Event On Human Trafficking

This past Saturday I volunteered at a human trafficking event we had on campus. The strange part of it for me was that it was a very fancy and expensive event at which many teen actors and their families came to support the teen actress who was the MC of the event. I guess, though strange, it was a good thing because now all of these teen actors and actresses are aware of what is going on in the States and around the world regarding human trafficking AND a lot of money was raised to go toward Worldteam Foundation and therefore all of their projects including their Restoration Home For Trafficked Victims in the San Gabriel area.

We heard many stories and a lot of information, but this is what really hit me:

There are between 100,000 and 300,000 children in the United States today who are being trafficked. But there are less than 100 beds in the country for children who are taken out. Therefore, most trafficked victims who are able to get out cannot go to restoration homes, but, instead, end up in juvenile detentions or foster homes, both of which obviously do not help in restoring them.

One woman (an American) who shared her story said that, as a teenager, she kept escaping the human traffic system (here in the United States), but would always end up being brought back to her pimp by the cops. After many failed attempts of getting out, she lost hope and saw the lost hope in all of the other girls' eyes. She told us "With no hope, why would any of us try to run away?" That was so heart-breaking to hear.

Maria Suarez shared her story of how, at the age of 16 she left Mexico and came to the States with the promise of a job so she could help her family. She was taken to an older man's house (he was in his 60s/70s), in Azusa (the city I now live in!), and told that she was going to be cleaning for him and that she would be picked up at the end of the day. Once the woman who had taken her there left the house, the old man locked the house and told her she was to never leave and that she was going to be his sex slave. He told her he had bought her for $200 and he was a witch who could read her mind and she was to do whatever she was told or he had the power to kill her parents back in Mexico. He beat her, stripped her down and would throw her outside in his lawn for everyone driving by to see her naked (and not help her), he raped her, and did many more terrible things to her. She wasn't able to ask anyone for help because she did not speak English and feared him terribly.
After five years of living this way, a neighbor came in and beat the man to death with the leg of a table and then told Maria to hide the weapon. Because of this and the fact that she didn't speak any English and was uneducated, she was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the murder of this man, without being able to defend herself and tell the truth.
In prison, Maria said she chose to use her time productively; she chose to become a better person. She learned how to speak English, she became a Christian, served as a mentor for younger prisoners, studied hard and acquired her high school GED credential, took college classes and conducted counseling and therapy groups. Because of her great conduct while in prison, she was pardoned by the governor of California and released after spending 22 years in prison. If I remember correctly, she's now been out for 6 years, has been running marathons, working with organizations against human trafficking, and is working as a social worker.
A shocking story, isn't it? 

Finally, one of my favorite quotes from the night which I wrote down is that trafficked victims "don't need spasms of compassion, but legs of endurance."

I'm still processing all that was said and I'm still trying to figure out in what way I can actively help all those who are being trafficked. Three hundred thousand children in just the United States! I feel like I can't do anything to help, especially because I'm poor and still in college. But I'm sure there's something I can do.

Waiting For Superman

This documentary really troubled me. I knew that education in the States is bad, but I had never realized exactly how bad it really is. It broke my heart to think of all the children who really do want to learn and all the parents who want their kids to have a better future and these dreams get shot down because of stupid teachers who don't care about their jobs and don't realize how important teaching really is.

After watching the documentary, the teaching program I'm in at APU (Liberal Studies K-8 Education program) had a discussion session in which we could ask questions to our program director, the principal of an elementary school in L.A., and two students who are part of Teach For America. The elementary school principal told us about one of his teachers who was a terrible teacher and under whom children weren't learning anything. The principal gave the teacher a negative review and the teacher got mad saying that he'd never gotten negative reviews before. The principal told the guy it was okay and that he was just going to have to teach with the help of another teacher who would help him get better. The helper came, but after a month or two, she said she couldn't work with this guy. So someone else was called to come help and worked with him for the rest of the school year, but the teacher failed. So the principal gave him another year to work with someone else to get better, but he failed again. The teacher actually went to the principal and told him, "It's no use for you to try to train me to be better, I've been teaching this way for years and I'm not going to change. But it's okay, just wait a few years and then I'll resign." The principal was not happy about this. He told us "That's not okay! I wasn't going to let him fool around for another few years letting all of his students go through his classes and come out not knowing anything!" So, he fired him. And the teacher went around telling everyone how terrible of a principal he was.

Watching the documentary and hearing this story and others made me so mad! And, as my fellow teaching majors said, all of this motivates us even more to get our teaching degrees to change things. Of course we're not going to be able to change everything, but we will have influence in our classrooms and on all of our students. That's enough influence for me.