On beautiful Spring days, black feels a little sad. The most exciting mention someone gave me while wearing my black to trailblaze freedom with the LBD.Project was from a random dad at my son’s preschool who nodded in passing, “I like your shirt.” True, trilling story.
And yes, for Josiah first year doing this project in black, he lost his t-shirt for a good week or more so he just kept wearing other black shirts.
See? Not that interesting.
Do Something With What You Have
But caring about others’ oppression doesn’t have to be world shaking or exciting and passionate. It can be a factual decision: We remember. We care. We do something with what little we have.
Everyone chooses to navigate our 31-Day challenge differently, and this year I really wanted to focus on teaching the kids about global slavery–particularly child soldiers. There aren’t a ton of child soldiers in the world, just “hundreds of thousands,” according to the not-so-clear stats we found. Yet however many, there is little being done for them.
My kids are so similar to these child soldiers. Being born in a different place is pretty much the only differentiating factor.
It is essential for Avi and Josiah to realize this. Sure, empowering our kids to be global citizens is a huge topic of the day, but so many kids never really get there. Yet, changing the game is vital to me (my method here) because it is worth it for my kids to become people who live justly and love compassionately.
Advocate Against Sexual Exploitation
Also, as it comes up at their age, I wanted to continue to empower our kids to protect themselves from sex trafficking & exploitation (which is a thing with school age kids in the USA). Ironically, my chance to do this came out of the blue because of my daughter’s sex ed class at her new school this March (and yes, we are ending our season of homeschool, and started full-time charter–which has been incredibly bittersweet for me).
I ended up talking with the school (here’s the long thing I wrote), they had a meeting (*holding my breath*), and they decided to change stuff (*breathe out*), which I talk about in this video.
That was actually pretty scary for me to advocate in this way, but I am excited I learned something new and am thrilled it will make a difference for the kids at that school! Never underestimate the power of ordinary people who care, right?
This is Why We Wear Our Black
Teaching kids to do something about human trafficking is good for them to become global citizens, sure. But it affects others.
We asked over 100 people to donate $10 to the LBD.Project to help child soldiers. We far from met our goal (which, although March is over, you can still donate to here), but if we hadn’t tried, we wouldn’t have raised any money at all to help Exile International!
And who would have guessed that some kids who’ve already suffered exploitation where we live, at their school, might have been helped because of we leveraged our connection with that school? And this is just year one! Next year, you better believe me, I will be advocating even more for a sex trafficking prevention program to be put into place!
Wearing our black helps us remember, talk about, and pray for the 27,000,000-46,000,000 human trafficking victims in our world (and an estimated 8000-11000 women/girls currently being sex trafficked where we live).
But it also helps us begin to do something.
Next Steps to Trailblaze Freedom With Your Own Kids
Interested in moving forward with your own kids to live justly and trailblaze freedom? In March we focus on human trafficking at Average Advocate, but it doesn’t end here.
- Start with 10 Simple Ways to Fight Human Trafficking to find something for your kids to do together.
- You are still welcome to donate and fundraise with your kids: Donate to help child soldiers here
- Advocate at your own child’s elementary school, middle school or high school. Reach out to me and I will give you some tips about how to begin creating a safe space for kids who’ve been abused and sexually exploited and begin bringing in prevention education.
- Invite me to speak to your community with one of my keynotes like this one– JustKids: Using The Issue of Human Trafficking To Teach Kids to Care, Act, and Protect Themselves From Exploitation or Raising World Changers While Being One Yourself
The LBD.Project was born from ordinary people doing something with what they had. It is time to take what you have too–your children–and do something great with them.
