Conversations

On Sunday, while manning the Love146 booth at the Cambridge Vineyard, I had the opportunity to meet the delightful Dominic Chavez and his beautiful wife, Sylvia.  Dominic stopped by our table and was very interested to hear more about what Love146 was doing.  He has quite a background in firsthand experiences around the major issues that affect humanity--all from just behind the camera lens.  

Photo by Katie_Photographer

While we only got the chance to talk for a few minutes, Dominic raised some really good points.  Namely, he wanted to be sure that organizations fighting child trafficking aren't actually playing a definitive role in its cycle.  He mentioned that in his travels he's seen well-meaning groups purchase children to free them, only to create more demand for traffickers to take advantage of.  This brought up one of the things I love most about Love146.  They understand that ending child trafficking unfortunately won't end with a massive raid on brothels, or simply "buying" children out of the lifestyle.  Instead they put their biggest efforts toward preventative measures aimed at educating communities and their children to protect them from being deceived; while also providing safehomes, counseling, and new education and occupational opportunities for children rescued from the sex trade.

A lot of time, effort, research, and care has gone into organizations like Love146 to make sure that they're part of the solution, and not contributing to the problem.  See the award-winning, absolutely stunning work that has taken Dominic to over 38 countries to document issues from war to intense poverty to AIDS here.  And I am thankful for people like Dominic who can see beyond the immediate solution to ask the harder questions, and to make sure that we're doing what's the very best for these most deserving children.