To Write Love On Her Arms Homepage

October 20th, 2009 proved to be a successful event at Clark, as 15 students participated in the annual Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity. Students walked around campus with red duct tape over their mouths which read “LIFE.” Fliers were handed out which boldly stated “WHY WE ARE SILENT.” We hope to have stirred up questions in the student body and faculty over the controversial topic of abortion.

Please keep in mind that although Truth Movement leaders are pro-life, we highly encourage opposing view points to interact and share their arguments during debates and discussions.

Clark Chronicle article on Silent Day

Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity Homepage

Truth Movement is hosting a Car Wash to help pay for our efforts in the work we do at PATH Achieve Homeless shelter in Glendale.

Saturday, October, 24, 2009

It will be at the Glendale High School parking lot, on Verdugo and Broadway

1440 E. Broadway Glendale, CA 91205

8:00am-2:00pm

$5 small cars/ $7 big cars

Snacks&Drinks will be sold as well!

Please contact your schools President if you would like to volunteer your time in helping.

Also, tell family & friends to bring their cars!

School is right around the corner and we are SO excited for this year’s Truth Movement. Since we have experience—Hoover from last year and GHS and Clark for two years–this year’s club is going to be much more organized and effective. We will be making a slight change and work with Charity Water, a non-profit organization that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Since they are great with human relations, we are hoping that this will help raise more awareness in our campuses and it will help us ultimately raise more funds for the organization. We are also going to be working with other organizations such as TOMS, End The Slaughter, Avenues Pregnancy Clinic, PATH Achieve, and International Justice Mission.

We are very excited about all of the organizations we will be working with this year. Here is a description of each organization we work with:

• With every pair of shoes that TOMS sells, a new pair of shoes goes to someone in need in different parts of the world. One for one. The presidents of Truth Movement will be TOMS campus reps for our schools, which means that we will be in charge of organizing two events at our schools during the year with TOMS.
• End The Slaughter is an organization dedicated to providing abortion-minded women with the resources that will help them choose life for their child. Both End The Slaughter and Avenues Pregnancy Clinic are pro-life organizations. We will be more involved with the issue of abortion (debates included).
• PATH Achieve is a local homeless shelter that we visit every Friday throughout the year.
• And lastly, International Justice Mission is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. We will be having more fundraisers and we are hoping to pair up with restaurants/fast food restaurants for the different organizations we will be working with.

We are looking forward to this year and hope to make big changes! If you have not joined our club yet please consider it. You can get any information from this website (depending on which school you are from) about where and when the meetings are and who the President is. We hope to see you all!

Salpi Topjian- Glendale High School
Arlene Haghverdian- Clark Magnet High School
Ani Chivchyan- Herbert Hoover High School

For those of you who don’t know, these shoes go to children who have podoconiosis, a soil transmitted disease caused by walking, running, working etc. barefoot in silica rich soil. Silica is ancient volcanic glass that penetrates the skin and makes its way into the lymphatic system. The feet and lower legs begin to swell and open sores and ulcers begin to develop; this is where the infection sets in. However, podoconiosis is 100% preventable simply by wearing shoes! This is where we come in the picture and be the change and help out!

The event we had with TOMS was a great experience. Just hearing the wonderful stories that the representatives told us were remarkable. It was so awesome to know that purchasing a pair of shoes from TOMS will help a child in need. It brought me joy to see TOMS representatives come to our school and see students who were interested in being a helping hand.

During lunch, TOMS showed the club a documentary of their shoe drops. Shoe Drops are when TOMS interns and the founder of TOMS, Blake, go to a country and give children the shoes. Many may have seen parts of this in the AT&T commercial that TOMS is in. Watching how just a simple pair of shoes impacts a child’s life and seeing the radiant smile on their face was really touching and inspiring. I hope to see every child be happy by having the chance to receive their own TOMS shoes.

If you’re interested in helping children who have podoconiosis out, you, your friends or family members can purchase their own pair of TOMS shoes (Shoes for Tomorrow), shirts, or other merchandise at www.tomsshoes.com. You may also intern with TOMS, and if chosen, you’ll be on tour with two other wonderful and caring people for five months. How cool is that?! Here is the website for the internship:

http://www.tomsshoes.com/content.asp?tid=273

Salpi Topjian
Glendale High School
Truth Movement Vice President 2008-2009

For those of you who didn’t know,  child slaves are used to pick up cocoa beans for different companies such as Hershey’s, Nestle, Mars (Snickers, M&Ms, Milkyway, Three Musketeers, etc.), and other popular chocolate companies.

I was very nervous, knowing that I would be speaking in front of the entire school. I was also worried that I would say something wrong or not grab peoples’ attention on this serious issue. But what is more important, my fear of speaking in front of the entire school or the fact that there is innocent blood being shed to make chocolate? What is my fear compared to the suffering that the child slaves undergo? Nothing. My life is not at all at risk since I have the complete freedom to speak out about this injustice.  What I want to point out here is that courage is doing something that you are afraid of doing but putting your fear aside because you know that your actions and your voice are much more important than your fear.

Stuff like this can’t just be left alone. If people are being tortured and enslaved, I am not going to sit here and do nothing about it. I am not going to expect others to fill my role because we all have a part to play in this. Furthermore, I am not going to turn down such a great opportunity to speak about this issue; in front of the entire school. If not me, then who? If not now, then when?

Overall, the assembly went great and a lot of teachers and friends told me that they never knew that slavery still existed, especially chocolate slavery. Many told me that they will never buy or eat slave chocolate again. This really encouraged me and I was very glad that we participated in the assembly. It all starts with spreading awareness, which leads to change!

Let us be modern day abolitionists and not sit down or be silent until chocolate slavery is put to an end!

Ani Chivchyan
Hoover High School
Truth Movement Vice President 2008-2009

If you want to send an email to Mars demanding fair trade chocolate click here

If you want to know specific information on fair trade chocolate (where to buy it and which brands are fair trade) click here

The Truth behind the Chocolate you eat

Last week at Glendale High School a few of the members and leaders of this club took our lunchtime to go out in the middle of quad and spread the truth about the chocolate we eat.

Ever since this idea was suggested during a club meeting we were all very excited and eager to inform our peers about the slavery going on today. This excitement turned into nervousness when I was told on the first day, that Nestle gives a lot of money to schools, in particular Glendale High. As I hesitantly walked to the middle of quad, I told my friends who were ready for that bell to ring about this. As students flooded from the classroom doors, people were staring at Samira, who was dressed as a chocolate maniac, with eyes of confusion and disgust. They couldn’t seem to figure out how chocolate, such a sweet and wonderful food could be linked to…“what was that? does that say slavery? who are these people?” I was glad that most people weren’t just walking past us, but they actually stopped to see what this was all about. It was a great experience, and we were all privileged and honored to work as God’s people, opening students’ eyes to the truth.

Now, back to the whole school and Nestle connection. Apparently, Nestle pays a lot of money to GHS, and many teachers and faculty were not particularly found of our club telling students to NOT buy these chocolates. I can see where they are coming from; they need the money from somewhere. However, does that really justify the blood of the innocent? Is it okay to continue accepting money from companies who are unjustly receiving their products? Where do we draw we line? How far will this country go in justifying at all actions, with OUR needs, our chocolate, our food, our school, our MONEY.

Fortunately, the United States of America give the freedom of speech to all humans. Therefore, weather the school agrees with our protests or not, we are allowed to let our voice be heard.

I can sometimes understand ignorance in people, which is the sole reason of why this club focuses so much on the MOVEMENT of spreading the truth. But, if nobody told us about these humans being trafficked around the world, how are we expected to do something about it? This is why spreading awareness is highly essential for this club, as well as in our lives. If you know something horrific is going on and you can actually do something to stop it, why wouldn’t you tell everyone you know?

On the other side, there are also those people that KNOW about it, but simply do not care. An example of this carelessness can be found in not only the people that eat the chocolates after being informed of where it came from, but the billion dollar chocolate industries as well. These companies know that Americans like chocolate, and they like a lot of it. They are also aware of where the cocoa beans of their chocolate derive from. Does this stop them? Unfortunately not. Everywhere you look there are M&M and Hershey’s chocolates surrounded.

I used to love chocolate, especially Reese’s. I even had a Reese’s sweater. However, after hearing about that children’s sweat and blood is put into making this chocolate, when they should be getting an education and enjoying their childhood, I look at these chocolates with pure disgust. I honestly cannot eat it anymore. Looking at it makes me cringe at this fact.

We hope that we have affected our school in some way or another. The first step in stopping this is spreading awareness, and protesting against eating the chocolates. You can also send letters and have a petition going around to send to these companies, letting them know that we will not buy their trafficked chocolate as we do not support this.

Thanks,

Meghmik Bakhshi
Glendale High School
Truth Movement President 2008-2009

www.freetheslaves.net

www.stopthetraffik.org

www.onevoicetoendslavery.com

We just wanted to give you all a brief welcome and introduction to our website. Truth Movement is a club that began as a vision by our youth pastor from Christian Outreach for Armenians Church in Glendale, CA. The youth from this church as well as from Christ Armenian Church in La Cresenta, CA, took this idea and developed it into the “movement of truth”  which we are leading in our midst at our local high school campuses. As stated in our mission statement, the work that our club is involved in comes from a Christian perspective as we believe that God is a God of Justice, who demands this from His people.

“We firmly believe that all life has inherent value. In Genesis 1:27, the Bible claims, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Not only so, but He made human beings separate from all other creation by giving them dominion and stewardship over them (Gen. 1:26) and breathing into them His own breath (Gen. 2:7) – no other creature carries the breath of God. Therefore, since all people carry the image of God, all life is valuable. This is why in Genesis 9:6, God said, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.” Life is so valuable to God that He demands the repayment if it is taken” (www.endtheslaughter.org).

Although we hold a biblical worldview as a foundation for our club, this does not mean that students who hold opposing beliefs are not welcome to join.  In fact, part of the club includes holding debates and discussions on different controversial issues. Therefore, we would appreciate it if anyone who opposes our views would come to our meetings, or get into contact with us.

Don’t be hesitant to check out our blogs, add us on myspace or facebook, or send us an email.
Thanks.