My mom had always warned me about not talking to strangers and being careful when I was a little girl. She taught me to never leave school with anyone except for her, my dad, or my nanny at the time, she engraved the idea that anyone's candies were never to be eaten, and she demanded that I stay away from white old-looking vans. I think about it now and realize it might have a been a bit stereotypical, but it was enough for me to know to stay safe. Until we moved to Mexico. I was about 9 when my mom told me about the 7-year-old girl that was kidnapped in the neighborhood down the street from mine. She went into details about the event, something she had never done before.

She told me that it happened on an afternoon after school, the ingenuous girl was walking home the way she always had until a van pulled up next to her. A middle-aged man stopped the van and went to her begging for help; he held the picture of a dog in his hands and asked her to help him find his dog. As she so naively believed him and approached him to get a better look at the picture, he snatched her so fast, no one even heard her last scream. The following details, well you can suspect. The body was found in the woods - half naked and bruised. The middle-aged man was caught, for that is how the whole story became true, and his confession imprisoned him for years. But nothing brought back the little girl.

After my mother finished telling me the story, I remember crying in her arms - terrified of something happening to my brothers or me. I remember feeling unsafe everywhere I turned, almost like I stopped trusting the people in this world.

But as years went by and thousands of events like these kept occurring around me, I was forced to learn how to control my fear. But what's worse about living with fear is when the fear begins to lessen due to an uncontrolled expectation. What I mean by this is, the reality of something dark, brutal, and horrifying happening has become practically expected in our society today. Every day across the world, crimes are being committed and forgotten about.

Nowadays, young kids experience or hear about school shootings so often that it has almost become normal. Schools shut down for a few days but most people quickly return to their normal routines. Young girls grow up listening to the stories of women worldwide that are harassed and raped by men, but the stories always end the same; the rapist pays for his actions by spending a few months in jail (if we're lucky) or goes on probation for a while, but in a matter of time, he returns freely to his life. We hear about the hundreds of people that flee from their homes due to terrorist invasions or corrupt politicians, and meanwhile, as the news may or may not go viral, nothing is being done either way.

There are thousands of more examples, but my point is this: Society is so numb to the tragic and inhumane current events today. I know the world will not become a perfect place or change in a day, but instead of forgetting about what happened to the 7-year-old girl that lived down the street from me, for example, or the elementary school kids who were shot to death at Sandy Hook, we should be taking action. Instead of going back to our normal routines, we should be participating in acts of change. I know so many people who want to "change the world," but don't know where or how to start. We shouldn't have to live in fear or normalize inhumane occurrences, we should instead come together and do something about it - even if it's minor, it'll make a difference to someone, somewhere.

This being said, I've always liked to say that if a story or an event has made you feel uncomfortable then perhaps it is because it shouldn't be happening in the first place. Therefore, instead of ignoring the reality of young girls worldwide who are being forced to sell their bodies to men triple their age, or children who are watching their fathers be shot in the head and mothers being raped by a murderer, or mothers who are carrying fresh flowers to their 15-year-old kid who lost his/her life at school - ask yourself: Is there really nothing you can do about it?

If you're interested in taking action, I have included a few links below:

http://refugees.org/get-involved/volunteer/

https://www.rainn.org/volunteer

https://www.rapevictimadvocates.org/get-involved/volunteer/

http://wagv.org/get-involved/

http://lawcenter.giffords.org/take-action/volunteer/

https://momsdemandaction.org/