By: Barry Rodriguez One of the most difficult aspects of sex trafficking is that it runs so deep into many other issues. Poverty, corruption, lack of education, hunger… All have ties to the terrible crisis of sexual slavery that is happening all over the world. There are a few fantastic organizations like the International Justice Mission that are dedicated to rescuing trafficked girls. [...]
By: Stephen Crane, World Next Door, Inc More often than not, real love ain’t pretty. It doesn’t fit into a neat little box. It isn’t defined by grandiose gestures and stirring proclamations, despite our culture’s false depictions. Real love is painful. It demands sacrifice and surrender. Pride must be swallowed, and ego must be fought at every turn. The needs of [...]
By: Laura Stump This is Part II of a two-part article. To read Part I, click here. Amidst the overwhelming challenge of addressing sensitive issues like Female Genital Cutting, the organization Tostan works with villages instead of against them. To learn more, Tatiana and I headed back to Dakar to join up with Tostan employees. Before long, we hopped in the Tostan vehicle with Kalidou, the Tostan [...]
By: Laura Stump I looked at Tatiana across our dinner bowl, scanned the face of her host mom next to us, then turned back to Kali, the ancient, sickly man asleep on the ground. Kali no longer works and is without family or means to care for himself, so he wanders the village. He frequents the compound of Tatiana’s host family, curls up [...]
By:Barry Rodriguez This article comes via World Next Door Haiti has always had a big place in my heart. After the January 2010 earthquake devastated the Caribbean nation, I had the incredible privilege to live inside an internally displaced people camp and write about what life is really like for families there (click here to read those articles). That is why [...]
By: Laura Stump Last week, I hopped a bus out of Amman to the town of Salt in search of the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf. All I knew about the school fit into a few email exchanges between myself and a volunteer teacher from the U.S. named Brent, but it was enough to make me curious. Upon arriving in [...]
By: Barry Rodriguez My translator Denis and I walked down the dusty road to Chambrun, passing a few goats picking their way through the thorny scrub. The sun was high, and lizards darted across the road looking for shade. After stepping through a flimsy fence made of cacti and barbed wire, Denis and I began asking villagers where we could find [...]
By: Barry Rodriguez Occasionally during intense or memorable experiences, you and I can have moments of clarity where we step back from what we are doing and realize, “I will remember this forever.” Well on Thursday I visited the Romaniv Boys Orphanage, and it was definitely one of those moments… I went with a team from Mission to Ukraine, who visit every [...]
By: Laura Stump This is the second part of a two-part article. To read part one, click here For the second time, I found my way through Kibera slum at sunrise and into the classroom where I had sat, frustrated and disillusioned, only one week before. I’m so glad I did. Day two of school began just like day [...]
By: Laura Stump These were my first impressions of Kenyan school. A few weeks ago I decided to spend the day with one of Zana Africa’s EmpowerNet classes—not the one hour that we see each other in the afternoon, but an entire day. I wanted to experience Form Two (tenth grade) with these girls. When I first asked the head teacher [...]
