One of my favorite organizations, Polaris Project , does incredible advocacy work to prevent trafficking and also does amazing hands-on work rescuing and rehabilitating women who are victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation. They have asked for people to donate clothes to help get their clients back on their feet. These clothes can be anything from...
Author Archives: Courtney Christenson
Donate Clothing to Survivors of Trafficking
Advocate to Add Women’s Voices to Peace Negotiations
I am particularly passionate about defending the rights of women and girls and protecting them from abuse and violence. Because of that, I truly admire the work of UNIFEM and their campaign called “Say NO- End Violence Against Women“. I regularly receive their updates and calls to action and I got one yesterday that was...
Amnesty International Letters to Prisoners of Conscience
Amnesty International is an awesome organization that works to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity.
One of the coolest things they do is fight for the rights and release of “Prisoners of Conscience” which is anyone imprisoned because of their race, religion, color, language, sexual orientation, belief, or lifestyle so long as they have not used or advocated violence. It also refers to...
FEED bags
I wanted to introduce all of you to one of my favorite things. My FEED Bag. It is my diaper/purse/carryall bag and if I could have it surgically connected to my body, I would seriously consider it. It’s big, but not bulky, has side pockets that perfectly fit sippy cups and bottles, has an inside...
Donate Your Old/Broken Cell Phone and Save Lives
I recently stumbled upon one of the most brilliant and “outside the box” ideas I have ever seen to help people in developing countries.
Basically, by using recycled cell phones to create a kind of “911″ text message service, a med student from Stanford has revolutionized a hospital in rural Malawi. In just 6 months of...
Advocate to Combat Domestic Sex Trafficking
Human trafficking is one of the most horrific human rights issues faced by our world today. The number of people bought and sold in worldwide order to be exploited is estimated to be around 2 million, and nearly half of those are minors (ILO, 2008).The majority of victims are are female and are trafficked in...
Advocate to End Slavery in the DRC
It strikes me as a strange juxtaposition to sit here and use my laptop (with my cellphone sitting in front of me) to write about what an injustice it is that people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) being enslaved to make my technology possible.
I would explain it, but an amazing little organization called Emote360...
Eliminate the Rape Kit Backlog
Every year, more than 200,000 individuals report their rape to the police. Almost all of them are asked to submit to the collection of DNA evidence from their bodies, which is then stored in a small package called a rape kit. This collection of evidence is an invasive and traumatic process that takes four to...
Be an Advocate for Children Enslaved on Cocoa Farms
Since I first posted about the issue of child slavery on cocoa farms (and promised not to eat any chocolate that was not fair trade), my eyes have truly been opened to the incredible scope of this issue and the blatant disregard for basic human rights shown by the major chocolate producers around the world.
Here’s...
Aid for Haiti
I can’t imagine anything worse happening to people who were already in a terribly desperate situation. Since we got back from South Africa on Friday I’ve been researching the best ways to help survivors of this disaster.
As much as I’d love to come up with some creative donation drive for food or water, everything I...