Diana Scimone

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

I love that quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of my goals is to make sure people know about the injustice of child trafficking that takes place every day around the world.

With that goal in mind, here are a few recent news reports I’ve written or was interviewed for about the the fight to stop child trafficking:

Stop Child Slavery Now, Charisma Magazine, November 2009

My interview with Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking, Charisma Magazine, November 2009

Anti-Trafficking Resources (including list of abolitionists on Twitter), Charisma Magazine, November 2009

Orange TV interview, October 2009 (link coming)

7 Ways to Change the World, by Troy Anderson, Ministry Today magazine, November/December 2009 (Born to Fly and yours truly are profiled in the cover story--link coming)

And here's some of the extensive coverage that Born to Fly received thanks to our 09-09-09 fundraiser to stop child trafficking. As a result of these stories, thousands of new people learned about child trafficking and how to stop it:

Levite Chronicles: 5 Questions with Diana Scimone

Just Let Me Vent: What Is a Child Worth?

Mashable.com: A Guide to Crowdfunding Success 

Breaking Christian News: 09-09-09 Twitterthon to Stop Child Trafficking

Just Cause: International Organizations (Born to Fly is profiled on page 70)

I Was 9 Years Old When I Was Abducted

Huffington Post: Top 10 Women Warriors of Twitter (guess who is one of them)

and more listed here.

Prevention and awareness are huge parts of stopping the traffic, so I'm grateful to all these publications, blogs, and writers for featuring Born to Fly and our work.

Shout-Out to the Blog World and Media for 09-09-09 Coverage

We're getting a lot of great news and blog coverage about our upcoming 09-09-09 1-day fundraiser to stop child trafficking:

The DeadEnd: Where Human Trafficking Stops

Levite Chronicles: 5 Questions With Diana Scimone

Rescuing the World One Person at a Time

Using Twitter to Help Stop Child Trafficking

Help Stop Child Trafficking

Season of Light: A Personal Favor

Just Let Me Vent: What Is a Child Worth?

Twitter Professor: Leveraging Twitter for the Benefit of a Good Cause

Mashable: A Guide to Crowdfunding Success

Breaking Christian News: 9-9-09: Born2Fly's Twitterthon to Fight Child Slavery and Trafficking

Shannon Hurst Lane: Shannon Supports

Huffington Post: Top 10 Women Warriors of Twitter

My enormous thanks goes to all these bloggers and reporters for helping us in our efforts to stop child trafficking.  (And if I missed your post, please leave a comment with the link, and I'll happily add it to the list.)

There are more blogs and articles coming this week, and I'll share the links with you. 

I also have a list of many other people to thank who've volunteered their time and talents to help us. I'll do that in an upcoming post. 

* * *

Update #1: Here are more articles and blog posts that have appeared since I wrote the above. If I've (still) missed you, leave a comment and I'll be happy to add you.

MarketMommy:  09_09_09

Just Cause: International Organizations (page 70)

Urban Christian News: 9-9-09

Nine, Nine, Nine! (Doug Picirillo's Blogspot)

Better than Sudoko--A Numbers Game That Can Save a Life (Doug Picirillo's Blogspot)

* * *

Update #2:  And more!

The Sisterhood of Beautiful Warriors: 09-09-09 Save a Child, Please

Thank God It's Friday? (Doug Picirillo's Blogspot)

I Was Nine Years Old When I Was Abducted (Doug Picirillo's Blogspot)  (This is very powerful.)

Bernard Molek: Get Angry/Please?

* * *

Update #3:  And even more!

John Stanko: Born to Fly

Trafficking Sucks: Stop child trafficking on 09-09-09

Human 3rror: Stop child sex trafficking

Mom It Forward: B2F Announces September 9 Twitterthon to Fight Child Slavery

Examiner.com:  09-09-09

Linda Parker Webb: 9,000 Giving $9 on 09-09-09

Resistance Is Futile (Doug Picirillo's Blogspot)

Fanatic at Large (Doug Picirillo's Blogspot)

Work at Home/Kelly Wissink:  09-09-09

Eating My Way Out of Debt: Stop Child Sex Trafficking 09-09-09

Charisma Online: Fighting Child Sex Trafficking One Tweet at a Time

Heading Home/Lynn Mosher: 09-09-09 Is Here!

Announcing the 31-Day Countdown to 09-09-09!

Yup, it's a mere 31 days til the worldwide one-day Twitterthon (and Facebook-thon and every-other-thon) for the B2F Project to stop child trafficking.  Our goal?  9,000 people each giving $9 on September 9, 2009.

Wait til you see the prizes that companies are already donating. Everyone who gives $9 is automatically entered in the prize drawings, which will take place throughout the day on 09-09-09.  I'll tell you what some of the prizes are very soon.  (Yes, my subtle way of asking you to come back to read more.)

Some pretty amazing (and HUGE) blogs have already written about us:

Huffington Post:  Top Ten Women Warriors of Twitter (check out #7 :-) -- I'm still in shock) 

Mashable.com: A Guide to Crowdfunding Success (that's the official term for virtual fundraisers) 

TwitterProfessor.com: Born2Fly's @09_09_09 Project

If you want to blog about it, or just want to learn more about B2F Project and how we're working to stop child trafficking, there's more info here.  And you can follow me on Twitter: @DianaScimone and @09_09_09.

For the next 31 days, I'll post a question about child trafficking:

Q: How many underage girls are involved in child labor around the world?

If you know the answer, leave it in a comment. I'll give the answer tomorrow--along with another question. 

Remember, one of the best ways we can stop child trafficking is to keep kids from ever being trafficked in the first place.  That's what the B2F Project will do. Join us?

Help Diana Lose Her Job

[UPDATED with even more bloggers who've posted about Human Trafficking Day today--see below.]

[UPDATED again with more]

Earlier this week, my friend Michelle Vandepas told me, "Diana, I'll be happy when you're out of a job."

She didn't mean my writing work (I hope), but my work to stop child trafficking. 

I thought about Michelle's words all day. Wouldn't it be wonderful if someday we could have an official ceremony to shut down Born to Fly International?

You could hand me a pink slip that says, "Diana, your services are no longer needed. There aren't any more trafficked children. They've all been freed and no one is at risk for trafficking any more. So quit your job, Diana, and go find something else to do."

Today is National Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery Awareness Day. There's nothing I'd like better than (1) not having to commemorate this day every year, and (2) declaring that my job as president of Born to Fly is officially over.

OK, so I like to dream big.  But it could happen.

Until That Day...

Meanwhile, I've harassed my new Twitter friends into writing about child trafficking on their blogs. I promised them fame and fortune if they did--well, at least a link on my blog.

Others were already planning on posting about the day; they get a link, too.

So read what they wrote and please leave a comment on a few of the blogs to encourage them to keep writing. (We bloggers, ahem, do like to get comments from our readers occasionally to let us know what you like and don't like. Hint, hint.) I included their Twitter addresses in case you'd like to follow them. I'm @DianaScimone.

Here goes. And let's hope next year at this time I'm out of a job.

Slavery? Today? by Lynn Mosher, Heading Home blog (@lynnmosher)

Not My Daughter, by Jon Swanson, Levite Chronicles blog (@JSwanson)

27 Million, by Trish Berg, Simplifying Motherhood blog (@TrishBerg)

January 11 and Why Atlanta Should be Brave, by Emily Bain Murphy, Season of Light blog (@EBain)

Who Should We Be Targeting to Become Abolitionists? and Social Enterprise Takes on Slavery and Human Trafficking, by John Berger, Made by Survivors blog (@JohnCBerger)

Hello, My Child and Child Slaves, by Deneen White, I Was Made For This blog (@missdeneen)

National Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery Awareness Day Sucks, by Brett Aljets, PreacherBoy blog (@brettaljets)

11 Ideas for the 11th, by Charles Lee, Slavery Still Exists blog (@charlestlee)

National Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery Awareness Day, by Greg Atkinson, Church Video Ideas blog (@GregAtkinson)

Slavery Is Alive and Well, by General Kafka, The Red Leaf blog (@BigKafka)

Say Something (video blog), by Jeff Turner, Stop Child Slavery blog (@ResPres)

Does This Still Come Up?, by Becky McCray, Small Biz Survival blog (@BeckyMcCray)

National Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery Awareness Day, by Beth Kanter, Blogher blog (@Kanter)

and last but not least from John Stanko, who serves on the board of directors of Born to Fly (and is also my brother-in-law):

Slavery Awareness Day, by John Stanko, John Stanko blog (@JohnStanko)

Makin' a List; Shoulda' Checked It Twice

Yesterday I shared with you a list of people to follow on Twitter who are involved with non-profits, human rights, and social justice. 

How could I leave off the amazing Beth Kanter who writes a super blog on how non-profits can use social media?  You can read Beth's blog here. You can follow her on Twitter @Kanter. 

Want to see what social media can do in just 3 hours to make a difference?  Here's what Beth wrote this morning:

The theme for Social Media Breakfast #11 in Boston this morning was "Social Media for Social Good." To kick off the event, Bob Collins and I organized a call to action for the group. Tyson Foods was willing to donate 100 pounds of protein to the Boston Food Bank per comment on its Hunger Relief blog.  

As everyone at the breakfast took their 1st sip of coffee, Beth and Bob asked them to get on Twitter and ask their followers to leave a comment on the Hunger Relief blog. Within 90 minutes, they had 300+ comments--enough for 1 truckload.  

Within 2-1/2 hours, they had 800+ comments and a 2nd truckload.  I think they've since filled a 3rd truck. 

Amazing.  The power of social media. 

Now doesn't that just get your creative wheels turning? Notice no one talked about a recession, "the economy," or all those other phrases I'm growing to hate. 

Want to read more?  Emily Bain Murphy was at the breakfast and contrasts it with a talk-only meeting she'd been to the evening before.

How can you use social media for change in your world? Got ideas? Share them here. 

Thanks, Mommy Blogs!

A big shout-out to 2 mommy blogs for giving my Adventures With PawPaw children's books great reviews! 

Mommy blogs are a force to be reckoned with (and if you don't believe me, just ask Motrin). So it's great to have their blessing.  

All American Mommy endorsed the PawPaw books in their holiday children's books mega-review, and gave us their top award:

 

The super-fun Traveling Mamas, whom I've gotten to know on Twitter, also gave us a great review, saying they "highly recommend" the books.  Thanks, Mamas! 

 

If you haven't met PawPaw, he's waiting to meet you. Charming, fluffy, and, well, adventuresome, he travels the world introducing young children to other countries and cultures.  So far he's been to China, France, and Costa Rica--and he's packing his bags for upcoming trips to Italy, Israel, Kenya, Egypt, and other spots around the globe.

A portion of all sales goes to Born to Fly International to help fight global trafficking.

Books are $8.95 each or a special price of $25 for a set of all 3 countries.  They're available at www.adventureswithpawpaw.com. (PawPaw says they make paw-fect Christmas and Hanukkah gifts.)

Order a set for the little travelers on your holiday gift list.  I think the mommy blogs would approve.

Brilliant Blogs

Thanks to Twitter, I've been introduced to a number of great blogs and the people behind them who are working to stop child trafficking. 

Check out Season of Light, a blog by Emily Bain Murphy who says she's "one more voice against child se x trafficking." Emily's post Spending to Save has great suggestions for Christmas and Hanukkah gifts that give back. Who wouldn't love a blanket or bag made by women rescued from trafficking? Gifts like these, made from old saris, help women who are trying to craft a new life out of their brokenness. (You can find Emily on Twitter @Ebain.)

Jeff Turner's blog, Stop Child Slavery, is also packed with info and inspiration. It's not always pretty, but neither is the ugly world of child trafficking. Jeff has some moving stories--such as the one on child slavery in the soccer ball industry and another on the railway children of India. (Jeff is on Twitter @ResPres.)

A few weeks ago I mentioned Hope4Cambodia. The blogger-filmmakers have headed home and are now busy editing 100 hours of film for their upcoming documentary. Before they left Cambodia, they joined rescued girls on a visit to a prison in Phnom Penh. Their blog post falls into my category of "just when I think I've heard the worst story":

Some of the girls were visiting their mothers who had been incarcerated for selling those very girls into the se x trafficking industry. It was sickening. One of the girls' parents spent the entire time trying to convince her to lie about what she did so she could get a second hearing. The mother cared nothing for the child or for the hell that she sold her daughter into. It did not take long before the girl decided she did not want to be there anymore.

Know of another blog I shouldn't miss? Drop me a comment with the link and I'll check it out. Oh, you can find me on Twitter @BornToFly.

Cambodia: A Filmmaker's Blog

I've been following the blog of a group of filmmakers who arrived in Cambodia earlier this month to make a documentary about the effort to stop child trafficking. They have some good insight into what works and what simply reinforces the system.  

Their film will focus on the work of AIM 4 Asia.  Remember the Dateline special a few years ago called Children For Sale?  It showed a raid on a brothel in Cambodia that was filled with children. After the raid, the building was locked and vacant for 5 years. Last year AIM leased it and reopened it as a community center reaching out to kids, including some of the very same little girls who were once held captive there. Pretty cool, huh? AIM also has a home where "wounded, broken girls" can live in safety.

Child trafficking is far from over in Cambodia, of course. That was one children's brothel out of many. In fact, Cambodia has one of the worst rates of child trafficking on the planet. One of the ways to help stop it is to show what is happening--which is what this new film will do along with offering hope and solutions that are working. 

You can read the filmmakers' blog here.  And if you've ever wondered how a parent could sell his or her child into slavery, read what the filmmakers wrote about Cambodia's Recent History: The roots of child se x slavery. It explains a lot.

Here's a photo I took at few years ago this very week at the Thailand/Cambodia border crossing:

To comment on this post, click here.

9,000 Bloggers, Butterfly Girl, and Me

Today is Blog Action Day 08. More than 9,000 bloggers around the world with an audience of 10 million are all posting about the same issue on the same day. This year's topic is poverty, and we’re writing about how it relates to the focus of our blog. 

You don’t have to look far to find the connection between child trafficking and poverty. You just have to meet Butterfly Girl. 

I met her in a very poor village on the border of Thailand and Myanmar. I call her "Butterfly Girl" because when we arrived in the village, I had my usual supply of stickers to pass out to kids, this time with butterflies on them.  You can see she's wearing one:

This is where she lives:

Butterfly Girl wasn’t trafficked that I know of, but like millions of kids all over the world, she's sure at risk for it.  And poverty is one of the reasons.  

Who wouldn’t want something more from life than a dirt floor to sleep on and a hopeless future to look toward?  Traffickers know that, and when they come to a village promising the moon, it doesn’t take much for kids to follow.  

There are two things that drew me to Butterfly Girl. One is the look on her face—there was still hope. The other is the color of her t-shirt—Tiffany blue. If you buy a diamond ring at Tiffany & Co., it comes packaged in the famous Tiffany-blue box—almost the exact shade of Butterfly Girl’s shirt. 

How appropriate. This child is valuable. She may live in crushing poverty, but somehow that Tiffany-blue shirt says, “I’m valuable. I’m precious. And I’m showing you.”

The goal of Blog Action Day 08 is to raise awareness about poverty and raise funds to fight it. You can give to one of the bad08 charities, or you can give to any charity you choose. If you’d like to give to the Born to Fly Project to help stop child trafficking, we’d be thrilled. You can do it here; just let bad08 know so they can tally the amount of funds raised.  

Meanwhile, be sure to tune in to Blog Talk Radio on October 15 at 1:30 pm ET where yours truly will be interviewed during the 12-hour Blog Action Day talkathon.

   

Have a great one! 

UPDATE: 10,357 blogs now participating.  11.2 million readers!

UPDATE: 11,000+ blogs

Diana's Live on Blog Talk Radio

Tune in to Blog Talk Radio on Wed., Oct. 15 at 1:30 pm ET where yours truly will be interviewed during the 12-hour Blog Action Day 08 talkathon.

We're Now on Alltop

Alltop--as in "All the top news"--just added this blog to its listing of blogs and websites about trafficking and slavery. And they gave us very nice placement front and center. Thanks, Alltop! 

If you've never visited Alltop, give it a whirl. It's sort of a digital magazine rack of every subject you can think of with the latest news and info from around cyberspace.  There are listings in gazillions of categories like work, living, culture, tech, people, good, sports, geo, education, and more.  Just click here, then type in what you're looking for--or scroll through the categories.

If you're looking for info on a certain subject (as opposed to looking for a specific website), Alltop is actually more focused and organized than Google (who can wade through 188,000 entries?).  Listings are updated every hour. 

Check it out.  And a big shout out to Alltop for saying we are:

Of course, I could also say:

What's that Funny Little Icon on Your Blog?

You mean this one?

It's to tell you that this Wednesday, October 15, is the 2nd annual global Blog Action Day.  More than 7,700 blogs all over the world (including yours truly) are participating.  That's a whopping 9 million readers.

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world's bloggers, podcasters, and videocasters to post about the same issue on the same day.  This year's focus is on poverty. Participating bloggers will write about how poverty relates to the focus of their blog.  Poverty is a huge contributor to child trafficking, so you know what I'll be blogging about.

I'll be a guest on blog talk radio on Blog Action Day; as soon as I have the details, I'll let you know.  

Click here to register your blog for bad08.  

And just to drop a few tantalizing hints, on Wednesday I'll also be announcing something exciting.  Watch this space! 

 

You Have the Power to Change the World (Really. No really, I mean it.)

Don't believe me? Read Mark Hayward's motivating and inspiring post on Successful-Blog.com. 

Mark and his wife served with the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea. What they did there--and couldn't do--affected them so much that Mark determined to do something about it when he got home.

At the time I didn't know what I would do exactly, or how I would do it, but I was determined and serious.

I love when people don't let their present get in the way of their future. Mark didn't have a clue what he could do or how he would make it happen, but he didn't let that stop him. Mark adds:

Think about what is important to you, to society. In this blogging and social media age you don't have to be associated with a huge humanitarian organization or educational foundation in order to take action.

That's music to my ears, Mark.  

Read his post. Read his 6 steps. Be inspired. Be motivated. Be creative. And be sure to share with the rest of us what you think.  Just click here or click "comments" below.  

The Writer's Workshop: 2 Sources and a Tip

I know, I know, this blog certainly has an odd mix of subjects--a post here about writing, a post there about child trafficking.  What can I tell you?  That's me: I'm a writer, writer's coach, children's book author, travel writer, and founder of a non-profit that works to stop child trafficking.  You get it all right here.

Today I have on my writing hat.  I want to recommend 2 great sources and 1 I'll-never-do-that-again tip.

Source #1:  www.highlightsfoundation.org.  Lots of great stuff for children's authors, and an every-so-often email tip.  (Today's tip:  "In a successful story (read 'marketable'), your protagonist must 'own' both the problem and the resolution.")  Click here to receive email tips.

Source #2:  www.copyblogger.com.  This just won best blog for writers (3rd year in a row).  41,000 writers subscribe to the posts--and you can, too.  Just look for the box on the upper-left corner of the home page.

My avoid-at-all-costs tip: If you write a blog, do not (repeat: do not) copy and paste text from Word.  I knew this, but did it anyway, and for a while I got away with it.  But then one day...oh the problems.  Pasting non-HTML text into an HTML environment can cause problems you don't even want to know about.  It messed up all the fonts on all my previous posts. I finally fixed them all...and will never do that again! 

Remember, if you need a writer's coach, I'm here to help you get that book out of you and on to paper.  Just fill out the contact form here and I'll send you info.

Happy writing!

Live from an Internet Cafe in Northern Thailand

Some of my favorite places in the world are internet cafes.  I'm sitting in one now in northern Thailand, where I just arrived this morning.  People from all over the world drop in for 30 minutes or so to check their emails and write to people all over the world. It's great.

The keyboard, however, is not so great, so I'm going to keep this short.  I found out I can hook up my own laptop here, so I'll send out a longer post when I can type on my own laptop, send some pictures, and more.  Meanwhile, just wanted you to know that I arrived safe and sound, and am looking forward to my first meeting tomorrow.  Asia is outside the open-air cafe as I type this--mopeds whizzing, horns honking, curries sizzling (like the plate I had for lunch for $1.30), and my senses are all reeling and happy. It's great to be back.