Actions can be any size, from impacting just one child to policies that impact an entire nation’s children, but all actions work to solve huge issues such as the sex-trafficking of children.
Advocating within our communities ...
This MAU Vocal Empowerment Workshop was hosted by the Penang Players—the oldest theatre group in Penang—as a way of reaching out to their community. The workshop included members of the company, school-teachers and administrators, university students, therapists and concerned mothers. Concerns ranged from children vulnerable to sex trafficking, to mental health issues for children. One Chinese woman said that she was concerned about the daughter of a woman at her Buddhist temple. She said that the mother was poor, single and had cancer. If the mother were to die, she was afraid that custody of the girl would go to the girl’s father who was a drug user who she feared would traffic his daughter to pay for his addiction. Her action based on this concern was to set up a lunch meeting with the mother and ask her about making arrangements for the daughter with members of the temple in the unfortunate case of her death. This was just one girl who was at risk of becoming a part of a larger statistic of child sex-trafficking; one small action within her immediate community, taken on behalf of just one child.
Besides weeping openly, the “take away” from the next workshop was that working at every level is the surest way to impact change. Here Pricilla was intimate with the reality lived by children impacted by mental health, was active advocating in the schools, and was vocal at the governmental level to inspire policies and funding to support this work.
Listening and acting on many different levels.
Another mother at this same workshop, Pricilla, worked professionally as a therapist for children with mental health issues.  When she shared the following personal story and how she was continuing to act on this issue, the air in the room seemed to still and all attention was riveted on her delivery. She told of girl child she was working with who suffered from symptoms of mental illness due to the fact that she had been molested. In one particular therapy session the girl was extremely agitated because her abuser had still not yet been incarcerated or charged with the crime (even though Pricilla had been in communication with the local police about the situation.) Pricilla took the girl outside near the ocean and had her write on a piece of paper all that she felt about her fear. Since there was no one around them, she urged the girl to use her voice to express what she was feeling and the girl screamed out, “I don’t want him to hurt me anymore.” Then Pricilla helped the girl fold the paper into a boat and they walked to the rocky shore to set her worries out to sea. When they threw the paper boat, it landed among the rocks. The girl was bothered by this, but Pricilla assured her the tide would soon come in and take it out to sea. Still the girl was not satisfied, but insisted on climbing out onto the rocks, getting the paper boat, and throwing out into the waves. Together they stood by the shore and watched the little boat float away.
Not only does Pricilla work as a therapist in the schools for children, she was also works to bring awareness to school officials as to the importance of mental health issues as they impact children. The action she devised during this workshop was to meet with her regional government to educate them about the mental health needs children.
