Week 2:
Institute for Exploited, Trafficked and Missing Persons

June 12, 2013

Human Rights work isn’t really a 9-5 sort of career. This is becoming evident to me as I work side by side

with people who are as passionate about righting the worlds injustices as I am.  At lunch I got into a heated discussion with Rebecca, another intern at the project, and it led to an exchange of all kinds of materials, movies, books and articles on the subjects that we care so much about.  This summer so far feels like a block on top of a job.  I am learning so much and every night I am sent home with something new to think about and new materials to change my opinion on concepts that I thought I had a grasp of.  Currently I am reading a book called Pornland by Gail Dines and it is certainly eye opening.  As the movement to stop sexual slavery and all other forms of sexual violence against women has moved away from victim blaming (about time)  there is a renewed search for what might cause this problem and Dines believes it has something to do with our cultures pornographic saturation. I’m not sure I am fully convinced by her overall argument but she presents some solid proof that things like rape porn and child pornography have become much more prevalent since the advent of the internet; regardless of societal effect child porn is in and of itself a wrong.  So these are the kinds of happy debates and materials that occupy my free time here, which is fine because Minneapolis has been pretty dreary lately and the weather seems to reflect the tilt of my thoughts.

Things have been bustling and productive at work though.  I am really getting into full swing here and have a bunch of projects in the works at once, sometimes things get a little overwhelming.  I am working on a pretty large grant and have the first draft of my Letter of Interest done except for some hard numbers that I want to plug in.  I’m waiting on the staff in Antigua to scan me some receipts.  Right now is their busiest time, with multiple service teams down at once, so I am not holding my breath on that one.   I have also been arranging opportunities for Patrick and the rest of the staff to get out and about around town to spread awareness.  We have a few speaking engagements along with a bunch of smaller venues in the works and I hope to have even more success with events once the weather clears up.  I am amazed at how much of everyday is spent coordinating.  Finding numbers, addresses and dates.  Figuring out who is in charge of what, and what their resources are, how much decision making power they have and when they will be able to make that decision.  On Cornell’s campus, I remember being able to walk down the ped mall and get everything I needed just by running into people. I love that about Cornell, but let me tell you Minneapolis is a much bigger network. Navigating that network and all of the non-profits and volunteers in it can be challenging, but I think I’m up to the task.

Another one of my big projects has to do with creating a new packet of materials for volunteer involvement and outreach.  One of our biggest programs takes groups from across the country, classes, churches, camps, or community groups and sends them to Antigua to volunteer.  They build small houses, help in Casa Jackson (center for malnourished infants), lend a hand at the clinics or teach in the Dreamer Center.  Everyone comes home inspired and wanting to do more, yet until now we did nothing to reach out to them again.  Jon, the director of benefactor services, and I are trying to fix that.  We are writing and re-writing letters and calls to action, as well as devising a three pronged strategy for how to keep volunteers involved and spreading the word about global poverty and human slavery.  It is going really well and we have the first drafts of our letters done,  I even made a presentation template that can be sent to those who want to give a presentation on what they did abroad to their community members.

After reviewing it, Mike has agreed to teach me how to use Photoshop, I am going to skip from being affronted to be excited by this new tool.  It is super useful and fun to use and I have already started to create campaigns with it.  My first set of banners were made to advertise our charity golf tournaments happening in July and August. I already had a design to work off of so it was a great first project. You can see it here as well as on our webpage, gcpstore.org.

One of the best parts of the whole week though was when Jon came into my office and asked if I wanted a break from the computer screen to help with some mindless mailings.  I said sure and we went to the conference table to address and send out fathers day cards that had been sent to us from Guatemala.  They were from the orphans and underprivileged children in Antigua too their sponsor fathers from around the world.  THEY WERE SO CUTE.  One little girl made a shirt and tie out of paper that you opened and then wrote a card.  It was pretty cool to see all of the children’s literacy, not to mention the care and time that was put into each card. Here is one example:

On that pretty adorable note I’m signing off from my second post, I wish all the Dads out their a Happy Father’s Day!