Category Archives: Supporting people / a community / a cause

Why you need to focus on your own media literacy – & a New Year’s Resolution idea

images meant to look like cave drawings, one of a woman using a smartphone and one at a desktop computer.

We all have an obligation to increase our media literacy – every one of us. And I think every human resources office at every company, nonprofit, school, whatever, should consider it a mandate to educate staff regularly regarding media literacy.

The Center for Media Literacy (CML) defines media literacy as “a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet.” CML also notes that media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.

CML defines media literacy as the ability to:

  • Decode media messages (including the systems in which they exist);
  • Assess the influence of those messages on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; and
  • Create media thoughtfully and conscientiously.

The ability to navigate within our complex and ever-changing media landscape depends on acquiring skills and tools to know how to consume and evaluate information, ask critical questions, avoid manipulation, and engage in digital spaces safely and confidently.

We already see the negative impact that media can have – is having – on people, including children. CML says that the negative impacts on children:

  • Online safety
  • Cyberbullying
  • Low self-esteem
  • Depression and suicide
  • Substance abuse and other risky behaviors
  • Negative body image
  • Reinforcement of stereotypes

They also note “incorrect information”, but this is also a big danger for adults as well, which can lead to violence, to economic instability, to poor, even deadly health choices, and to ill-informed political decisions that end up harming entire communities and countries.

CML’s resource library is primarily focused on young people, and the resources are excellent, but there’s also a huge need for better media literacy among adults – and not just the elderly. CML’s materials can certainly be adapted for adult audiences, and there are other resources as well, such as AARP’s Fraud Network Watch and the American Library Association (ALA)’s Media Literacy in the Library: A Guide for Library Practitioners (PDF) that offers resources and ideas to plan programs and activities to teach media literacy skills to adults. The latter is a resource for library staff, but anyone can use it.

Please understand: I have been online since 1994 or so. I have been advocating for people to leverage online tools and networks for decades. I don’t think the Internet has caused misinformation, bullying, depression, etc., but it has amplified misinformation to an astounding degree. Our online networked world has magnified or intensified messages and disinformation, vastly increasing the reach of such on a scale never, ever seen before. The way to meet this challenge is not to ban the Internet or online tools; it’s to raise all of our levels of online literacy.

I challenge you to accept that you – yes, YOU – have believed misinformation online. Every person has. Look for how you have: did you share a meme or story that turned out not to be true? Did you “like” a video that turned out not to be what you thought it represented? Whatever it was, you need to recognize when you do it, acknowledge it, and learn from it. And if you don’t believe that you have believed misinformation online, then you absolutely are in denial.

I also challenge you to make a commitment to be more positive online in 2024. Take time to just go through your social media and”like” the posts that are positive from friends and family – and even better, to comment on them. Go through your social media feed once a week and “like” posts from nonprofits and community programs you care about – and, even better, comment on them. Post photos to social media that you have taken yourself to social media of beautiful or fun or heart-warming things. Post about an event you have attended, or that you will attend: a farmer’s market, a yard sale, a high school band concert, whatever. Post about a class you’re taking, a book you are reading, a TV show or movie you recently enjoyed, music you love. You can still post political commentary, still post rants, but I’m challenging you to make a deliberate effort to balance that, to even OVER balance that, with something positive, something helpful or something civic-minded. Post about ANYTHING you are grateful for: your dog, your cat, the weather, a new season of your favorite show, whatever.

Here’s more about the damage of online misinformation.

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help

Love for NGOs in Belize

A montage of four photos, each representing one of the NGOs that is highlighted below. The first photo is of a gift shop, the second is of an adorable puppy, the next is of children in a library, and the last is of a natural spring swimming hole in Belize.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and in honor of love, I’m going to show some love for the NGOs I interacted with or noticed while on my recent two-week trip to Belize.

I was not volunteering in Belize; I was vacationing. But when I travel, I always do so with a mind to transire benefaciendo: “to travel along while doing good.” So here’s a thread to highlight some awesome NGOs I encountered as a tourist in Belize:

The Belize Audubon Society. They staffed some of the sanctuaries and parks we visited. And staff was always AWESOME. Note: they have volunteering opportunities!

Cayo Animal Welfare Society. It’s the Humane Society serving San Ignacio / Santa Elena and the Cayo District of Belize. I wrote them about a disturbing incident of dog abuse by the people operating a snack shack at Cahal Pech & they promptly wrote back.

Maya Center Women’s Group. They have a cultural center & gift shop at the entrance of Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary. They are local artisans & by purchasing from them, you help sustain their families. They are lovely to talk to.

Miss Bertie’s Hopkins Community Library. We walked by it every day we were in Hopkins, Belize. But I never went in, because it was either closed or OH so busy & I didn’t want to be a bother. But what an important resource!

Please show them some love as well: go like some of their Facebook posts. If you can, make a financial donation to any or all of them!

Why did these groups get my attention? Because I encountered them while visiting a site and they were particularly helpful, because they had a great presence wherever they were located and that presence jumped out at me when I went by, and/or because I asked them a question online and they responded. Does YOUR nonprofit or NGO meet all of that criteria, wherever it is in the world?

And next time you travel, I hope you will consider keeping in mind transire benefaciendo.

Nonprofits: legislation & politics are affecting your staff & clients.

An image to depict social cohesion and team work and interconnectedness: images of four human like figures, each a different color, holding hands and leaning back - if one breaks hands, it will mean that, eventually, all will fall backwards.

Nonprofits, community groups and other mission-based programs in the USA need to be aware that legislation and politics are affecting your staff (employees and volunteers) and your clients/customers. Such is affecting their families and their day-to-day life, their health care, the life-altering choices they can make, their participation in society, and on and on. And that means it’s also going to affect staff job performance with you and potentially affect the impact you can have with clients/customers.

Regardless of your own personal politics and regardless of your organization’s mission, you need to be aware of how legislation and politics are affecting your staff and to think about how you are, or are not, going to support staff as this is happening.

You have employee, volunteers and clients who may become pregnant and need to seek abortion services. Or maybe denied access to abortion services despite an ectopic pregnancy, an incomplete miscarriage, placental problems and premature rupture of membranes. How are you going to support them as they undergo these experiences?

You have employees, volunteers and clients who have same-sex marriages, something the US Supreme Court may overturn. If that happens, and their marriages are declared invalid, will you continue to give spousal benefits for staff, such as maternity leave or health care coverage? If that happens but those marriages remain valid, but no more can happen, will you give spousal benefits, such as maternity leave or health care coverage, to those staff members now forbidden by law from marrying? Will you still send track the names of those partners in your database if you do so already?

For an election, some states are putting just one ballot drop box to serve an entire county, or prohibiting most people from applying for absentee ballots. Are you going to give your employees and volunteers paid time off to vote on election day? Are you going to make sure staff and clients know about non-partisan voter education programs, like guides from the League of Women Voters, and debates?

Some staff have family members who are not legally in the country and are living in day-to-day danger of being deported, and if such happens, it could not only mean the separation of a loved one, but sudden changes regarding income, in options regarding child care, and more. What will you do to support such staff?

Consequences of not thinking about this or addressing it:

  • You will lose employees and volunteers.
  • The productivity and performance of employees and volunteers could be affected, which affects your service delivery.
  • Inaction may go against your stated organizational values.

Note I’m not asking you to take a political stance. The IRS wording on the Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by nonprofits is clear: 

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.  Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances.  For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.

On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.

But if you think politics isn’t personal and can’t affect a nonprofit, whether it’s a performing arts center or a literacy program or an animal rescue group, think again.

And you should consider mentioning to funders how these state and federal actions are affecting your staff, your clients and your work in general. They should know.

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help

Volunteer to support a family from Afghanistan in the USA: form a sponsor circle

The USA has evacuated thousands of Afghans in desperate need of safety, per the takeover by the Taliban, a terrorist group that does not believe women should be a part of public society and wants to require everyone in the country to live by their very strict views. Thousands of these Afghans are at military bases across the USA awaiting placement in welcoming communities. 

No matter where you are located in the USA, you can welcome an Afghan family and provide them with the practical support they need to get settled – by your serving as a certified sponsor circle. As a sponsor circle, you and your neighbors will volunteer to take on tasks like finding initial housing, stocking the pantry, connecting children to school, providing initial income support, and helping adults to find employment.

  1. Communities Circle Up: Bring together at least five adults in your neighborhood to form a sponsor circle. Complete background checks, fundraise, and prepare to submit your group’s application for certification.
  2. Members Make a Plan: Check your knowledge of what is needed to serve as a sponsor circle and prepare a Welcome Plan in advance of being matched with a newcomer. Support in completing your Welcome Plan is available!
  3. Circles Welcome Newcomers: Once certified, sponsor circle volunteers will welcome the newcomer directly into the community and provide tailored support through the initial integration process.

Each sponsor circle must fundraise a minimum of $2,275 per individual you will support. That means, if your sponsor circle is going to support a family of three, you will need to raise $6,825.

Each sponsor group must commit to providing a minimum of 90-days of reception and welcome support to an Afghan newcomer family. At least one sponsor circle member has to complete the required knowledge check, an online training program.

RefugePoint, which has been rescuing and resettling refugees for decades, is the NGO stationed at U.S. military bases to assign Afghans to circles for absorption.

Complete information about the web site sponsorcircles.org.

Also see this piece about this program by Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner.

Also see:

My request to my US congressional representatives regarding Afghan refugees

Digital Dunkirk: online volunteers scramble to help endangered Afghans get visas & out of Afghanistan

If you ignore women in Afghanistan, development efforts there will fail (2017)

What we will need for live theater to continue

I’d like to see a nationwide flourishing of the regional theater movement, with local theaters considering how best to earn the title of an essential service in their particular community, while being supported and valued by that community and the government. A WPA Federal Theatre Project for a new century, perhaps. — Statement by Michael Cerveris, Tony-winning actor of Fun Home., in this L A Times Article article.

Some of the most exciting, fulfilling times of my life were working far off stage, working to promote live theatre, live performance, not just marketing a show but promoting the value of all arts to our communities, to social cohesion, to education, to mental health and on and on.

Artists, being artists, are talking about what artistic ventures they want to pursue when performance spaces open again, once the risk of COVID-19 has been drastically reduced, and that’s GREAT… but I’ve been looking for something that makes me say, Okay, there it is, this is what we need to ensure theater emerges from this pandemic with a real, solid future.

I finally read the statement that makes me give something to support and advocate for. Cerveris words stopped me in my tracks. To me, they are what every theater in the USA, and every person that loves theater, needs to work towards. And it has to be more than government support; we have to build relationships with and pressure on the cash-flush corporations all around us to give substantial monetary support to ensure live theater continues.

More about the USA Work Progress Administration Federal Theatre Project.

Also see highlights and resources from the research for my final paper for my Master’s Degree, regarding the non-artistic elements necessary for success in “Theater as a Tool for Development” initiatives.

The Privilege of Being “Weird”

Somewhere in Afghanistan, and Kenya, and Mexico, and all sorts of other “developing” countries, there is a woman who dreams – or dreamed – of being a filmmaker. Or a dancer. Or a comedian. Or a mountain climber. Or a skateboarder. Or a marathon runner. Or a creator of comic book super heroes. She has, or had, the drive, the passion, the desire, and maybe even the talent for it.

But while these women are – or were – physically and mentally able to do those things – they can or could do it – they are or were not allowed to do it – they may not do it.

Think of her: no one around her may be aware of this dream and she may suffer entirely in silence, burning with the desire to pursue this activity. But she doesn’t dare even try: imagine her showing up with her skateboard to a skate park and being chased away by the boys and men there. Imagine dancing as an act that would make her ostracized, at best, and even a target for killing by her own family, at worst. Imagine putting on a puppet show and the event being seen an act of subversion by the government because women performing in public, even with a puppet, is a no-no. Imagine wanting to run in foot races and becoming the target of a shaming campaign by local religious leaders.

Imagine just wanting to move your body a certain way, or just wanting to make people laugh, and being forbidden from doing that.

It actually doesn’t even have to be that dire to prevent a girl or woman from pursuing a dream: imagine a girl right here in the USA, someone who is black or of Latino or Asian heritage, or is perceived as a member of a tribal nation, who can’t get cast in even a community theatre play, can’t get on the lineup at a comedy club no matter how many open mic nights she participates in, can’t get anyone to watch the short, hilarious film she has on YouTube, gets ridiculed when she shows up at a Sci Fi convention, and on top of all that, gets demeaned by her family and peers for even trying to do any of those things. Think about all the years on Saturday Night Live that there was no cast member that was female and black – and, yes, there WERE, and are, female, black comedians.

I thought about this when I read Eric Idle’s autobiography, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. I enjoyed it so, so much, but I also thought about what a privilege it is to be able to say, “I’m going to this open mic night and I’m performing a sketch.” Or to delight in being an outsider or being weird – doing things and pursuing dreams that are quite different from what is perceived as “the norm” by your family and friends and immediate community. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal to make your family and friends and immediate community uncomfortable to most Americans – but it’s a huge deal for many people, especially women. Being able to do those things is a right, an opportunity, that millions of people don’t know and will never know. They won’t know them because of lack of opportunity. Because of culture. Or even because of laws and because of the danger.

Have you seen the videos of the rush for tickets in Bangladesh for Avengers End Game? I’ve watched them a few times now. I can’t see any women or girls in that rush. But I know there are women and girls in Bangladesh that would love to see that movie just as much as the men running for that box office.

I think about how lucky I’ve been in pursuing my dreams and passions, both professionally and personally and, yes, delighting in being different, an outsider. I’ve done some crazy things, and I have the photos to prove it – and thank goodness, a lot of times there was no camera around. It is a privilege to mortify your family in public by breaking out into song at inappropriate moments or to dance at the grocery store when a certain song comes on. It is a privilege for a teenage girl to prepare to go out to a midnight showing, dressed as a character in the movie, and for Mom to stare at her in silence for a few moments and then finally say, “Well, have fun.”

Professionally, things have slowed down for me substantially, and I have been lamenting that a lot, resenting it because I don’t at all feel ready to retire, but then I think of all those women and girls, in all those countries, in all those places, even right here in the USA, burning to do things they may not do. So I decided to amplify some of the NGOs working to help girls and women not only dream, but to pursue those dreams, that are so different than “the norm.” Afghanistan is near and dear to my heart, and here are some of the organizations that, were I a millionaire, I would love to support:

Bond Street Theatre has been working in Afghanistan since 2003.  Its goal is to introduce theatre-based educational programs in Afghanistan, especially targeting women and girls who have few outlets for creative expression, and to help revitalize the performing arts after years of cultural repression.

Skateistan is an award-winning international non-profit organization providing programs combining skateboarding and education to children and youth in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa. “Through the hook of skateboarding, we engage with children, especially girls and youth from low-income backgrounds, giving them access to safe spaces and education and provide valuable life skills that go beyond the skatepark and the classroom.”

The Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) “provides a dynamic, challenging, and safe learning environment for all students regardless of their gender, ethnicity, religious sect, or socio-economic circumstances.  We focus especially on supporting the most disadvantaged children in Afghanistan – orphans, street-working vendors and girls.”

Community Supported Film fosters good governance and equitable societies by training grassroots activists in documentary filmmaking and using their films to inform public opinion and policy. This includes Afghanistan.

But you don’t have to look to Afghanistan or some other country to find girls and women and other marginalized groups worthy of your support in pursuing artistic or athletic dreams. In or near your community in a “developed” country, there are theatres, dance companies, music groups, even improv groups, as well as running clubs, hiking clubs, kayak classes, karate classes and more for immigrants, refugees, ethnic minorities, and, indeed, women and girls. Look for them, go see a performance or a match or whatever. Look for a roller derby bout in your area – roller derby is my favorite thing in Portland, Oregon. Look for women and girls on Twitter pursuing their cos-play dreams and “like” their posts. Blog about it. Share it on social media. And if there is a nonprofit associated with whatever it is you see happening, donate to it.

Also, check out Geeky Muslimah, a blog about “the Muslim geek experience,” and the Twitter account Black Girl Geeks.

And one final note: 14 years ago, I finished my Master’s project at Open University, on the non-artistic elements that need to be in place for theater, dance or other performance to work as a tool for development – as part of a public health project, a reconciliation campaign, an effort to change attitudes about something, etc. In case you want some light reading…

Updated April 15, 2021: A comic strip demonstrates the challenges women face online. It’s developed by Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet). In a story of three differently aged, differently shaped and differently employed women, we see what violence can look like online, how the seemingly harmless can actually contribute to it, and what we can all do to prevent it and to create a safer space for women online.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.

Also see:

Myths about sex trafficking abound in the USA

A law enforcement action in Michigan earlier this year lead to a series of misleading TV news articles about it, and posts like this on online groups across the USA, including one for a group where I live in Oregon:

Nearly half of Michigan’s missing children were being trafficked, and we don’t know about the other half.

Don’t you dare tell me that I’m overreacting when someone is acting strangely around my kids!

That social media post is by a woman who believes, mistakenly, that young people, mostly white girls, who are trafficked for sex are kidnapped by strangers. She’s part of a much larger group of people in the USA who mistakenly believe that there are bands of men, usually foreigners, roaming around looking for girls – white girls specifically – to abduct and force into sex trafficking. Movies like 2008’s Taken add fuel to this far-fetched legend. So do things like this: a doctored image posted to a very popular Facebook group that targeted an Oregon small town specifically, with a claim by a woman that she had been accosted by strangers who wanted to buy her baby (a white baby). In this case, thankfully, the community quickly rallied to debunk the rumor, but it’s another example of how people promote the myth of strangers abducting children – primarily white children – to force them into sexual slavery.

The reality is that a trafficker of teens for sex can be the older brother or father of one of your children’s friends. It can be a guy who frequents places where young people gather, like a shopping center. It’s someone who entrances the teens there with gifts and romantic talk. Too often, parents’ response to the idea of sex traffickers is “Beware of strangers!” But traffickers aren’t strangers to the teens they target: they are charming, funny, fun and they know how to make teens feel all the things they long to feel – especially about feeling like an adult.

Traffickers befriend vulnerable young people who have low self-esteem or want to feel beautiful/handsome, loved, included or more grown up. And they do this befriending in places parents have approved for the teen to be: school, an after-school job, the mall, a community of faith, a friend’s house – and, yes, sometimes, online. These predators look for someone who is angry with their parents or not doing well in school or who has run away or who is just feeling really, alone and unwanted, and they offer sympathy. They look for young people who feel ugly and rejected – maybe a boyfriend has dumped the young person, or the young person has never had a romantic relationship and feels like they never will. Young people with disabilities are targets because they want to feel like “normal” teens. Traffickers are happy to shower any of these vulnerable young people in gifts and attention and a feeling of being heard and included. Traffickers draw their victims into trusting relationships and, through a mix of flattery and gifts and abuse, are able to reach a point of complete control over the person, and they are eventually able to use their victims in any way they wish – and the young person often feels like he or she is consenting to what eventually happens, in terms of sex and abuse.

A June 2017 article in Psychology Today noted that a Polaris Project report found that

32 percent of sex trafficking victims were recruited through a friend. Hotspots for recruitment are homeless shelters, rehab facilities, jails, malls, and foster homes. In fact, abductions accounted for only a tiny percentage of victims’ stories. Most victims are not kidnapped, drugged, chained or locked up in a home or workplace. Sometimes they don’t even experience physical abuse because the traffickers don’t want to leave physical evidence that may reveal the abuse. Instead, they use psychological abuse, threats, and manipulation. Some victims even have cell phones and can get permission to leave to go outside to places like a health clinic, a grocery store, or even church.

A survivor of the sex trafficking trade in Portland, Oregon shared some of her experiences with Think Out Loud, a radio program produced by OPB. The Lloyd Center is a mall in downtown Portland:

I was actually recruited out of Lloyd Center. There’s a lot of different recruiting areas in Portland, Lloyd Center being a huge one…If a 16-year-old runs away from home and she takes the bus out to 82nd, within 72 hours she will be picked up by a pimp. The scary thing about pimps is they are masterminds.

In an interview by Audrey Meschter with Multnomah County, Oregon Sheriff Deputy Keith Bickford, Bickford said:

Something that really stuck in my head is how effective these guys are when it comes to brainwashing these girls… Turning them on their own families, their friends, away from their normal life and talking them into getting raped every day by guys that want to pay for sex — and it’s hard to even talk about that — the logical part of your mind is going ‘no way, how do you do that?’, but to the traffickers that’s a very effective way to make money and keep the girls around longer.

Interviews with girls in the USA that have been trafficked are heart-breaking: the girls – and in many cases, young men – are convinced their family no longer wants them. Maybe their family has, indeed, thrown them out. They hate their life, but don’t consider going home an option. The feeling of worthlessness makes them feel that this life of trafficking is their only option.

And consider these statistics from 12 Confronting Child Sexual Abuse Statistics All Parents Need to Know, published in the Huffington Post:

I bring all of this up because I want to protect children and teens from predators, and I know the way to do that is to talk about reality, in frank terms. I started learning about child sex trafficking when I began researching online safety for children in association with the Virtual Volunteering Project back in the 1990s, and I was floored: I had always thought most child abductions were by strangers, and to learn that the VAST majority are by non-custodial parents was startling. And finding out that most teens who are trafficked are targeted by people they consider friends, even romantic partners, was equally stunning.

I also bring this up because I live in the PDX metro area, and Portland, Oregon is often cited as the city with the highest rate of juvenile sex trafficking in the USA.

Protecting a teen in the USA from trafficking is about parents and other family members having a trusting relationship with their children, where there is lots of shared time together and lots of actions that say to that teen, “I enjoy being with you and I respect who you are and you are important to me.” If a teen feels like a parent or other trusted adults are interested in them and want them to be in their lives, those young people aren’t going to be open to overtures from a predator. It’s also about getting vulnerable teens – teens with disabilities, teens who exhibit depression, teens with addiction issues, teens who are struggling with mental issues, teens struggling with tragedies, teens who are struggling with their sexuality, etc. – the help they need.

Also see:

Sex Trafficking of Children Myths and Facts from Multnomah County, Oregon.

Human Trafficking: The Myths and the Realities, from The Muse.

September 16, 2020 update: Here we are, two years later, and this problem has gotten even WORSE. The QAnon movement is promoting outrageous myths about a supposed underground pedophilia ring run by celebrities and left-leaning government officialsy, appropriating and sensationalizing the issue of child sex trafficking to recruit more followers into its conspiratorial web, and legitimate anti-trafficking organizations are suffering significant collateral damage. Legitimate anti-trafficking programs now have to spend an inordinate amount of time debunking viral misinformation, mining through unhinged tips and warding off mob harassment, detracting from their ability to actually help kids in need.

June 26, 2021 update: In the Washington Post article “The state of Ohio vs. a sex-trafficked teenager,” you are taken step-by-step into how some girls are enticed into what they think is a relationship but is actually sex trafficking. It’s a long read, but worth it.

April 25, 2023 update: This Washington Post article profiles when 19-year-old Tiffany Simpson wrote an anti-sex-trafficking group in 2012. She’d thought that trafficking was something that only happened to girls from foreign countries. But the newspaper article she’d read described American teenagers. They weren’t kidnapped or tied up. They thought, at first, that they were in love. Even when the threats and the violence started, they stayed. Tiffany thought about the scar on her left thigh — a reminder of what happened when she, too, stayed… Tiffany lived in Georgia, where she’d spent her whole life. Where, at 17, she met a 34-year-old man who promised to take care of her. Where she became pregnant with his baby. Where she was driven to trailer parks to have sex with as many buyers as would pay.

April 29, 2023 update: California woman is found guilty of lying to police that a couple tried to kidnap her children.

Related resources:

Examples of Folklore, Rumors (or Rumours), Urban Myths & Organized Misinformation Campaigns Interfering with Development & Aid/Relief Efforts & Elections (note there are several examples of mobs who have murdered strangers visiting their towns under the mistaken belief that such were there to abduct children for organ harvesting)

You have an obligation to be truthful online

Safety in virtual volunteering

Keeping volunteers safe – & keeping everyone safe with volunteers

Why don’t they tell? Would they at your org?

Safety of volunteers contributes to a shelter closing

volunteer managers: you are NOT psychic!

creating an adventure travel culture in Ghana

What is tourism for economic or community development? What does it look like? Tourism for development is when local people in regions experiencing poverty and/or high-unemployment become employed in the tourism industry, opening and operating hotels, resorts, campgrounds, outfitters, photography safaris, white water rafting and other nature-based recreational activities and accommodation. It’s also when local people are employed to maintain national parks and recreation areas. It’s probably my favorite form of economic development, whether in a “third world” or transitional country or an overlooked region of the USA, because it has so many qualities: it’s sustainable, it promotes the preservation of natural spaces, it encourages multi-cultural learning and understanding, and it promotes getting people outdoors, experiencing natural spaces, something that I enjoy and want all people, especially women, to enjoy.

That’s why stories like this excite me:

“When I was eighteen, a large group of students visited Ghana from the UK for a youth development program. It was an expensive program. It cost thousands of pounds. But I got to join for free because they needed some Ghanaians for a smattering of cultural diversity. The program was a mixture of community service and adventure. We actually came canoeing on this very lake. The whole time I was thinking about how much money was being made from our natural resources. And how much of that money was leaving Ghana. I became determined to make Ghana money out of the Ghana environment. So after graduating college, I set out to build a world-class adventure company. It’s been over five years now. We have twelve full time employees and twenty-five adventure locations. Best of all, I think we’re creating an adventure culture in the country. Our clients were 70 percent foreign when we started. Now they’re 80 percent Ghanaian. Behind me is Survival Island. It’s my latest project and biggest risk yet. I constructed a full ropes course, and one day I hope to build the world’s longest zip line. That would really put Ghana on the adventure map.”

And so Bravehearts Expeditions was born, according to an account by a person profiled Humans of New York, a Facebook page that usually profiles individuals in New York, in their own words, but sometimes goes to other countries and was recently in Ghana. Often, the results of their profiles lead to hundreds, even thousands of people donating to individuals and NGOs. This happened again with this profile of Ghanaian adventure company, which commented on their story, “Thank you immeasurable for telling our story so succinctly. In just seconds we have been overwhelmed by the messages of support and offers of professional assistance by loving readers across the world. ”

Also see:

Trump’s War on Volunteerism

Volunteer engagement is essential to the democracy and the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for which my country, the USA, strives – paid staff just cannot do everything that needs to be done in this regard. Some activities are best done by volunteers – by people who aren’t being paid a wage to do certain work, who are freed from fear of being fired from a job that pays for their home, food, transportation, etc. and, therefore, able to speak more freely about what they are seeing and doing at the agency that hosts them as volunteers or in the community in which they are providing service.

But volunteer engagement does not magically happen and it is also not sustainable by mere good will and passion. Effective, sustainable volunteer engagement requires knowledge and processes.

A few months ago, I finally read By the People: A History of Americans as Volunteers, a book by my long-time colleague and friend, Susan Ellis, along with Katherine Campbell. The book does a fantastic job of showing the role of volunteers in the formation of the United States of America and so much of the best parts of our way of life, from mobilizations that lead to nonprofits like Goodwill, the YWCA and the Sierra Club – efforts often lead by women – but also of showing how volunteers have played such an important role in establishing the American character, one that relishes community-driven and do-it-yourself driven efforts to address community needs and concerns. The book provides repeated examples of how volunteers seized a social issue in the USA and amplified it and addressed it, from the abolition of slavery to the health of soldiers to the civil rights movement and so many things before and after.

But this American value is under attack by the current President of the USA, and it’s overdue for everyone who cares about volunteerism to speak out.

Here are five things that have been happening regarding volunteerism in the USA, lead the Donald Trump, that every association of nonprofit organizations and every DOVIA (directors of volunteers in agencies) and other association of managers of volunteers like the Northwest Oregon Volunteer Administrators Association (NOVAA) based in Portland, Oregon, needs to be commenting on via their outreach to members, their blogs, their social media and to the press (I think consultants regarding nonprofits, particularly regarding volunteer management, need to be speaking out about these as well):

(1)

In 2017, Donald Trump appointed Carl Higbie as chief of external affairs for the federal government’s volunteer service organization, the Corporation for National Service, to direct the public image and messaging of this agency that manages millions of Americans in volunteer services like AmeriCorps and Senior Corps. Before this role, as host of the radio program “Sound of Freedom,” an Internet radio station, Higbie made comments deriding black Americans, Muslims, women, LGBT people, veterans suffering from PTSD and immigrants. Higbie resigned in January 2018 after a CNN story brought these comments to light. All of these statements were publicly available and known by HIgbie’s associates, yet he was appointed anyway.

(2)

On February 12, 2018, Donald Trump sent his official Fiscal Year 2019 Budget request to Congress. This budget proposed the elimination of the Corporation for National and Community Service in FY 2019, and provided funding for an “orderly shutdown.” This budget cut would have meant the elimination of AmeriCorpsVISTA, the Conservation Corps (the modern-day CCC) and Senior Corps. Later, because of pressure from Republican colleagues and efforts by Voices for National Service, a coalition of national, state and local service programs, state service commissions and individual champions, President Trump signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 that provides the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) $1,063,958,000 for FY 2018, a $33.6 million increase over FY 2017 enacted levels. Here’s more about these two different budget announcements.

That a US President even entertained the idea of eliminating AmeriCorps, VISTA the Conservation Corps and Senior Corps, let alone announced it, should have gotten everyone’s attention, but the lack of outcry from DOVIAs and organizations that promote volunteerism was shocking. Make no mistake: these institutions remain under threat. I hope someone is working to scramble volunteers to preserve the research and resources CNCS has compiled on its web site before the government deletes it.

(3)

In July 2018, at a rally for his supporters, Donald Trump mocked the Points of Light volunteerism concept introduced by President George H.W. Bush.

“You know all of the rhetoric: ‘Thousands points of light.’ What the hell was that?” Trump asked his audience. “What does that mean?”

“I know one thing: ‘Make America Great Again’ we understand. ‘Putting America First’ we understand. ‘Thousand points of light?’ I never got that one. What the hell is that? Has anyone figured that out? It was put out by a Republican.”

In his inaugural speech in January 1989, President George H.W. Bush promoted the virtues of volunteerism, saying: “I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the nation, doing good.” In 1990, he created the Points of Light Foundation for volunteerism in 1990. The initiative has been supported by every Democrat and Republican President since, until Donald Trump.

(4)

Breaking with his predecessors, Trump skipped doing any community service activities on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2018, spending time on his golf course instead. By contrast, when President Barack Obama was in office, the First Family paid tribute to the civil-rights legend with some form of volunteer work, whether visiting a soup kitchen or helping paint a mural at a shelter. President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush also participated in volunteering activities in association with the day.

What message is being sent by the current President in refusing to do any community service – to serve a meal to someone experiencing homelessness, to help build a house via Habitat for Humanity, to participate in a beach cleanup? No, throwing paper towels at reporters covering hurricane damage does not count as volunteering.

(5)

Donald Trump and Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, as well as governors all over the USA, want to require unemployed Medicaid members to volunteer with nonprofit organizations – or, probably, Christian churches (but not other religious houses) – in order to receive those benefits. Bevin and Trump are expecting nonprofits to involve several thousand more people as volunteers – people who are being forced into the act – but without funding all of the increased costs nonprofits are going to have to create more assignments and supervise these people.

These five points, altogether, show a very disturbing message being sent out by the current President about the value of volunteerism in the USA. 

It’s overdue for nonprofits, consultants and anyone that claims to care about the spirit of volunteerism in the USA to speak out in press releases, guest columns in newspapers, letters to the editor, blogs and social media about this disdain for volunteerism coming from the current White House. The lack of any comment on these activities is why I have not joined any of the associations trying to fill the gap left by the Association for Volunteer Administration. It’s long overdue for bold statements regarding public policy that affects volunteerism and community service by these associations. I’m tired of being out here on my own.

No nonprofit will jeopardize its 501 (c) (3) status by commenting on any five of these items, by saying that these stances and activities are disappointing at least and outrageous and deplorable at worst. Any excuse that implies such is unacceptable.

That said, kudos to the Kentucky Nonprofit Network for being outspoken on some of these activities. Your voice and your courage is needed and appreciated.

Now, what about the rest of you?

Also see:

A plea to USA nonprofits for the next four years (& beyond)

Governor Bevin & Donald Trump Are Wrong on Community Service Requirements

Requirements to volunteer are getting out of hand

Kentucky politicians think volunteers are free

How Will Trump Presidency Affect Humanitarian Aid & Development?

The Tech Volunteering Group Urgently Needed Everywhere

When people talk about helping seniors, they usually focus on food or transportation. That’s nice and necessary, but seniors – people 65 and over – often have great need of a different kind of critical assistance: help with computers, smartphones, printers and the Internet.

There are seniors all across the USA, and probably in other countries as well, with tablets, printers and other devices that are sitting idle because, at some point, the Internet connection broke and they don’t know how to fix the connection. Or there are viruses on the computer and they can’t figure out how to get them off. They may need the text size or color contrast on their computer or smart phone adjusted. Or need software updated, especially anti-virus software. Or need to know how to put photos from their smartphone onto a laptop or a free online space like Flickr so that if anything happens with their phone, they still have their photos.

Just like everyone else, seniors are asked to fill out forms online, to print out forms, sign them, scan them and send them back to someone, to find urgently-needed medical insurance information online, book airline tickets, complete their taxes online, and on and on. If the printer stops connecting to the Internet, or the attachment got downloaded to a device but the user can’t find it, it can mean the senior misses out on much-needed government benefits or even medical care – or even loses money.

Consider this: my neighbor is very nearly homebound – she can manage grocery shopping and doctor visits, and that’s pretty much it. She needed to send in forms to an agency that handles her retirement funds. She had the paper forms from a brochure they had mailed her via traditional postal mail. She filled out the paperwork and sent it in via traditional mail, but because she can’t figure out what’s wrong with her printer, she didn’t scan the paperwork first. The company called and said a page was missing and that she needed to send it in, but she did not have copies and her laptop is broken – she accesses the Internet only via her Smartphone, and it was too hard to navigate the company web site to find the forms. Even if she could, she could not print out the material she needed, nor scan it and submit it. Luckily, I was able to help out with printing out the material, scanning her signed paperwork and sending it via email from my own home.

But I started thinking about all the elderly people out there who need to use their computers and printers and Internet access but just cannot figure out how it all works – and also have no idea who to call for help. And often, there are no funds to pay for a home visit by a computer assistance consultant, if such exists in their area at all.

An added bonus of volunteers helping with tech issues and restoring Internet access for seniors: helping with social isolation/loneliness. Remember that Meals on Wheels isn’t just about delivering food: it’s also about delivering a smile and checking in to make sure a person is okay – and if they aren’t, volunteers call family members, appropriate services, etc. Why not a tech help volunteer group doing the same?

This type of volunteer support doesn’t have to be every day. It could be one day a month: Tech Tuesday. It could be done in association with other events at a senior center or library.

These tech volunteers could:

  • Set up and help at cybercafe in a retirement home.
  • Help seniors use computer and Internet resources provided at a public library.
  • Help new users at a cybercafe or public Internet access point to connect with information and their loved ones.
  • Help seniors with issues they may have smart phones, computers, wi fi networks and printers in their home.
  • Set up a Wii gaming system at a retirement home and train the residents on how to use Wii for fitness and to maintain mental agility.
  • Review phone and Internet bills by seniors and make sure they are getting a good deal or not being charged for services they don’t use.
  • Have workshops on how to use different apps, how to avoid online scams, etc.

(This resource can help you better understand issues elders may have regarding networked devices.)

There’s no need to create a new nonprofit to do these things: any senior-serving nonprofit in a given area could recruit and engage such volunteers. For instance, Northshore Senior Center, Bothell, Washington offers a Health and Wellness Computer Learning Lab – for a $40 flat fee, seniors can get help with laptops that are “running slow, acting weird or frozen again.” El Dorado County in east-central California offers offers similar tech help services to seniors. So does the Cambridge Senior Center in Massachusetts. Here’s a long list of computer classes for seniors offered in the Berkeley area by the University of California Berkeley’s Retirement Center.

Recruiting interested volunteers would probably be no problem, particularly if there is a college or university or large employer nearby and volunteer requirements after vetting and training are just one or two days a month. A greater challenge to such a program is the screening, training, support and supervision these volunteers would need, to ensure the safety of everyone involved and to ensure the program is working, as well as the liability insurance a senior center would have to have (if they don’t have such already).

Volunteers would need to:

  • Undergo a criminal background check. A previous conviction will not necessarily preclude a person from volunteering; it would depend on the nature of the offense, the number of years since a conviction and the references the volunteer provides as to whether or not a conviction is a deal breaker. For instance, any conviction related to theft or fraud would preclude a volunteer from participating, but a 20-year-old conviction for trespassing because someone cut across railroad tracks to get to the grocery store shouldn’t be a concern. Volunteers would need to pay for this background check themselves.
  • Be interviewed before service, to ensure they have the verbal skills and demeanor for such support volunteering.
  • Be tested before service to ensure they have the skills needed, know where to find resources online to guide them in their service, etc.
  • Go through an orientation or training, where they learn how to interact with seniors, about maintaining confidentiality, about working with people with limited eyesight or hearing, limited mobility, and diminishing memory, etc.
  • Learn how to spot signs of inappropriate behavior on the part of any volunteers, clients or staff and how to report such.
  • Meet with program supervisors – which can also be volunteers – to ensure things are going well, challenges are being addressed, etc.

A way to ensure safety if volunteers are going to elders’ home is to require volunteers to visit in pairs and for elderly clients to log all visits by a volunteer on their own and to share these periodically with the agency.

If you emphasize to volunteers that the elderly are a vulnerable population and must be kept safe they will understand the bureaucracy around their volunteering, just as volunteers with Big Brother Big Sisters or other organizations do.

Quite frankly, every senior center should be exploring this idea. They should use the text here to post their own proposal to their own web site, survey the seniors in their community about the need for such a program, create a budget for what their own version of such a program would look like, and get busy attracting funding. This is a perfect crowdfunding project!

And for evaluation once you launch? There are MBA and social work Master’s programs at universities in every state – should be quite easy to find a student or even an entire class who could evaluate your program for you after six months or a year.

Also see: