OHS Students Assisting in World Change

[/media-credit] Grace Call and Zoe Bramwell, co presidents of the O.U.R. Club and Orem High School.

Operation Underground Railroad, or O.U.R., is a worldwide humanitarian association to prevent and bring awareness to child trafficking. Since they started in 2013, O.U.R. has rescued 2,800 victims and helped with the arrests of 1,500 traffickers around the world.

Their promise is “to the children who we pray for daily, we say: your long night is coming to an end. Hold on. We are on our way. And to those captors and perpetrators, even you monsters who dare offend God’s precious children, we declare to you: be afraid. We are coming for you.”

Two years ago Orem High joined the fight and Eliza Livingston created our own Students Against Slavery club, the first student subgroup of O.U.R.

Zoe Bramwell, a co-president, said, “I believe that no person, especially a child, should have to suffer through human trafficking, and O.U.R. does a great job of raising awareness and actually helping victims.”

The clubs main goals this year are to raise awareness, educate others, and make the club a bigger deal for the school.

Grace Call, another co-president, said, “Everyone thinks human trafficking is just an issue outside of the US, but there are people in the US that get trafficked all the time. I was emailing the official liaison between O.U.R. and Students Against Slavery and she said, ‘I guarantee there are people at your school who are being trafficked.’”

In November Students Against Slavery will get together and watch videos on the signs of human trafficking.

“If you see someone younger and they have an older person talking for them and they seem scared. If they’re in really promiscuous clothing, they stop showing up for school, or if two women have the same tattoo. Those are just some signs of human trafficking,” Grace said.

“You’ll always be in situations you don’t think about. If we have that knowledge the rest of our lives one of us will probably run into something and they could save someone.”

The club will meet once a month to plan fundraisers, become certified, and watch educational videos and movies on human trafficking.

Zoe Bramwell said, “I hope that this year O.U.R. club at Orem High can motivate students and people in the community to learn about human trafficking and get involved in combating it by raising awareness and doing all they can to help those who might be suffering.”