The Kings & Queens Project... who?!

My name is Jacob Boettcher.  I am a senior at Silver Creek High School, in Longmont, Colorado.  I am also a member of my high school's focus program, the Silver Creek Leadership Academy. A four year program, ending in a capstone project. At first glance, The Kings & Queen Project is just my capstone. But, to me, and I hope eventually you, it is so much more. 

To the people in my life I am tall, strong headed, loud and on the outside a pretty normal kid.  But in my life I have always felt this burning desire to create change, to make an impact that was bigger than myself. 

But the problem was I didn't know what kind of change to make, or for that matter what issue to tackle.  But then being exposed to Human Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation, I was jolted to life with an instant passion to create change, and with absolute certainty I declared that this was the issue I would attempt to make a dent in. 

So I started, first by presenting to health classes in my high school, and then striving to make bigger change, bigger impacts. 

In April of 2015 I founded the Kings & Queens Project with the goal of illuminating the darkness of Human Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation. But what does that even mean? It sounds as if this issue is this large complex thing, that has nothing to do with anything. But in reality, Human Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation, has something to do with everything, and that's why its so important. 

Now, if put into less extravagant terms the Kings & Queens Project simply exists to create awareness. We as an organization have three goals that drive our mission, of building a base level of understanding and alertness about these issues:

1.    Teach to Prevent Human Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation (in their own lives and the lives of others).

2.    Teach others to Recognize Human Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation in real world situations.

3.    Teach to Empower individuals to go out and learn more about the issue from experts in the public (State and Federal resources) and private sectors (large nonprofits). 

So what are we, KQ, doing to meet these three goals? This next year, the year of our capstone, is our self-proclaimed Year of Awareness. As a result we are working to raise a greater level of alertness of these issues among different demographics in the greater Boulder County Community. We will work to accomplish this by creating educational lesson plans, organizing community nights, and creating large scale conversations with local officials and change makers.  All of these events encompassed in our Year of Awareness will be organized with a commitment to have attendants leave with more consciousness of issue, then having when they arrived, while knowing and having basic prevention, recognition and empowerment skills. 

For the past four years I have been plotting something. Something that I thought and hoped would be big, world changing and impactful.  I plotted as if I were a super-villain, aiming for world domination, but having slightly different intentions.

Now the thing that I have been planning for, for so long is HERE, NOW,  IN THIS MOMENT.

So let's begin to illuminate the world. I hope you will join me. 

Best,

Jacob

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