FeelingElephants

Here's the story behind my blog's title.

I use the power of the internet to take human trafficking offline for my day job, but what I say here is mine, all mine.

Where do we start to help kids who are hurting?

I spent a lot of last week reading about the foster care system (400,000 U.S. minors are involved in it each year (pdf)) and I’m going to be talking about child welfare reform for a few months. Following up on 6 months working on Safe Harbor laws which enable the criminal justice system to direct [...]

7 questions you should ask in any internship interview

We just opened up applications for our Summer 2013 fellowship and it got me thinking about what questions I found useful when I was applying for the 15+ jobs, internships and volunteer positions* I’ve had in the past 9 years.

I’ve heard other hiring managers say that they can tell if an applicant is a [...]

Tribes and Collateral

In non-profit communications-speak, “collateral” is “stuff you give people with your brand on it.” It is everything from t-shirts to magnets to pamphlets. Thinking about how Polaris could change how it uses collateral to work to end human trafficking, I’ve started by analyzing how I, as an activist and informed issue consumer, use collateral.

In [...]

“Why is this important to you?” Mapping activist responses to Safe Harbor laws

If you’re listening to anything I say through Polaris’s social media channels, you’ve probably heard about Safe Harbor laws. Safe Harbor laws are a kind of law to combat human trafficking, particularly sex trafficking of people under 18, as well as other forms of commercial sexual exploitation of people under 18 which are not always [...]

Bending the Arc Towards Justice

This is a cross-post from my work blogging for Polaris–trigger warning for sexual assault, harm to kids, human trafficking. It’s in honor of Martin Luther King Jr Day. Here’s some interesting sourcing on the title quote.

When we hear about a child being raped, it provokes horror, revulsion, and for those who have survived [...]