11 March 2013 by Natasha Kim CM –
Did you know that 2.5 million people are being trafficked every year across different borders and that there are an estimated close to 36 million slaves today? 30% of these are children while 70% are females. (UNICEF)
This does not include children who are being used for child labour. Human Trafficking is a 32 billion dollar industry where sex trafficking is tied to drugs as the most profitable industry of organized crime today.
People are meant to be loved and things are to be used, but the world is in chaos today because things are being loved and people are being used –Unknown
A Heart for the Helpless
The Taylor’s College at Sunway, Christian Fellowship (CF) group had a special Campus Gig that was planned out months ago to raise awareness about the horrors of human trafficking. Many are naïve about the issue and do not know what is happening around us. Due to this, the importance of increasing awareness has become necessary in order to put a halt to this growing injustice!
The idea started when CF Leader Paul Aaron Thomas, aged 19, had a vision to do something more for the CF in order to reach out to the College students. Paul said, “We do not want to only be an enclosed group of students who keep to ourselves, that’s why we came up with this Modern Slavery/Human Trafficking awareness campaign.” Organizing Chairman, Aaron Yeoh said, “We also want the Gospel to be preached because that is the ultimate news that can reach the students.”
In conjunction with their cause, they collaborated with a Christian worship ministry called "1 Accord Ministry ( Also known as 1a.m.) ". 1a.m. partners with “Change Your World” (CYW), a movement that exists to create opportunities and platforms for the young generation to “Save Lives”. CYW’s main focus is to fight the global crisis of modern day slavery, bring awareness about social justice and its challenges, and transforms them to make a difference for the nation. The founder Kelvin Lim (also founder of 1 Accord Ministry) was invited, as well as the music band from CYW called Relent to be a part of their event.
Up until the event, booths were set up at the entrance of the Taylor campus where they informed people about their cause and help sell CYW merchandise. In addition to that, they also contributed their efforts into the “Tee2bag” campaign, where they got students to donate their pre-loved t-shirts to human trafficked survivors which would then be made into bags. All profit from those lovely bags then goes to CYW to save lives! “We have raised a number of sales and we have also collected more than a 100 pre-loved t-shirts which has exceeded our target.” said Paul.
The event started off with a video introduction of CYW and followed on with an ice breaker. Many attended the event and many got to know someone new. Aaron Teoh (Organizing Chairman) was then invited up to give a short speech.
When it was time for their CF performance, I was all eyes as I watched their interesting take on human trafficking, where many gathered around holding a guy in chains, pulling him, and dragging him right until someone came to save him and was finally brought to safety. Of course, the event then followed with a passionate performance by Relent. They performed a few main stream songs to get the crowd going and continued with their own song entitled “Looking for a Saviour”. Those who didn’t know them definitely became fans after watching them, without a doubt.
Then the Founder of 1a.m. himself, Kelvin Lim was invited to come up stage to share. Kelvin shared that, “Today I’m here as a person who believes that God has a heart for the voiceless. I do this because of my belief of who my God is.” He then shared a bit about his life and how CYW came about. In 2008, he stumbled upon a quote that hit him very hard which made him want to make a change. The quote by Mahatma Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” This made him think about his own life as a Christian and if he was reflecting Christ.
Luke 4:18 -19 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are oppressed.
Soon he found out what being brokenhearted, poor, captive and oppressed really meant when he saw the atrocity of modern day slavery. Looking back at this Scripture and the quote mentioned above he said, “I wanted to prove to Gandhi that he is wrong and that I can be Christ-like.”
Observe and tell yourself, “I want to do something about this!”
He then threw out some shocking facts as well and said, “Malaysia is under the Tier two watch list, which means that there are a lot of things happening in our country when we think that there’s nothing happening. It’s a very big issue. There are 4 million migrant workers here and a suspected 2 million of which that are being forced into labour. There are also thousands of girls that come in as prostitutes that did not choose to become prostitutes.”
Every girl who is kidnapped their life span is really short because they are constantly being abused. In this case, there are also many people who are being conned into getting involved in human trafficking. Numerous methods are used to con girls into coming in through many false promises. It could even be a job overseas that promises the world and once you get there you realize there’s no way out! One will see no mercy with children either as thousands of children are going missing in Malaysia.
James 4:17 – If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Kelvin really educated the students about the matter by showing them different videos, pleading for each of them into open their eyes that no one may be enslaved anymore. “Many of us are enslaved by different things, the different issues that we can’t get out of. Because of that, we can’t think about other people because we ourselves are caged by our own struggles” he said.
The beautiful thing about God is that he loves us and he can set us free and He especially wants us to help others in need. Help spread the word to others about “Change Your World” and make a different in other people’s lives today!
For more information about how you can lend a helping hand please visit http://www.1am.com.myor http://www.changeyourworld.com.my
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Hey friend, just wanna point out that this is Taylor's College, not Taylor's U! That is all, thanks! 😛