Facing Reality and Rising to Action
Burnt out and covered in the debris of a damaged life, the couch sat at the entrance to the Free Evangelical Church Holstenwall. The artwork by Youth With A Mission (YWAM) student Rebecca Lozano was commissioned for the recent They Are Not For Sale conference in Hamburg, Germany. It was a powerful and graphic piece representing the destruction that forced sexual exploitation causes to millions of women worldwide.
Today there are an estimated 27 million people being held against their will in bonded labor, involuntary servitude, or sexual slavery. Many victims of slavery have been trafficked from their home countries; they are taken to places where they are undocumented, invisible and trapped. Hosted by YWAM Herrnhut, in co-operation with the Not For Sale Campaign, the conference sent out a clear call to ‘Awaken to Reality and Rise to Action’.
The church where the conference was held, sits on the fringe of Hamburg’s Reeperbahn. Many of those enslaved today are kept for sexual exploitation, and the sights and sounds of the busy red-light district were a gritty reminder that human slavery exists in our neighborhoods; the places we live, work and worship in. Human trafficking is not a foreign problem. It is not something that happens solely in distant countries; increasingly the problem is in our backyards. Not for Sale is an organization working to teach people methods to recognize modern-day slavery and how to be part of the solution by providing practical steps to abolish it. The conference served as a dynamic way of introducing the Not For Sale Campaign to Europe.
The Not For Sale Campaign is a social justice movement that seeks to educate and empower people in all sectors of society, from artists to business people, to take action. David Batstone, President and Co-Founder of Not for Sale, spoke about some of the initiatives they are working on to equip individuals to combat modern-day slavery. At the end of November, YWAM Strategic Frontiers in Colorado Springs, USA, is partnering with Not For Sale, to host to the first Backyard Academy. This 3-day course is the first of many planned across the U.S.A, and aims to prepare every-day advocates with smart activism tactics to become modern-day abolitionists. In the coming year Not For Sale hopes to bring it’s Backyard Academy to Europe.
As a global organization, YWAM is in an amazing position to be able to inspire thousands of people every year to fight injustice. A number of Discipleship Training School’s (DTS’s) around the world are choosing to weave a strong justice focus into their curriculum. Early next year YWAM Herrnhut is sending an outreach team, from its recent Marriage of the Arts DTS, to serve a Not For Sale project in the developing world. Next summer there are plans for further collaboration with Not For Sale with a DTS, which will include the Backyard Academy and will send outreach teams to work with people affected by trafficking and slavery.
The conference also provided an opportunity for organizations working in Germany to network with one another. Many people from a variety of different churches, from all over Hamburg and Germany attended, and hopefully left equipped with vision and direction to encourage their home churches to work towards ending modern-day slavery. The Marriage of the Arts DTS travelled from Herrnhut to attend the conference and bought an abundance of creativity. Over the weekend, many students were able to perform original songs and dances that unmistakably echoed God’s heart for the focus issues. The fine art and photography students had an opportunity to display their art and visually express strong social justice themes. Renee Hong, a Marriage of the Arts DTS student, left the conference with a greater understanding of the “need to network and create a unified, empowered movement to fight injustice”.
A small team from YWAM Herrnhut is also working consistently in Eastern Europe to build connections in human trafficking hot spots, hoping to prevent the forcible transport of people over the open German border. The problem of human trafficking persists because it lives in the shadows. It’s hidden in plain sight. By coming together and educating each other about injustice we help to pull these issues into the light.
Jan Schlegel, YWAM Herrnhut’s creative visionary, felt confident that the objectives of the conference, to educate and inspire people to fight injustice, were fulfilled and called the conference “a complete success”.
Find out more about how you can be involved in preventing human slavery :
Not For Sale Campaign - http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/
YWAM Herrnhut - http://www.ywam-sf.net/
Stop motion video a Herrnhut staff member made for the conference - http://www.vimeo.com/16657030
Website created by Marriage of the Arts DTS student - http://areyouokaywiththat.org/