Month: October 2012

As the atrium exhibit is coming to a close, we wanted to to provide you all with an idea what to do next. Considering that the average Middlebury student’s lifestyle requires FORTY TWO slaves, there are clearly lots of ways to improve!

1) Get more educated! Look around our site, come to a meeting, or keep your eyes and ears open for human trafficking and gender bias in the media. You can never know enough, the ability to introduce this topic to someone else and get them fired up is in itself a big change maker!

2) Write to your reps in government! With enough pressure, Washington is forced to care about what the people care about. If we can demonstrate that enough people want the US to assume a bigger role fighting trafficking, then they have to pay attention!

3) Buy responsibly! This is perhaps the most important way to avoid patronizing the use of slaves. Check out this site to find socially responsible brands and see what grade your favorites get!

Those are just a few of our ideas–if you have others–please share them!

Check out the awesome support that the Stop Traffick atrium display has been getting this week! It’s so exciting to see people reading about Stop Traffick here at Middlebury, learning about modern day slavery, looking at the country profiles trafficking map, and calculating their own slavery footprint! Be sure to stop by and check it out if you haven’t already!

Today, October 11th, is the first annual International Day of the Girl! Learn all about it!

“In reserving a day for advocacy and action by and for girls, the UN has signaled its commitment to end gender stereotypes, discrimination, violence, and economic disparities that disproportionately affect girls… including gender violence, early marriage, child labor, and discrimination at work.”

Though this day can apply to honoring any and all girls in your life or recognizing the extraordinary accomplishments of girls worldwide, we want to put an emphasis on ACTION. Whether this action is educating yourself more about the state of girls worldwide, volunteering with a local women’s organization, or dedicating your life to the empowerment of women–do something concrete.

We want to bring attention to a campaign that we have enormous respect for: 10x10act.org. 10×10 is putting its weight behind advocating for girl’s education, and we could not agree more: educating girls is an investment with limitless returns, and it will reshape the world. That’s why we donate to the American Himalayan Foundation’s program Stop Girl Trafficking, which for $100 puts girls through 1 year of school. Educating is the best tool to preempt trafficking–and is the best tool for engaging with and advancing society, period.

Check out Nick Kristof’s commentary in the NYT today about the tragic shooting in Pakistan of Malala, 14, by Taliban, and how it relates to Girl’s Day.

This is another way of saying: don’t take for granted what you receive everyday here at Middlebury, and do all you can to help make the gift of education possible for others!