Heading Home

Did you know child trafficking...

* truly exists?
* is a $34 billion (that’s with a B) a-year-plus industry?
* that it takes money and concerned hearts to fight these atrocities?

Modern-day slavery is the second largest criminal industry in the world. In the US alone, 100,000 children are trafficked for sex and labor slavery each year.

Born to Fly International founder and director Diana Scimone is an independent journalist who has traveled to more than 40 countries including Sudan, Zimbabwe, Thailand, China, and India. She first became aware of child trafficking on a trip to Mumbai, India, where she saw cages that held little girls—some as young as 5 years old—smuggled in from Nepal.

When she returned home, she founded Born to Fly to stop child trafficking around the globe and around the corner. She writes a regular blog about the effort to stop the traffic (www.dianascimone.com).

“Each year millions of kids are lured into sex slavery because they don’t know the deceptive tactics of traffickers,” Scimone says. “What if we could warn kids and their parents ahead of time? What if we taught them about the lies traffickers use—and how to stand up to them? The rate of trafficking would drop and millions of kids would never be trafficked.”

The goal...

Each year more than a million kids are lured into modern-day slavery where they’re raped for profit 30 or 40 times a night--night after night. Some are just 4 years old.

Imagine what a dent could be made in the trafficking pipeline if kids and their parents were educated about the tactics traffickers use before they show up on their prey’s doorstep.

That’s the goal of The B2F Project: to reach kids before the traffickers do. B2F educates at-risk children and their parents about the dangers of trafficking through a strategic 6-week community campaign.

The project’s centerpiece is a wordless picture book—wordless so that it doesn’t have to be translated into hundreds of languages. It teaches kids to make wise choices and stand up to traffickers. A 70-page companion curriculum teaches the important concepts in the book.

Diana has visited numerous safe houses to write the storyline for the wordless book, which was illustrated by artist Leah Wiedemer, and worked with a team of educators to develop the curriculum. Book and curriculum are being piloted in the Dominican Republic this month.

The final version is scheduled for release in early 2011 when Born to Fly will ship materials to a waiting list of schools and community organizations in Ghana, Thailand, Iran, Haiti, Germany, Cambodia, India, Bulgaria, the US, and elsewhere.

“Our goal is to give the materials away without charge, of course,” Diana says. “So we’re counting on crowdfunding to help get this done.”

But what if you could help?

Diana wants the Twitterverse to get angry about child trafficking--and then do something about it. Therefore, she initiated the 10/10/10 Twitterthon with a goal of 10,000 people giving $10 each—the $100,000 needed to start printing the book.

You can help!

* Donate: Go to www.born2fly.org and use the orange Chip-in button to donate $10.
* Twitter: Tweet about 10/10/10 and ask followers to donate $10.
* Email: Tell 10 people about 10/10/10.
* Blog: Post about 10/10/10. Include the logo and a link to www.born2fly.org.
* Facebook: Talk about 10/10/10; include a link to www.born2fly.org.
* Updates: Check Diana Scimone’s blog for the latest: www.dianascimone.com.

“Traffickers think kids are commodities,” Scimone says. “On 10/10/10, I challenge the Twitterverse to tell kids they’re priceless. All it takes is $10.”



I pray you will give prayerful consideration for Diana’s plea for help!