End It Movement is raising awareness of the epidemic of modern day slavery in the world today. The numbers are really pretty staggering. 27 million. That's the rough estimate of how many slaves there currently are in the world. Today. Not in a pre-Abe Lincoln world...TODAY. Though the forms may differ [forced and bonded labor, human trafficking and the like] the result is the same. More people are enslaved today than at any other time in human history.
Tomorrow (3/27) is SHOUT OUT Wednesday. On this day, the 27th of the month, we are asked to tweet on the 27th minute of every hour of the day and shine a light on slavery for the 27 million. The problem for me is that I do not like to tweet 24 times a day or even 10 times a day. I don't have 24 times a day's worth of stuff to say! In fact, I unfollow people who tweet 24 times a day. Let's be honest, I unfollow people who tweet more than 3 or 4 times a day...
More than the number of tweets though, there's still a core question for me: What good is my tweeting doing for the cause?? It's not like we haven't been well-equipped by End It Movement with stickers, hats, apparel, buttons and other digital and online resources to help us raise awareness. But, I'm still struggling with how it works for ME. I'm just being honest here, but I'm not going to go rolling into Trader Joe's wearing an End It flat bill hat. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I would never roll in anywhere wearing a flat bill hat. So, tomorrow, how on earth does my #enditmovement hashtag actually make any difference?
For the answer to this question I finally decided to ask someone who works closely with End It and could tell me...who could let me question it and then help me resolve it. Never one to be shy, I said: "I don't get it. How is this doing anything? I'm all about freeing the slaves, but what is tweeting doing?" The answer was simple and I'd heard it multiple times before, but this time, for this day, I understood it for ME. "Raising awareness IS DOING something. We need you to raise your voice in your sphere of influence. The more people that know about this issue, the more people can get connected with coalition partners who are actually on the ground, doing the work, identifying and freeing slaves." Then, I realized something else. It's not just about raised voices, it's about raising MY voice. My unique voice, with my unique perspective, with my unique passionate flavor, in my unique way to my unique audience.
So, I began to ask myself: "What does a 30 something, white, married mother of three who does full-time children's ministry and lives in suburban upper middle class Alpharetta, Georgia have to contribute to the conversation about modern day slavery?" I went on a hunt...did some research...prayed...pondered. And tomorrow, I'll raise MY unique voice on the 27th minute of each hour to shine a light on the modern day slavery epidemic in our world. Maybe you could join me and raise yours?
For more information, please visit www.enditmovement.com
