2013 Action: Little Black Dress

In February and part of March 2012, a few of us wore a black dress or shirt for a month or longer. We were inspired to walk with the poor of the world, who often usually have to wear the same thing daily. We raised money for famine and food crisis victims- in fact, we raised enough to feed seventy kids for a whole month! By challenging ourselves and others around us, we rose up to be advocates for people we had never even met. But our efforts, and many of your gifts, changed people’s lives. Little things can make a big difference.

This year, some of us are doing this again, but this time we will be raising money to help those in our world who have been forced, used, mistreated, and abandoned. These are the modern slaves of our world, also known as victims of human trafficking.

Some of you have talked with me about doing the little black dress project this year for the month of February. Some of you might not be interested at all, but just in case I wanted to be sure you knew you could join.

This year we are raising money for two anti-human trafficking organizations. First is the International Justice Mission, also known as IJM. These guys were some of the front-runners bringing the issue of modern slavery to light. They work to end all types of human trafficking, as well as stopping other injustices (like taking back land stolen from widows or freeing prisoners that had no trial).  If we raise between $4500 we could actually fund a whole rescue mission! Here is our fundraising page for IJM: Average Advocate’s Action: Little Black Dress 2013. If you’s like, you can even make your own personal page to connect to this one.

Love146 is the second of these, which works specifically to help sex trafficking victims. Sex trafficking is something that occurs not just elsewhere in the world, but it is in our own neighborhoods! We will be using this joint fundraising page: Little Black Dress 2013. Again, you can also make your own personal page and connect to the group fundraiser from there. You can download other fundraising essentials about them here on their Celebrate Love page.

If you feel like this is something you should do, please let me know and forward this post to anyone whom you might think is interested! I am excited to already have people joining me! Our impact is much greater when we work together. And this year, we will literally be freeing slaves- so cool!

If you are local, please also continue to support the work of the Loudoun Human Trafficking Task Force, to help end slavery locally in Northern Virgina.

In a nutshell this is how this advocacy project works:

1. Be committed to wearing the same item of black clothing part of every day for a month.
2. Ideally, share a picture of you in that same item daily.
3. Let those around you know why you are wearing the same thing all the time.
4. Lead the way by making a donation to these organizations.
5. Ask those you know to donate $5+ to the fundraising page (or yourself, which you in turn will donate for them).

For more information on how to take part in Action: Little Black Dress, this post explains how. Pay special attention to “The Escapist Rules” section, which goes into more detail about what you can get away with:

Action: Little Black Dress Pt.2 (The How)

For all of you who are just interested in how we pulled this off last year (including the daily pictures) look at this post:

2012 Action: Little Black Dress Photos and Overview

Again, if you want to understand my motivation, why I cared, and how hard/easy this project was, go to these posts below. The answers to your questions are spelled out there like in a spelling bee:

Action: Little Black Dress Pt.1

Art of Advocacy: Wearing Hope in a Little Black Dress

Review: Action Little Black Dress in Retrospect

 

A little more about IJM:

A little more about Love 146: