Covenant House Vancouver

Marty, one of our Development Officers, wrote to thank a donor from whom we received a donation.  He got this reply (posted with the donor's permission):

Hi Marty,

Thanks so much for your note. It was both my 5 year old son Max and 3 year old daughter Kelty and I was so proud of them.

The story is such... My kids came to see me at my office and they were chatting with the building's cleaning lady, a lovely woman who has had a terribly hard life. Out of the goodness of her blessed heart, she ran after them as we were leaving and put $20 in each of their hands.

My children are so fortunate and need no excesses. Mira, the woman, needs every penny she earns yet she gave away $40 which I know is so much for her to give my children who she knows have everything they need. I explained the story to my children, who without hesitation suggested we give it to someone who needs it. We drove straight to you and it meant so much to us all.

My son goes to St. Anthony's and we are all proud to continue to support your cause and it made me so proud to see my children do that yesterday. I thank the staff too who were so gracious and explained to Max and Kelty how they were helping.

God bless you and your team!

Joanne

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The trafficking of people is a big concern both around the world and in Canada. Human trafficking is thought of as modern day slavery - people being forced or tricked to work as prostitutes, strippers or in sweatshops against their will. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has an excellent definition explaining human trafficking.

Covenant House Vancouver has a strong stand against human trafficking and we have spoken out about this topic before.

Recently, the Toronto Sun published an article about Canada's lack of a national strategy for human trafficking citing the recent 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report put out by the State Department in the United States.  The Report calls Canada out - saying that Canada has not moved forward on its national strategy, noting that The House of Commons voted 3 years ago to create a national strategy around human trafficking but still nothing has been created.

I hope that you take the time to learn more about human trafficking and if it is an important issue to you please speak out against it.

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