The question I’m asked most often is, “How can I help?  Human trafficking and the abolition of modern-day slavery is a huge problem–what can I possibly do to make a difference?”

*First, learn all you can through reading and talking with individuals and organizations who have already joined the fight:

• Google “human trafficking” to learn what is happening in the world.

*Contact your local library, social services, churches or police force and ask what is being done in your community to raise awareness and prevent human trafficking.  They can help you find books, organizations, and on-line information to educate yourself about:

• The crime (what is human trafficking and where in the world it occurs—you will be astonished
• The people at risk
• The methods traffickers use to capture and enslave
• The apprehension, arrest and prosecution of predators
• The rescue, restoration, and healing of victims
• The fight to abolish slavery through legal means
• The education of men and boys re. the dignity and worth of women and girls
• Organizations and/or Individuals that are already working
• **See the resource page under Band of Sisters on my website at  www.cathygohlk.com for a growing list of these sites.  If you find more, please let me know so I can add them.

*Once you understand what organizations and opportunities are already in place, determine what you are able and equipped to do.  That might include:

• Work directly with one of these organizations, either in this country or in a foreign country
• Validate, affirm, encourage and engage girls or women who are at risk or in the process of healing
• Welcome strangers into your church as part of the church family, remembering that isolation makes people vulnerable
• Take a rescued victim into your home or provide housing
• Mentor a victim, or a girl or woman at risk
• Help a woman find safe employment and/or child care
• Help a woman applying for a job find appropriate clothing
• Provide childcare and/or transportation when needed
• Tutor a student, young or not so young and encourage hopeful options
• Invite women or girls for a meal in your home or take them out for a meal or event, using the opportunity to reaffirm their worth
• Provide assistance for medical care—practical or financial
• Speak up when others make slurring or disrespectful comments re. women, immigrants, homeless, etc.—attitudes must change to make change last
• Do not patronize stores, hotels, sporting events or other venues where you believe women or children are trafficked
• Provide legal counsel, assistance or finances for same for victims
• Hold public figures and men within your circle of acquaintance accountable for their actions toward women and children
• Write or speak out against trafficking
• Support legislation to stop trafficking, to prosecute and to educate predators
• Write letters of support and concern to elected officials re. human trafficking
• Contribute financial support to one of the organizations that is already in place and helping
• Create and/or support films, documentaries, plays, or various art forms that raise awareness or needed funds
• Fundraise for organizations that are helping
• Help to educate publicly or privately those you know re. all of the above
• Work with others to create new possibilities
• Pray—continually

*Most importantly, realize that while you can’t do everything, we can each do something.  Together we will raise a clamor that must be heard.  Together, we can abolish slavery in this 21^st Century.

October is a wild array of color, and “the leaves by hundreds came.”  Watching the windswept trees shower us with their glory makes me think we’ve turned a snow globe upside down, and that we’re standing inside—magnificent!

How about a bowl of hot apple cobbler and a steaming cup of coffee?  We’ll sit on the deck and watch Nature’s grand show.

Looking forward to seeing you here, in the garden, next week.

God’s blessings for you,