Presented by screenwriter Nkeiru Okoye of American Opera Projects, the opera is a product of three years of research.
Okoye reason behind her extensive research was to accurately portray the details of Tubman’s life as a slave and a liberator.
Tubman is largely remembered throughout history for helping slaves escape to freedom through a system of safe houses and hiding places. As a runaway slave herself, Tubman became labeled as the most notorious conductor in the U.S.
Over time, people have likened her to Moses, a Hebrew character in the bible who led his people to freedom from the Egyptian enslavement of Pharaoh.
So, who wouldn’t want to see the depiction of this woman’s contribution to history on stage?
However, this is not your ordinary opera show. The production will not only portray Tubman’s involvement in The Underground Railroad but also her personal life.
“I think most people like to think of Harriet as a born liberator and it robs them of an important part of the story,” she told Voice America in an Interview. “We don’t get that there’s this vulnerable person who’s there. We don’t get the full picture.”
Okoye says that the production will incorporate “folk opera”, music rooted in African-American customs. Genres such as gospel and jazz will be heard throughout the show. However, “work songs” and spirituals of that time will bring the opera to life even more.
Okoye hopes to reveal the human-like side of Tubman. Ultimately, she hopes that people come to understand that Tubman’s life was so much more than just being the “Moses” of that time.
Scheduled performances are set for February and March at a historical Underground Railroad station in Fort Greene, N.Y.
“12 Years A Slave” has come with a bang, and is receiving rave reviews online. Indeed, Vulture movies editor Kyle Buchanan has already awarded “12 Years A Slave” this year’s Best Picture trophy in his review. Already, the film has won the top award at the Toronto Film Festival. “Suspend the betting, close the books and notify the engraver,” wrote Kyle Buchanan after the film’s first Toronto screening, on Sept. 7. “I’ve just seen what will surely be this year’s Best Picture winner.”
However, in September Steve Pond, The Wrap’s Awards expert, thought that “12 Years A Slave” still had a long way to go because “the Oscar race is a marathon, not a sprint.”
“It will likely win a number of critics’ awards, and it will be impossible for any serious voter to ignore when Oscar ballots become available in December. But does that make it an automatic winner? Not now. Not yet.” Says Steve Pond. There are certainly valid points for and against the “12 Years A Slave” winning the grand trophy, but until then, we are better off concentration on the content of the masterpiece.
Well, it’s now mid November and the film seems more like a shoo-in for The Academy’s Best Picture Award, but of course we have to wait and see.
“12 Years A Slave” has been heralded as very emotional and a true picture of what it was like to be a slave in pre-civil war America. The film features Chiwetel Ejiofor acting as a free black man from New York who gets abducted and sold into slavery. The story, which moved Oprah Winfrey into tears while discussing it, is based on a true story of a man named Solomon Northup. Northup compiled his autobiography which was published in 1853, although many thought that it was fiction.
12 Years a Slave was released in the US on October 13th and has been called a must-see by critics.
Those who have seen the film 12 Years A Slave already know of the important character that appears late in the film from Canada, but probably do not know the story behind him.
Samuel Bass, played by Brad Pitt, shows up toward the end of the film, and is the key figure in helping Solomon Northrup finally become a free man again.
12 Years A Slave is likely to receive several award nominations, and already receiving a great amount of attention from film critics.
The film tells the real-life story of Solomon Northup, a free man from Saratoga Springs, NY, who is sold into slavery, and forced to work on southern plantations. In the film, he is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, a role that will likely get him several award nominations. It is also very disturbing, and used to depict the many horrors of slavery.
"I will survive, I will not fall into despair! I will keep myself hearty till freedom is opportune!"
Solomon Northup-"12 years a Slave"
The film features a significant connection to Canada that most people are probably not aware of yet. The information has Bass’ descendants overjoyed with pride, after it was kept from them for such a long time. Laurie Morris, a 50-year-old whose mother is a descendant of Bass’ youngest daughter Hannah said of the relationship, “The movie is about Solomon Northup, right? But we would never have heard of him, I guess, if he hadn’t met my great-great-great-great-grandfather.”
The ironic part of it is that before 12 Years A Slave was released, Morris and her family did not even know of their connection to the man who helped Solomon Northup to freedom. In a chance encounter while working on the plantation that Solomon lived, Samuel Bass, a Canadian carpenter, was able to contact his friends in the north,and vouch for Solomon’s identity.
Part of the reason that his story did not come out until many years later is that Bass left Canada sometime around 1840, just before the movie takes place, when he took a variety of carpentry jobs throughout the United States. He also left his wife and four daughters, which might be why he was barely talked about in the family.
In preparation for the filming and research on 12 Years A Slave, David Fiske, a historian and author, was able to trace Bass back to southern Ontario. The connection was made through Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave and Plantation Life in the Antebellum South, a 2007 book by Sue Eakin.
12 Years a Slave is an absolutely incredible film! Go see it immediately! What an amazing cast. My girl @MsSarahPaulson nailed it.
Upper Canada, which is now Ontario, abolished slavery just before Bass was born, and throughout his life, he was outspoken in his opposition to slavery, and strongly spoke out against the practice, despite having a different viewpoint from the majority of others.
12 Years A Slave is being hailed as one of the best films of the year, and it helps to expose the real-life story of Solomon Northup, while also introducing Canadians to a long lost descendant, and very important figure.
Worth noting: 12 Years a Slave has already made more money than The Hurt Locker made in its entire run.
Right now, according to an updated report for this year by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation, there are 29.8 million people living as slaves in the world. Worldwide, it’s a $32 billion industry, with nearly half the total made in wealthy industrial countries.
According to Force4Compassion, an organization that collects data on human trafficking, for every one day, 3,287 people are sold or kidnapped and forced into slavery.
Time
Slaves
One Hour
136
One Minute
2.2
Among the top countries with the most slaves, India ranks first, with around 13.9 million (that’s more than Tennessee and Kentucky combined), followed by China with 2.9 million, and then Pakistan with 2.1 million. More than one per cent of the populations in Haiti, Pakistan, and India are in slavery.
You are most likely to be a slave in Africa’s Mauritania, where 10 to 20 per cent (340,000 to 680,000) of the population (one out of every 25 people) lives as a slave, and one in 10 children are placed into child labor. Sure, it may be outlawed, but it’s rarely enforced, and there’s only been one conviction – the country doesn’t even believe slavery exists.
Rich and developed countries like the US have the lowest rates in slavery. Ultimately, low drops in slavery are due to government policies, rule of law, political stability, human right movements, and development levels. Equal rights among sexes in a society also tend to correlate with lower levels of slavery.
Like a desperate message in a bottle sent overseas, factory working slaves will often times hide letters in the products they make. Above is a letter that was tucked away in a Kmart Halloween decorations kit.
And even under the radar and hidden in America’s backyard there are 60,000 slaves. A woman on Reddit posted back in 2012 claiming to be a child slave in the US for four years:
To hear about the brutality of slavery is one thing, but to witness the events through a firsthand narrative is an entirely different horror and matter altogether. Director Steve McQueen, who also co-wrote the script for the film with John Ridley, has brought the real-life devastation of slavery to light in such a personal perspective through the latest masterpiece, 12 Years A Slave.
The movie is based on a novel by the same name and focuses on the true events that happened to Solomon Northup in 1841. The movie stars a compilation of recognizable talent including: Chiwetel Ejiofor who is the movie’s main star, Paul Giamatti, Brad Pitt, Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender, and Afre Woodard. The performances are so moving, so gripping, and so heart-breaking that there are already rumblings of potential Oscar nominations.
Moviegoers have been notably touched by the strong, intimate portrayal of a free man, Solomon Northup, who personally fights to maintain his spirit through the violent tortures unwittingly imposed on him after he is kidnapped from his home streets of Washington and sold into slavery. While Steve McQueen shows the full breadth of actual beatings and physical pain inflicted during that period of history, his movie is most heart-wrenching for showing that the people suffered without hope.
I feel the strong need to take a beautiful young woman to go see "12 years a slave" and cry on my shoulder about the sadness of slavery
Slavery has existed for many centuries, yet so few people realize how it continues to prosper in countries around the world. Though slavery was abolished in the nineteenth century, modern-day slavery still lives on, by concealing its many different forms. According to Anti-Slavery International, the forms of slavery that currently exist are: bonded labour, child slavery, early and forced marriage, forced labour, descent-based slavery, and trafficking.
The Global Slavery Index of 2013 discovered that there are 30 million slaves around the world, with a majority of them located in India, China, and Pakistan. India contains between 13.3 to 14.7 million slaves, which is equal to about half of all the slaves that exist today.
A report was published by the Walk Free Foundation, after ten years of research. The report was produced by four authors with a collaboration from twenty-two other experts. The index ranks 162 countries according to the number of individuals in slavery, their risk of enslavement, and the government’s responses to the problem. The ten countries on the list, which follow India, are: China (2.8 to 3.1 million), Pakistan (2.1 million), Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, Thailand, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. The highest proportion of slaves to a country’s population (the index rank) are found in Mauritania, with about four percent of its 3.4 million people enslaved, followed by Haiti, Pakistan, India, and Nepal. Meanwhile, Finland, Sweden, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Denmark have the lowest prevalence of slavery. The estimated number of slaves in the United States is between 57,000 and 63,000.
Gina Dafalia, the Walk Free Foundation’s policy and research manager, stated: “When we started working in this area we realized that we didn’t have a good understanding of what exactly the situation of slavery is in the world. We needed that information before we started doing any interventions.” It is hoped and prayed for that by having this pertinent information, the prevalence of modern-day slavery will decrease in years to come.
In a 2012 report about slavery, the International Labour Organization (ILO) found that there were 20.9 million slaves throughout the world. Yet, according to Dafalia, the Walk Free Foundation’s definition of modern slavery includes aspects that are not included in the ILO’s definition, due to its intense focus on forced labour. “Thirty million are able to live in slavery in 2013 because it is a ‘hidden problem,’” she said.
In order to implement strategies of relief to slaves across the world, a better understanding of slavery’s continued existence is significant, to say the least. There are millions of slaves confined to this global institution of slavery, which does not offer them any of the liberties that most individuals have, and in which most people often take for granted. Measures aimed toward emancipation are necessary in order to decrease slavery’s prevalence around the world, and also, to give each slave the liberty of life that they so desperately seek.
For weeks now, the Toronto International Film Festival has been previewing the large lineup of movies that would be shown during the festival. Everything from John Turturro’s racy Fading Gigolo to one of Cory Monteith’s last movie roles (McCanick). The long festival came to an end this weekend, and the Toronto International Film Festival chose several movies to honor with awards.
The biggest award of the festival, the People’s Choice Award (branded by BlackBerry this year), went to the period drama 12 Years a Slave. Set in the 1840s and 50s, the movie is based on the true story of Solomon Northup. Northup was born free in New York but was kidnapped and sold into slavery.
Chiwetel Ejiofor (of Serenity fame) plays Northup, and is joined by some of modern Hollywood’s biggest male stars. Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Michael K. Williams, and Benedict Cumberbatch all make appearances in the movie. Young Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) even makes an appearance in the feature.
During the 12 Years a Slave panel at the Toronto International Film Festival, director Steve McQueen and actors from the movie chatted about the themes of the flick, as well as the state of race in America. The panel, seen below, is preceded by the trailer for the movie:
The U.S. Attorney’s Office today unsealed two indictments charging nine 7-Eleven store owners and operators with wire fraud, steling identities, and concealing and harboring illegal immigrants.
The defendants are accused hiring “dozens” of illegal immigrants and giving them identities stolen from U.S. citizens. The illegal employees were allegedly housed in boarding houses owned by the defendants, and “substantial” portions of their wages were stolen.
“As set forth in the indictments, the defendants used 7-Eleven as a platform from which to run elaborate criminal enterprises,” said Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “From their 7-Eleven stores, the defendants dispensed wire fraud and identity theft, along with Slurpees and hot dogs. In bedroom communities across Long Island and Virginia, the defendants not only systematically employed illegal immigrants, but concealed their crimes by raiding the cradle and the grave to steal the identities of children and even the dead. Finally, these defendants ruthlessly exploited their immigrant employees, stealing their wages and requiring them to live in unregulated boarding houses, in effect creating a modern day plantation system,”
14 7-Eleven stores in Long Island and Virginia have been seized in connection with the indictments. In addition five New York houses worth over $1.3 million have also been seized. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has stated that this was the largest criminal immigration forfeiture in its history.
The defendants were arraigned today at court houses in Islip, New York and Norfolk, Virginia. If convicted, they each face up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud and harboring illegal immigrants, as well as consecutive two-year sentences for each count of aggravated identity theft.
“The 7-11 franchises seized today will be better known for their big fraud than their Big Gulp,” said James Hayes, special agent-in charge for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. “As alleged, the franchise owners knowingly and repeatedly employed an illegal workforce and abused and exploited that workforce for more than 13 years. This charged criminal scheme had a vast detrimental effect on both the employees who were overworked and cheated out of wages, as well as the more than 25 American citizens whose lives were upended by the theft of their identities in furtherance of the scheme.”
Shackle Shoes, which are also known on an official level as JS Roundhouse Mid, were designed by a guy named Jeremy Scott. Although he had intended this footwear to be fun, extravagant, and, perhaps, a little outrageous, the last thing he probably wanted his creation to spark was controversy. Racial controversy, at that. Apparently a large group of individuals from the African-American community were highly offended by the sneakers, due to the inclusion of a pair of shackles that could be fastened around the wearer’s ankle. Instead of viewing the kicks as cartoonish, they reminded a lot of people about slavery. As a result, the shoes were labeled racially insensitive, prompting Adidas to issue a statement.
“The design of the JS Roundhouse Mid is nothing more than the designer Jeremy Scott’s outrageous and unique take on fashion and has nothing to do with slavery,” read the statement.
This, of course, fell on deaf ears. In the minds of the offended parties, Adidas had committed an unforgivable sin. The statement did nothing to change the minds of those who were livid about the sneakers, including Reverend Jesse Jackson, who referred to the shoes in his Huffington Post blog as “human degradation”. As a result, the sneakers, which were scheduled to appear on retail shelves in August, were officially cancelled. Those of you who were hoping to invest your hard-earned cash in a pair of shoes that came equipped with orange “My Pet Monster” shackles, your dreams have been dealt a crushing blow.
If you pay a visit to the shoe’s announcement on the company’s Facebook page, you can read through over 3,000 user opinions, ranging from those who feel the shoes are a virtual slap in the face directed at the African-American community to folks who don’t understand how something so colorful and vibrant and seemingly innocent could be perceived in such a heinous manner.
Defeated and out of gas, the company issued a statement to the Daily News on the matter. “Since the shoe debuted on our Facebook page ahead of its market release in August, Adidas has received both favorable and critical feedback. We apologize if people are offended by the design and we are withdrawing our plans to make them available in the marketplace.”
Below you can find some Twitter reactions to the news. Although some people are upset by the appearance of these peculiar kicks, most people on the micro-blogging site are having a bit of fun with the announcement. Adidas controversy is our tickled rib. Take a look.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” – The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
Somewhere in a hotel ballroom, a small business seminar begins:
Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you for coming today to hear about this extraordinary business opportunity that is exploding globally. We’re glad you made it here today to hear about this amazing way for you to make piles of money, all of it tax-free.
Do we have enough chairs there in the back? Everyone get coffee? Bagels? Good. Let’s get down to business, shall we?
If you will direct your attention to the PowerPoint slides here on the screen, I would like to introduce you to our CEO, Daniel. That is not his real name, of course. I think you will agree that Daniel is a shrewd businessman, a tycoon in the making. Here is what Daniel has done – what you, too, can do if you choose to get in business with us today.
Daniel is a trafficker. He takes women, girls and young boys from impoverished villages and towns and brings them to metropolitan areas for special events. He has underlings who drive his crew from place to place. He has a real gift for spotting talent in the raw. Maybe it’s a runaway girl, a child sold for adoption by poor parents, or unemployed Russian women looking to buy a way to bring their families over. Daniel spends most of this time enlarging his crew and counting his money.
Daniel works in a market that is rich with resources and thin on law enforcement. The non-profit groups that are in the areas working against him are all underfunded and ineffective. He has set up operations in South Africa, in Thailand, in Brazil. Daniel is a world traveller, he drives fine cars, and he makes loads of money, all of it cash, all of it untaxed. During the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, Daniel made more money in two weeks than most people in this room will make in two years. He used to have a regular job, just like most of you. Now, he’s his own boss.
If you choose to take advantage of this opportunity today, we can set you up with a village territory of your own. You can buy as many as you like. Daniel has brothels in all these areas, all servicing customers and in need of kids. Most people who work with us recoup their initial investment within two weeks. After that, you’re making easy money. If you also choose to help Daniel staff global special events like sporting events, international conferences and the Olympics, you can make car loads of money in a short time.
Now, if you’ll open the information packet that was on your seat when you came in, we’ll show you Daniel’s unique system for making the most out of your investments. It is a multi-tiered approach that begins with high-end sex trafficking, progresses through sweatshop labor, drug muling, and finally begging. We’ll show you how to squeeze more money out of each kid than you thought possible. By the time we’re through, you’ll be lining up to purchase regions. For those of you who get in on the ground floor, we’ll even show you how to do this in the United States, right under the nose of the police. Please turn to page three.
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No one builds their sex trafficking business through seminars in hotel conference rooms. But, much of what that pitchman said is true. Sex trafficking is big business. Clients are easy to find. Kids and women are easy to get. Large events are great places for traffickers to make loads of cash. And, those organizations who are fighting against sex trafficking, who are trying to build safehouses for kids and women to go to once freed, are almost all underfunded.
And, lest we think that this is only a Third World issue, there is trafficking going on right under our noses here in the United States. We’ll tell you where it is. We’ll show you who is doing it. And, we’ll tell you what you can do to help stop it.
What It Is
Sex trafficking is one form of human trafficking. Trafficking in general is simply the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of forcing them to do something that they have not volunteered to do. It can include forced labor, general slavery in the classic sense, or even organ harvesting. When trafficking involves prostitution, stripping, child pornography and the like, it falls under the heading of “sex trafficking”. It is considered organized crime.
There are many ways that victims of sex trafficking come to that life. Women from poorer countries are offered fake jobs as maids or factory workers. Once they arrive in the city they think they will be working legitimately in, saving to bring their family, they are coerced into prostitution. This may be done by threatening their families back home, by drugging them, by claiming they have to work off a debt, or simply through physical beatings.
Children may be bought from poor parents, promising opportunities for them. They may be kidnap victims, runaways, homeless. They are forced to service multiple clients nightly, contracting diseases and wounds. Some reports indicate that this is not an all-girl victim set. About 45% of trafficked children are boys. In a U.S. Department of Justice study [PDF link] conducted in 2007-2008, over 30% of the trafficked victims discovered were children.
Large Event Business
In January 2010, E. Benjamin Skinner did a piece for Time Magazine about the sex trafficking business in South Africa before and during the FIFA World Cup. He spoke with traffickers who were looking forward to the event. Traffickers bought children for as little as $45, but made $600 a night off of them during the games. Even before the event, construction workers prepping the stadium were regular customers.
The Wall Street Journal warned against inflating the numbers of trafficking victims during these events, but acknowledged that the crimes are generally unreported and the victims unknown. Eyewitness reports, like those who serve in rescue organizations, tell the tale.
Unearthed Pictures is an organization based in Lexington, Kentucky that uses ministry contacts and funding to shed a media spotlight on activities like those during the World Cup.
Until governments in areas like this have laws and enforcement that stop this, organizations like those who partner with Unearthed are the first line of defense against the sex trafficking pandemic.
In The United States
While it seems to be tougher for classic methods of exploitation and trafficking to work in the United States, increased awareness of the issue is revealing that trafficking is going on right under the public’s nose here. One scandal that has revealed a lot about this is Backpage.
Backpage is a website maintained by The Village Voice. It is similar to Craigslist in that items for sale, job listings and personal ads are available to peruse. But, Backpage has come under heavy fire as a place for traffickers to pimp out sex slaves with impunity. Their “Escort” and “Body Rub” sections are outright sex solicitation sections, and investigators are saying that some of those are unwilling or even minors.
In January of 2012, The New York Times did an article that featured a girl called Baby Face. That article stirred lots of attention to the problem of trafficking on Backpage. Here is an excerpt from that story:
In November, a terrified 13-year-old girl pounded on an apartment door in Brooklyn. When a surprised woman answered, the girl pleaded for a phone. She called her mother, and then dialed 911.
The girl, whom I’ll call Baby Face because of her looks, frantically told police that a violent pimp was selling her for sex. He had taken her to the building and ordered her to go to an apartment where a customer was waiting, she said, and now he was waiting downstairs to make sure she did not escape. She had followed the pimp’s directions and gone upstairs, but then had pounded randomly on this door in hopes of getting help.
Baby Face said she hurt too much to endure yet another rape by a john. She told prosecutors later that she was bleeding vaginally and that her pimp had recently kicked her down a stairwell for trying to flee.
That 911 call set in motion the arrest of Kendale Judge, then 21. Judge has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, kidnapping, rape and compelling prostitution. He is in jail, and we haven’t heard his side of the events yet.
The episode also shines a spotlight on how the girl was marketed — in ads on Backpage.com, a major national Web site where people place ads to sell all kinds of things, including sex. It is a godsend to pimps, allowing customers to order a girl online as if she were a pizza.
This was not the first time attention had been called to how The Village Voice was profiting from sex trafficking. They reportedly earn $22 million a year from these ads.
There was a time that Craigslist was faced with such adult-services ad scandals, and they have since discontinued those. Backpage is fighting it every step of the way, accusing the attorneys general who have asked them to stop of playing politics [PDF link]. They have gone on a counteroffensive, demonizing investigators and questioning why they are singled out.
The great cause for concern is that The Village Voice is defending its involvement in ruining the lives of children, whether they think those figures are accurate or not, all for the sake of making money. That is like arguing that you pimp fewer kids than some do, so you should not be taken to task. They like to cast the evidence against them as overblown, even made up entirely.
However, in this report from CNN, you can see within the first three minutes an example of a thirteen year-old girl who talks about being sold on Backpage.
Sites like Backpage are making lots of money selling girls. They have been called out about it, but are publicly fighting the pressure to stop using the lives of girls as a way to profit.
Fighting It
There has been a renewed call to fight against Backpage and other entities that profit from sex trafficking. Helping in this fight falls into two categories:
1) Supporting international efforts, via donations and personal involvement
2) Opposing domestic business, via boycotts and name-and-shame campaigns
Earlier, we introduced you to Unearthed Pictures. That is a great place to start in terms of learning more about the international sex trafficking fight and how you can donate and get involved. Many organizations like Unearthed are ministry-based. That is who is doing this work now.
As for Backpage, that is owned by Village Voice Media. Efforts are underway to put an advertiser boycott in place against anyone who advertises anywhere with The Village Voice until they stop using Backpage to sell sex services. A visit to VillageVoice.com shows a few to start with. But, even better than that, the site has an advertiser index, putting all the targets in one place. Note that these people are not advertising on Backpage, but with the parent publication.
A good plan of action would be to look through each ad there. Visit their websites. Find their Twitter feeds – including those of owners, managers, board members and employees. Scout out the company’s About Us pages. And compile lists and contact sheets. Tell your friends. Tweet out notices with their handles in plain view. Many of these companies may be unaware that their ad dollars support a media agency that is also profiting from child sex trafficking. Help them find out. If they don’t respond, tell the public.
Child sex trafficking is not just a Third World problem. And, even to the extent that it is, we all have a responsibility to fight it.
Google took a moment today to update everybody with the fact that they are awesome. And by awesome, I mean they’re big-time philanthropy heroes that support science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education; girls’ education in the developing world; empowerment through technology; and the fight against modern-day slavery. A preview of their mission has been compiled in the following video:
That’s a lot of causes to be taking on, but Google has partnered with numerous organizations in order to make the most of their efforts. The STEM organizations will be working to encourage students to embrace the science/tech/engineering/math field and hopefully take advantage of the 2.4 million jobs that will be created in this arena over the next six years.
Google has also focused on improving education for girls in areas such as Africa and the Middle East. With the benefit of education, a girl will “earn 25% more money, be 3 times less likely to contract HIV/AIDS, and have a smaller, healthier family.” With their partners, Google aims to help educate more than 10,000 girls living in the developing world.
It’s no secret that low and middle-income countries have significantly less access to digital technology. Through the use of social media, open source programming, and other technology platforms, Google hopes it can increase the economic growth of impoverished regions of the world and foster a prosperous environment that will bring about much-needed change.
Beyond propelling change into future generations, Google also wants to initiate change now starting with the liberation of slaves. According to studies, “there are more slaves today than at any other point in history” but Google hopes to provide freed slaves with the means and tools to return to their villages and help educate people from being tricked or forced into slavery. Google expects that their plan will liberate over 12,000 people from modern-day slavery as well as protect millions of others from becoming victimized into this pure, abject misery.
This year alone, Google contributed more than $100 million for various causes around the world, $40 million of which were grants distributed to organizations designed to undertake the four causes listed above. To learn more, see a list of participating organizations enlisted for each cause or find out how to become involved in the cause(s), visit Google Gives Back.
