SOLD's First Film Festival!

We just got back from our first film festival experience with SOLD... and it blew us away. SOLD: Cat is a 15 minute piece that shows our hearts for prevention for at-risk children...

"The SOLD Project: Cat" is 6th out of 26 shorts as the audience award!

And this is just the beginning...



We also spent time with a couple of really amazing schools, IUPUI and the University of Indianapolis. It was a great sneak peak for the endless creative possibilities for the 2009 tour... spoken word artists, visual artists, and great bands. As you're thinking about how to pull together your own SOLD event in your community, we encourage you to be creative and involve local artists!

Keep Moving...

“If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. But by all means keep moving.” Dr. Martin Luther King

As The SOLD Project continues to move forward in our mission to create awareness about and ignite a response to child prostitution and sex trafficking, we must keep Dr. King’s quote in mind. It is never a full-on sprint, but often baby steps towards our end goals and desires.

Most recently, we are revamping our web-site… it will be new and improved in a few short weeks!
The organization is moving along beautifully… establishing our “Write to Freedom” campaign to keep children in school and out of prostitution, and setting up our Spring Tour!
The film has hired a new Story Producer to complete SOLD: Thailand and tell the stories of these children.

Thank you for being part of this journey as we keep moving…. whether running, walking, or crawling.

Back to Brokenness

Arriving in Thailand… a bittersweet feeling sets in. A country that has stolen my heart due to its beauty and culture, yet a country that breaks my heart due to the extreme injustice that occurs here. Round two of filming begins in one short week and there is much to do to prepare for the crew to arrive. I have mixed emotions as I prepare to enter back into the world of child prostitution and exploitation. Am I ready to enter into a place of brokenness again? As I sit and ponder this question only one answer rings true… I must. I must not be afraid of having my eyes opened, my heart left broken, and my head spinning with questions. I must. I must return home with stories that will tell the truth of these children’s struggles and with answers to help end it. I must. I must remain hopeful.

I will be broken and I will be inspired. I know no other way…

Supply and Demand

Human Trafficking is a multi-billion dollar a year industry. It is the second largest criminal industry in the world today, just behind drug smuggling and recently having risen above arms smuggling. The selling of children for sex and is a HUGE business, and just like any other business it is driven by supply and demand. Supply, in the case of child sex trafficking and exploitation, is the vulnerable children. The demand is those who choose to pay for sex with these children. Following the simple rules of supply and demand we know that supply would not exist if there was not a demand for it. Child prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation would not exist if men and women were not traveling around the world to have sex with minors, purchasing child pornography, or supporting businesses that do. Demand creates supply. There are millions upon millions of children in high risk of becoming a victim of the sex trade due to poverty, genocide, war, lack of education, or orphaned… and there is a lot of work to be done to prevent, rescue, and restore these children (I won’t ignore that). However, the demand side of this problem is often overlooked. I have read that 25% of child sex tourists are US citizens. How that stat has been proven, I do not know. I would not be surprised if that percentage wasn’t a lot higher.
So now what? It is my belief that the demand side can only be stopped if WE (as in YOU and ME) begin talking about this issue, making it a household reality, and bringing the humanity back to this issue. These men and women who pay for sex with children do not see these children as human beings, but as objects. They may not even realize the damage that they are doing to a young life. I have met countless children in recovery from working the streets in Thailand and here in the US… there is hope, but it is a long and painful journey for them. My hope is that through our film and through educating others that this issue ends, but if that does not happen hopefully the men and women who are thinking about it will think again.
To understand more about the demand side and what the US government is doing about it, visit the Immigration and Customs Enforcement web-site.

I'd Love to Grab Coffee Sometime...

This week we’re hoping to bring home the importance of starting conversations about child sexual exploitation. From the beginning one of our biggest goals as been this: to make people aware of this injustice in our world and create a catalyst for conversation. A couple of weeks ago I was at coffee (go figure) with a mentor of mine from Westmont College, and he shed light on the importance of conversations within a family. His suggestion, specifically, was daughters approaching their fathers. If you are a daughter whose father travels to Thailand, or any foreign country on business… tell him about the sex tourism industry and ask him to advocate and protect the children of these countries. By bringing this issue into our homes, communities, work places and churches, we are bringing this issue into the ears and hands of those who are willing to fight against it, those who could potentially be the demand factor behind it, and those who, like us, will dedicate their time and energy to standing up against this. So I want to encourage you to be intentional: educate yourself on this issue so that you can be a resource to others as you initiate conversations. We’d love to plug you in, give you resources, and continue collaborating with you. Check out our “Learn it” page under “Movement” for resources… let’s get a conversation going.