in to the hospital rather leisurely on a week night.  I laid on a table and was given medication to send my soon-to-be child a signal that it was time to come into the world.  After nine months of carrying her around in my belly and readying the house and my life to include a new child, my husband and I were more than ready to welcome her into our lives.

Once the contractions started, the experience went from easy to difficult. Those pains were serious and I felt like I had been transported into another universe.  She was born at 9am the next morning, and a new light came into my life.

However, she wasn’t brought over to me right away.  She was having trouble breathing upon entrance and was instead whisked away by the doctors. For a few brief moments, we were afraid that something was wrong.  But like with most babies in the U.S., she was okay and returned to me.

I have often thought about children in developing countries and whether they are given the same care and chance in life.

Mother and child in Ethiopia’s southern highlands

In 2000, world leaders adopted a series of ambitious goals–the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)–including commitments to cut poverty by half, get every child into school, and dramatically reduce child and maternal deaths by 2015.

Today, millions fewer people live in extreme poverty than a generation ago, most children complete a primary education, hunger has been cut by over a third and there are 90 million people living today whose lives would have been cut short, had child mortality rates remained at 1990 levels, the baseline year for the goals.

Mother picking up an insecticide treated bed net. Lusaka Zambia

However 18,000 children die each day from preventable causes and one million newborns die on their first day of life.  Newborns now account for 4 out of 5 deaths of children under the age of five.

Unless we urgently start to tackle newborn deaths, there is a real danger that progress in reducing child deaths could stall and we will fail in our ambition to be the generation that can end all preventable child deaths.

With 500 days to go before the target date, it is vital that the world acts to make sure more countries can get on-track to achieve MDG4-the reduction of preventable child deaths by two thirds by 2015.

Mothers and children in Morogoro, Tanzania

On August 18, 2014, Save the Children marked the 500 days left to meet MDG targets by showing the progress made in each country and also build a sense of urgency around the political action needed to meet MDG4 targets.

They want 500 Days to be the starting point of our push at the UNGA meetings in September where we will highlight the urgent need for more trained and skilled health workers critical to saving newborns and mothers as well as the Race for Survival in October with its theme of the “hardest to reach” highlighting the tough living conditions many children face and the lack of access to quality care. It’s important to remember that:

• Each day an estimated 800 mothers and 18,000 young children die from largely preventable causes.
• In the time left to the MDG target we need to accelerate progress toward achieving MDG 4.
• More than 1 million babies die on their first and only day of life across the world, and 2.9 million in their first month.
• The newborn crisis is much bigger than we may think, with a staggering 1.2 million stillbirths occurring during childbirth
• More than half of these maternal and under-fives deaths take place in locations beset by a high risk of conflict and/or natural disasters.
• 40 million women give birth without any skilled help – that’s more than 100,000 women every day. Even more dramatically, 2 million women a year are entirely alone when giving birth.
• Investing in mothers works. Maternal deaths and child mortality in the most challenging countries of the world are being dramatically cut when efforts are made to improve services for mothers and children.

We can stop this. Many of these deaths are preventable if the mother-to-be had a trained midwife to help them give birth safely. Newborn mortality rates can only be reduced through fairer distribution of essential health services and through universal healthcare access; this means making these more available to the poorest and most marginalized families, as well as to communities living in rural areas.

We must ensure that every mother, newborn and children under five has  access to high quality health care; invest much more in women and girls and ensure their protection; and build stronger institutions and stronger health systems that provide universal health coverage, and provide for the most vulnerable, as well as promote early action, social protection, disaster risk reduction.

Disclosure: I’m a member of Moms Bloggers for Social Good and this post supports their MDG4 campaign.

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It’s hard to believe that sex trafficking is happening in America. I always thought it was more prevalent in other countries, but I was very wrong.

The crazy, painful truth is that human trafficking is one of the  world’s fastest-growing criminal industries  and it’s a monstrous issue in this country. In fact, 85% of confirmed sex trafficking victims are U.S. citizens, mostly runaway children. Often disconnected from family and friends, runaway and homeless children are particularly susceptible to traffickers who will lure them with the promise of food, warmth, and even false love. Once snatched from the streets without anyone noticing, they are sold for the highest price, their dignity and sense of self destroyed.

 And the truth is that sex trafficking exists all around us. Look around you. Look at your neighbors, your friends, who you know. Look at your daughter. I have an 11-year old. I’m raising her to be strong and self-confident, but what if…..I can’t even bear the thought. Look at your son. Are you teaching him to respect and value women ? Maybe if we raise our children with these strong values, sex trafficking won’t be so rampant.

I just finished a heart-wrenching film about real lives taken by the sex trafficking industry called The Long Night that brings the issue home in a really meaningful way.

The film follows Tim Matsui, who won a grant (the Women’s Initiative Photography Grant from the Alexia Foundation) made it his mission to document grassroots efforts to address domestic minor sex trafficking in the Seattle area. As he worked, the story got bigger and bigger and really gives an insight into the sex trade. It weaves the stories of seven people whose lives have been changed forever because of sex trafficking. Because, really, how can one get ever get over being thrown into an industry as ugly as this one? During the course of just over an hour, Tim guides viewers through the lives of people stuck in the system and people trying to change the system. It’s tragic and so very real.

But the good news is that we don’t have to sit back and wonder how to help. There are actions we can take NOW. Read and learn (tips provided by Mom Bloggers for Social Good):

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