Community Members Increase Awareness of Safety Issues
In our quest through the Horizons Project to make a difference in our community, we have found one of our needs to be an awareness of issues that can affect the safety of children from all income levels. Recently, three Horizons members attended the Iowa Preventing Abuse Conference which explored issues on helping protect women and children from sexual exploitation and child abduction. A small community in Iowa located only 60 miles from Olin, became the home of a human trafficking and prostitution ring. At the conference several speakers spoke of Iowa being a corridor where predators could abduct a victim and travel any direction fairly quickly. At the conference one of the speakers said, “Sometimes we see things, but we don’t want to look.” Linda Daniels from the U.S. Defense Dept. said that a big part of solving the problem is an awareness of the problem. Suggested solutions for parents are being shared in our community to increase knowledge and create awareness as key elements in preventing sexual exploitation and child abductions in our community. Additional actions to increase safety in the community, such as the “Bee Safe” locations and fencing at the school, are being implemented.