Human Trafficking: Agent of Change

As you know from my previous blogs this is a blog for the You and the World Project. My name is Milahn and this is my agent of change blog. This will be the final blog for this project I hoped you enjoyed and/or found my information given in the past useful. For an Agent of Change part of this project I went out in the world to try to help trafficked women in the United States (Philadelphia). Helping these women showed leadership, helpfulness, and confidence in what I believe in. 

For the final part of the You and the World Project I made twenty toiletry bags and donated them to the human trafficking center. All of the bags consist of tooth brushes, toothpaste, and soap. Additional items were added to the bags such as powder, deodorant, lotion, perfume, and mouthwash. These items weren’t in every bag but each bag received the same amount of items. Also the bags each had a snack, a bag of chips or hershey kisses. The items were donated to me from the dance ministry at my church. A mass text was sent out to the entire ministry and almost everyone contributed. The ministry runs from ages 4-18. The bags were taken to the shelter on May 8th but the bags were all made April 29th. The shelter was located in Kensington. At about 9:30 p.m. I arrived at the shelter. The volunteers really appreciated the bags especially since it was coming from a teenager. They were very surprised to see that a child, such as myself, was interested in helping a very important issue in United States. 

My process was very long. My original idea was to volunteer at the shelter with my mother. This experience would have been an advantage. I would have experienced how to work with other people that were in need of help. I had to change my idea because I wasn’t allowed to volunteer unless I was eighteen mainly because of safety. After trying to see if i could volunteer at a couple other shelters and getting the same response I had to find something else to do. My next option was to give a presentation with specialist on human trafficking. By this time there wasn’t enough time to put together a presentation so my last option was to make bags and donate them. This idea seemed to work out better than I thought it would. Even though I would’ve liked to go to the volunteer I feel as though I still helped out a lot of women. 

This project has impacted me a lot. I used to go to nursing homes, shelters, and drives because I had to for school. I never thought I would want to go just to help out people. This project helped me realize that there is a lot to do in this world and a way to make a change. Now I see myself as someone who can lead to help human trafficking i the United States be recognized as a highly important issue in this world. I am still learning more and more about the issue everyday through research. I will take a lot from this project such as leadership, confidence, and change. These three things will help me on my journey to help stop human trafficking. 

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