Ten Years Ago, Ten Years From Now

10 years ago this month, I was a fifteen-year-old walking home from school in Japan. I was surprised to find my dad at home in the middle of the work day. He met me at the door and I immediately knew that something was very, very wrong.

Doctors had found a large tumor growing behind my thirteen-year-old sister’s eye. She had rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare childhood cancer, and it had already progressed to stage 4.

***

This month, I sent my twenty-three-year-old sister a small bunch of flowers. They arrived at an apartment door where she lives downtown, instead of to a headstone. The past ten years saw radiation and chemotherapy treatments, lost hair, countless hormone imbalances, atrophied leg muscles, months of physical therapy, impaired vision, tutors for a school year spent in the hospital, injections every day (to this day).

They also saw learning to walk again, high school and college graduations, good friends, a first job, family vacations, opportunities of a lifetime and a remission that by all accounts will likely last until she is a sassy grey-haired lady.

***
In times when the fight seemed like it would be lost, and that there was no end in sight, I wish I could have seen what I know now. That in the end, she lives; that she thrives. That there is second life after terrible darkness. This is my hope for all of the young girls (and boys) who are at this very moment fighting a different kind of heartbreaking battle, and my hope for those who are fighting it with them.

Happy 2010! Here’s to what's possible in the years to come.

Photo by harold.lloyd

Change My Christmas

I've been thinking for awhile about putting together a holiday shopping list that benefits survivors of child/human sex trafficking or organizations that support the cause.  Since so many of my blogger friends had the same idea, I'm going to list a couple of the things that I'm personally asking for this year, and then point you to their sites for some really great additional places to look.

•  The SOLD Project DVD

• Va-Va-Voom Necklace from the River Kids shop 

• These pretty earrings and bracelet from Original Good
• This AWESOME shirt from WeAreOverlooked.com.   $5 from each shirt goes to Love146.  The front says, "Because some things were never meant to be caged."  

• Terrify No More by Gary Haugen 

And here are some other great places to check out for your holiday shopping (keep these links in mind for birthdays and other celebrations throughout 2010!):

• Diana Scimone: Making a List, Checking it Twice: Gifts Made by Women and Girls Rescued from Trafficking 
• Kiva.org: Anti-Trafficking Loans
  
• Change.org: Holiday Gift Guide: How to Help Human Trafficking Victims
• World Vision: Hope for Sexually Exploited Girls
• Love146 Holiday cards
• Emancipation Network: Made by Survivors
  

But before you go, take a minute (well, two and a half minutes) to watch this video from ChangeMyChristmas.com.

Change My Christmas from MZM Cornerstone on Vimeo.

Happy Hannukah, Advent and "Season of Light" to you all!

Love It

Head on over to Love146's newly unveiled website --it looks SO GOOD.

I was especially blown away by the revamped education section.  You can see it here: http://love146.org/slavery.

Bravo guys, and keep up the very good work!

The International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

 Today, December 2nd, is the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery.

I'm going to spend it at an event in downtown Boston tonight supporting The My Life My Choice program.  More about that likely in the next post!

Take a minute today to read the following comments from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, reprinted here in their entirety from the U.N. website:

"On the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, we express our commitment to the complete eradication of slavery and slavery-like practices.


Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and slave trade shall prohibited in all their forms”. Yet slavery remains a grave and unresolved problem. This is true in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe.


In our globalized world, new forms of slavery have taken shape. The list of abhorrent practices, new and old, is now shockingly long, and includes debt bondage, serfdom, forced labour, child labour and servitude, trafficking of persons and human organs, sexual slavery, the use of child soldiers, the sale of children, forced marriage and the sale of wives, and the exploitation of prostitution.


The majority of those who suffer are the poor and socially excluded groups such as minorities and migrants. The overlapping factors of poverty, class and race create structural problems and cycles of marginalization that are hard to break.


Indigenous peoples are more exposed to bonded labour because in many countries they have limited access to land. Gender inequalities and discrimination, lack of education, desperation for work and demand for cheap labour also trap people. The global economic and financial crisis threatens to heighten vulnerability further still.


Combating slavery means not only its direct prohibition by law but also fighting against poverty, illiteracy, economic and social disparities, gender discrimination and violence against women and children. We need to enforce laws against slavery; create mechanisms to combat such practices; reinforce bilateral, regional and international cooperation, including with non-governmental organizations that assist victims; and launch awareness raising campaign.


On this International Day, let us renew our pledge to assist and protect the victims and to do our utmost to ensure the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family."