As I type this post, my eyes are still swollen. I'm beginning to dread each time my wife asks me to come watch an Oprah episode with her. I know it means something in my life is about to change.
Five years ago was the first time.
My wife had recorded Oprah's Christmas special in South Africa. It was her first visit there and she took her camera crew with her. After watching the special, my wife turned to me and said, "we're going to adopt." I remember the day as if it were yesterday. And today, along with our four boys, we have two beautiful little girls from Guatemala who now cheer "daddy!" each time I walk into the room. It's nothing short of miraculous.
Last year, it was another Oprah show episode that introduced my wife to Kids Haven.
Kids Haven is an education program founded in 1992 to work with street children in South Africa. It became the inspiration for her blog at Muthahood.com and the compelled her to dedicate her free time toward raising funds to assist them with their mission.
Less than 10 days ago, she called me out of my office and said, Jeff, you have to watch this with me."
Here we go again. This time it was an episode she had recorded about child slavery in Ghana. As I watched, I allowed myself to do something I had not allowed myself to do before. I went to my "dark place," as my wife calls it. I put the face and innocence of my four year old son in the story of a boy, sold by his severely impoverished parents to fisherman who claimed they would give him a better life. What they had actually done, was sell him into slavery. Lisa Ling reported from Ghana, "Many of these child slaves—some as young as 4 years old—endure severe beatings, and their work is so back-breaking that their bodies are severely overdeveloped for their young age."
I got up from our "cozy chair" and headed straight to my office. I didn't tell my wife what I was about to do, but later, when I emerged from my office, StopChildSlavery.com was born. I don't have a clue where it's headed, but I can't stop thinking about the issue, reading about the issue, learning about the organizations dedicated to helping and wondering how I, personally, can help stop child trafficking.
I blame Oprah. It's all her fault.
Tonight, we sat together and watched Building A Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy. I'll admit freely that I cry easily. Tonight I choked back the tears from the first few minutes till the end. It was inspiring and humbling. The young women who were chosen to attend her academy were all from grave life situations. They were poorer than poor, had lost parents to murder and HIV and lived in constant fear of rape and abuse each day. Yet each girl was filled with such amazing energy. Their joyous spirit came pouring out of the TV screen and into my family room. I felt a true sense of hope. I was inspired.
I sit here now, in the afterglow of inspiration, wondering how I get the concepts behind RainForChange off of the drawing board and into reality. The idea sprang from a look at world poverty. Quickly comments on that original post spoke to the real cure for poverty lying in education. Oprah obviously came to the same realization and took action. I believe her school in South Africa will make a difference.
And I know the members of this Internet community have the skills required to make a difference as well... if we take action. How can we inspire each other, as Oprah inspires me, to dedicate a bit of our time to creating awareness and a community curriculum focused on affordable housing and economic education? How do we "break poverty's hold on humanity... one homeowner at a time?" (Thank you for that wording, Steve Dalton)
Building Our Own Dream
We need to outfit an army of real estate professionals with tools that can help them go into their communities to educate children about credit, savings and wealth building. We need to motivate them to take action in their local communities to improve affordable housing initiatives. I'm not interested in just talking about it. I'm beginning to believe this may be better addressed with a highly focused group inside of AR instead of a separate website? This might make it simpler for more people to get involved and have a place to post their ideas.
I'd appreciate your thoughts...
Comments(41)