Where to start…
There is so much to say, I am having trouble finding a place to begin. I feel as if the last week has compressed months’ worth of learning and growing into one week.
How strange that I asked for all this… I came over here leaving all behind, asking to grow as a person, to become stronger, and find inspiration. Who would have known it would be so quickly moving, so exhausting :) haha.
I feel really lucky to have arrived for the “in-house” week of Next Level International (NLI) because it has really given me an in-depth view at what the organisation is trying to achieve and their goals and the new vision for the future… where-as it would have been really difficult for me to grasp or to be able to describe if I’d just arrived and tried to jump into the job without understanding. Looking around the room I seriously felt honoured, sitting among people who were extremely successful in their own fields in life, from businessmen and women, those who worked in government, teachers and pastors… and here I am, the 22 year old who stumbled into an internship (although of course we don’t believe in coincidence now do we? ;)
A particularly mind blowing experience was the watching of the video clip “Stella’s voice” which is a clip about human trafficking in Moldova and the problems associated with the immense numbers of orphans in the country. If you haven’t seen the video you really should, I’ll put the link below.
The facts are; Moldova is the poorest country in Europe with terrible unemployment rates and thousands of orphans in terrible conditions. At 16 years of age in Moldova an orphaned girl is given $30 and put out into the street without any education or life skills. Obviously they’re the prime prey for human/sex trafficking… apparently 450,000 women have disappeared from the country without explanation. So we watch the video Stella’s Voice and hear a few horrible stories on top of the cushy youtube video for the public, but see the amazing job a few people are doing in the country by creating safe houses for these teenage girls, training them and educating them and just treating them like human beings for the first time in their lives.
Here comes the surreal part, in the afternoon Philip Cameron and three early twenties (two girls and a guy) turn up… and Philip Cameron is the guy in the video that visited Moldova 15 or so years ago… and was the one who built Stella’s house and others like it. Two of the girls were some of the first rescued and the guy was a Romania boy Philip found at four years old (dying) and who became his adopted son.
They then shared a small testimony of their lives and what was progressing in Moldova.
I literally sat there gobsmacked… What can you say to that? There was just this gut-wrenching human connection, one which no words could do justice too.
And all I could think of was, I want to help change this… and I wanted to go up to the three of them and tell them I wanted to help… but I was so scared because of something one of the girls spoke about- she described the feeling of being an orphan in a horrible orphanage in Moldova, and watching wealthy philanthropists and missionaries come and go from the orphanage promising they would come back, promising they would help and rescue her… and yet they never returned. And I made a little promise to myself that I would never promise anyone something I couldn’t keep.
Anyway, I ended up chatting to the son who was talking about new plans they had for building more shelters etc, though obviously they’re in need of funding as you could imagine, helping others isn’t exactly a booming economic business. Something little which struck me in our conversation was the brutal logic behind bulding these shelters for the girls… obviously the real problem here is the sex trafficking market, and although there are volunteers and organisations out there who are rescuing the girls after they’ve been beaten and psychologically wounded (and all of the things we imagine but can’t bear to speak aloud) they are so changed it is just not economical to help so few which need so much support… whereas if you can get a girl before she ends up put out onto the street, you can guarantee her safety and prepare her for a future. It sounds horrific, and it is, but people helping in these countries around the world are being forced to choose who they can save, as there is just not enough resource.
Well… we all know there IS enough resource in the world don’t we? It’s just those who have the ability enjoy their power and wealth and would rather build a cardhouse around themselves than actually look around them.
But I rant.
I am encouraged however that there are people out there making a difference, and a large one at that. And I feel honoured to be in an organisation which is an active member of this small percent of the world.
So that was my Thursday… a rather hard-and-fast wake-up call to the problems of the world… the next few days I was to go on a “staff retreat” in Bath, with a continuation of the conference and much more learning and testing.
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