Jim Hancock asked himself how we can sustain movements that we know the world needs. I write and run a few groups here and there, but he and the International Justice Mission (which does sound like a league of comic-book heroes) went one further:

The solution was finding a way to see the world through the eyes of someone who wasn’t so numb to pain and hope. That turned out to be four American kids who were alert and articulate (and possessed a significant emotional vocabulary). We took them to South Asia for ten days—to look over their shoulders and into their eyes as they became eyewitnesses to oppression.

   The IJM, which has been successful at extracting children out of forced labour and has done other noble things, hosted the trip.
   The result is a video-based curriculum that Jim produced called The Justice Mission. It has a Christian perspective, which oddly turns some people off in secular societies—and it shouldn’t. The motivation is exactly in line with what we all want for this planet: fairness, justice and peace.
   Jim feels it’s only one step because the numbers are too great, but that we should focus on the task at hand, rather than the statistics. I hope it is another effort that begins changing the world for the better, because, as Alan Hirsch points out in a post by Steve Addison, the over-segmentation of western markets means it is harder for huge movements to take place these days. Now, if only we could network all these movements together at one site, and to do so equally, so we know we are not alone …
   Google Global Movements, anyone? It’ll be a good way to undo the damage last month with the censoring of results in Red China. Posted by Jack Yan, 20:54  permalink

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