Heading Upstream

The last three weeks of my life have been a complete whirlwind. I am learning more everyday and am currently amazed with the amount of information in my head. Donor relations and store inventory and parties and operations and spreadsheets and emails that never end...I was told this fellowship would be the most intense 6 months of my life, I think that will end up being true.

Dave Batstone is the president and co-founder of Not For Sale, and between trips traveling the world, he stops in to catch us up on what is going on 'on the ground' with different Not For Sale ventures. The first time I heard him speak, he talked about how we are 'going upstream.' If we are ever going to end modern day slavery, we need to do more than rescue girls out of brothels and children out of factories, we need to address why they are there in the first place. 

It's funny, when I first head about child trafficking, I wanted to go bust down some brothel doors. I think this is a common reaction. You see a problem and find an immediate solution. Many organizations are rescuing people, and while that is wonderful, they are in a never ending battle. If I remove 4 children from a brothel in Amsterdam, the John's and traffickers will simply find 4 more children to replace them with.  It won't change the fact that there are still millions of vulnerable communities around the world who will be preyed upon.  We need to move upstream and find out where these people are coming from and what caused them to be trafficked in the first place. 

I am consistently amazed at this organization- everyone's passion is contagious and I am thankful to be apart of it.