The Red Thread organization will host two events later this semester to promote social awareness of world injustice.
Maggie Amerine, a high school senior from Abilene, collaborated with Abbey Moses, sophomore political science major from Abilene and president of Red Thread and others to host the 5K run after spending the summer volunteering with Eternal Threads in Abilene.
“I hope that it helps them to be able to reach more girls that are in sex trafficking and help them restart their lives even more so,” Amerine said.
Amerine and Moses said they are using the event as a way to get high school students involved in human trafficking activism.
The event has become a large part of Amerine’s senior project, concluding her high school experience.
“I wanted to do kind of a big project just to end my high school years and that chapter of my life,” Amerine said. “So I decided that was a good way to do it, because I love Eternal Threads.”
As part of Justice Week, the 5K event will raise funds for Eternal Threads. Though the money will not go directly to the organization, Eternal Threads is a parent organization of Red Thread and will therefore receive benefits.
“Our club believes very strongly in using whatever talents you have to fight injustice and everyone’s talents are different,” Moses said. “Maggie’s talents and passions drove her to a 5K and so we wanted to support her in that.”
The 5K will take place Sunday at Highland Church of Christ. Students can sign up in the Campus Center throughout Justice Week.
The organization’s second initiative started to evolve last October when three students in the club were invited to speak on a panel at the Texas Human Trafficking Summit.
“We have seen, I guess just working through specific people who are directly involved in the injustice of human trafficking,” Moses said, “it’s very important to have legislation that supports the victims and supports the eradication of the issue of human trafficking from the root of it.”
As a first step, Amerine and Red Thread are planning lobby days for students to sign petitions against the injustice of human trafficking.
“So, on the demand side of human trafficking, we are working to write letters and make phone calls to our Senators and direct representatives in the United States government,” Moses said, “and basically ask them to step up leadership in different pieces of legislation, whether it’s the Trafficked Victims Protection Act or it involves the Trafficked Persons Report office.”
Moses said the lobby days are not set, but will most likely occur mid to late April in the Campus Center.
“The general idea of those days will be to say, ‘We are citizens of the United States of America and we want to see the U.S. step up and take leadership in a global fight against human trafficking.’ And also we would like to see the eradication of human trafficking within our own borders and not just abroad, because that’s a big issue that people forget,” Moses said. “There are, on any given day in Texas, more than 600 women being sold via the Internet, alone. It’s important to our club to focus on the domestic issue as well, and it can affect Abilene and how we can affect change in our local communities before we can affect change globally.”
She said any student wanting to be involved in Red Thread and its mission can join the members in Chapel every other Thursday in Bible room 127.
