As I come back from my travels and have been home for a couple of months I've started to see my generation in a new light. I'm calling it the NOWSAH Generation, the Not Okay With Sitting At Home Generation. Adults, kids, people, or whatever you want to call people my age are no longer okay with sitting at home.
We hear about the injustice, the struggle, the hurt, the poverty around us, both in the United States and globally and we aren't okay with it. When I was in 11th grade I first heard of Invisible Children and I cried for the kids who were being abducted to become child soldiers. My freshman year in college I learned of TOMS and their efforts to give kids shoes. Last year my friend wrote about prostitutes in Israel and I wept for a woman who sold herself. I went to Nepal and saw kids who were only 16 and had been living on the streets with no family for 10 years. I met kids who didn't know the last time they were sober. I met a 16 year old who ran away from home because her family was abusive, but the streets made her sleep with older boys so she, in return, would have protection from other men who would rape her.
I met a first grader in Thailand who the week before had been abducted by a man on a motorcycle and if she had not been left on the side of the road, would have been sold into modern day slavery. I saw men on the beach in Thailand, who's one purpose was to get drunk and buy sex from a Thai woman.
I learned how to train and equip people against the reality of human/ sex trafficking. I saw the realities of it in front of me. I met people who had been in the system. I met people trying to stop it from happening.
Through all I've seen, I've learned the people around me feel the same way. We are not okay with what we see happening in the world. We are not okay that people live in the streets in our own cities. We are not okay with kids going without food, clothing, and education. We are not okay with children anywhere living on the streets. We are not okay with the world around us.
We have become the generation that is trying to prevent, stop, and educate others about what the real world is like. I wept when I read my friends email about prostitutes in Israel. I wept harder when I met prostitutes in Nepal. I was angered by the fact that slavery is at an all time high. I felt the need to educate myself and bring education to others about it. I buy shoes that give kids a pair in return. I am not okay sitting at home and doing nothing about the injustice I see all around me.
I don't think you are either. I don't think you care about every cause there is. But I do think that you are not okay with what you see around you. I challenge you to not sit at home. I bet you already know what you are not okay with. Change that situation. You may be on little voice, but it goes a long way.
It may seem silly that I buy the same kind of shoes. But I know with that shoe I gave another kid a chance in this world by putting shoes on their feet. It may seem dumb that I'm starting a business to benefit people in Nepal and in Las Vegas and hopefully one day globally. But I'm not okay with what I saw. I'm not okay with what I see. But I am okay with my generation.
They may get drunk and watch too much Jersey Shore, but I see people around me fighting for a cause. I see people educating themselves about the struggle this world is in. I see them buying products to help a cause. It may only be $10 dollars that they give. But $10 USD in another country can go a long way.
We are the generation that is standing up. We are not okay with sitting at home. We may live at home, we may never meet the people these products benefit, we might not even live to see our cause come to completion, but we are a generation that is trying to make the unheard have a voice. We are trying to stand for justice. We are trying to change the world.
Call us crazy, dumb, or uneducated. But we are trying.
