Thursday, February 25, 2016

Crisis Text Line


                Watching the videos this week and learning about human trafficking was eye opening to me. I knew it was a thing, but I never knew that human trafficking was such a problem. I was especially affected by Traffick 911’s website and the thank-you letters they got from young girls.
                I started to think about a different Ted Talk I saw recently by Nancy Lublin, who is the CEO of DoSomething.org. DoSomething is a great organization that encourages young people to be charitable, but that is not what the talk was about. She, instead, talked about an organization she founded because of a call for help DoSomething received from a girl via text. Nancy founded the Crisis Text Line. It is a way for young people who need and want help to text in their concerns and get a quick reply. It’s a lot like a hotline, but it’s through text.
                I think this is very smart because, as Nancy pointed out, text is how young people communicate in today’s world. A lot of young people don’t like to talk over the phone.
                I think this text line could be very useful in helping young, vulnerable people get out of situations where they are victims of human trafficking. According to Traffick 911, youth sex trafficking is a huge problem. Texting a helpline may not be easy for someone in that situation, but it sure might be easier and safer than calling a hotline or running away.
                I don’t think the Crisis Text Line deals a lot with victims or human trafficking, or if they have ever dealt with victims of human trafficking. However, I do think that they could be a lot of help if they did. It is a great organization, none the less, for young people who are victims of domestic violence or mental health disorders.

Here is the Ted Talk. It is short and interesting. I highly recommend watching it.

If anything, check out their Crisis Trends website where they compile data so it is easy to see how time of day, day of the week, month of the year, and location effect different problems young people face and text about. It also shows the most common words in texts about each issue.
http://www.crisistextline.org/trends/

1 comment:

  1. I completely agree that our discussion about human trafficking this week was really eye-opening. It's crazy to think about 20 million people still being enslaved--in 2015!! I think after reviewing all the resources (like crisis text line, traffick911, polaris) really makes me want to get involved in the conversation to get slavery gone!

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