A Powerful Tsunami Swept Away Homes In Indonesia, Killing Hundreds Of People

The 10-foot tsunami was triggered by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake and destroyed buildings in at least two cities on the island of Sulawesi.

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Elon Musk reaches deal over tweets about taking Tesla private

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Sex trafficking of youth still happens today. Here's why it's difficult to escape.

Imagine waking up to smoke filling your room. What would you do? The answer might seem obvious at first — you’d look for the nearest exit.

But it’s not always that simple.

What if your partner, pets, or your children were also inside? Would you still be so quick to look for a way out, or would you first focus on finding a way to help them get out too — even if that meant doing something dangerous?

What if all the exits were engulfed by flames, making your escape even more dangerous than simply staying put and calling for help?

Photo by Олег Жилко/Unsplash.

Or what about if the downed powerline you can see from the window, which caused the fire in the first place, made it risky to step outside? What if your only exit was through a window, which would require that you fall three stories before reaching the ground?

Now imagine there were other voices chiming in. What if someone you loved told you not to worry — that it was just dinner that they burnt in the oven? What if someone you trusted asked, “What smoke? I don’t see any. Are you sure there’s smoke?” Would you still be looking for an exit?

It’s easy to think that if we were in a dangerous situation, we’d know exactly what to do.

But there are lots of factors that can change our actions — and sometimes, knowing what to do or when to leave isn’t as immediately clear-cut.

This is why, for survivors of abuse, especially when they’re under the age of 18, the question is rarely as simple as, “Do I leave?”

Young people who are sexually exploited — manipulated, forced, or pressured into performing sexual acts for money or other resources like food, shelter, or support — are especially vulnerable, as their survival is often bound to the same person who’s exploiting them.

Minors have an additional set of challenges, as they often have fewer resources and greater vulnerability as they aren't yet adults.

Photo by Alex Iby/Unsplash.

For those youth, “Do I leave?” is just one question among a million they’ll be faced with. They’ll need to know where they’ll go next, if it’s safe to leave, who they can trust, and if they have the resources to survive, assuming that they realize they’re victims in the first place.

While help exists for survivors, each one of us has a part to play in supporting them. If we were all better informed about their struggles, we could more readily step up to build communities of support around them.

So, like with the smoke-filled room, maybe the better question to ask is: what obstacles prevent victims from safely leaving their exploiters? Here are 13 reasons why they might struggle to get help:

1. They might not see themselves as victims at all.

The psychological tactics that an exploiter might use can make it difficult for victims to realize they’re being exploited at first. This process, called “grooming,” ensures that an abuser has earned their victim’s trust and dependency before escalating the abuse.

They do this through offering affection, gifts, shelter, food, or any kind of resources that a victim might need physically or emotionally. It’s only when their victim is dependent that the abuse escalates — and by then, it’s likely that the victim is bonded to their abuser.

Photo by Jed Villejo/Unsplash.

2. In some cases, exploitation is already normalized.

While youth sex trafficking happens in every state in the U.S., there are some communities where sexual exploitation happens more frequently — particularly in under-resourced areas. Victims in those communities may see it as a survival strategy, rather than a form of violence and exploitation.

“A lot of times these exploiters are coming out of similar communities,” Lenore Jean-Baptiste, Community Engagement Specialist at the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth, explains. “[Some victims have] seen exploitation, but they called it ‘pimping’ . . . it becomes normalized [and assumed] this is the way it is.”

If you grew up in an abusive home environment, too, it can be difficult to recognize the violence as it’s taking place because you’re already desensitized to it.

3. The culture at-large doesn’t make this any better, either.

Girls and women especially are sexualized at increasingly younger ages. When they are encouraged at an early age to view their bodies as objects and their sexuality as a form of currency, Jean-Baptiste says, and conditioned to believe they do not have autonomy over their own bodies, they’re more vulnerable to exploitation.

“The oversexualization of them and their bodies becomes glamorous,” Jean-Baptiste explains. “They’re tailored and groomed by an over-sexualized society.”

As a result, she says, they’re less likely to recognize the abuse as it’s happening, and less likely to consider leaving.

4. Victims might be fleeing abuse or neglect, so they feel safer with their exploiter.

Many youth victims of trafficking are actually runaways. In some cases, the exploitation might initially feel more secure than the chaotic or even violent situations that led victims to run away in the first place, especially if their family members were the first to sexually exploit them — or are the exploiters in the situation.

“It’s really common to hear that they’ve been made to exchange sex for a place to stay or food to eat — or that someone who offers them a couch to sleep on [only] later ends up abusing or assaulting them,” Luke Hassevoort, Assistant Program Manager at Common Ground, explains.

“They’re not viewing themselves as victims, because they’re viewing the situation as survival,” Jean-Baptiste says. “[Often times] they leave [home] to save their lives.”

Survival should not require exploitation, though — and victims need to know that safety nets exist to protect them.

Youth Survivor, Youth Living Out Loud, program of Wraparound Milwaukee.

5. Victims might feel like their trafficker is the only person that’s ever been accepting.

A history of abuse, neglect, or bullying can also create a vulnerability that traffickers can take advantage of, Jean-Baptiste says. By offering the illusion of love, acceptance, and nurturing that victims didn’t have at home, traffickers create a bond that makes it very difficult for victims to leave.

This is especially true for youth trafficking victims who identify as LGBTQ+. Things like harassment, family rejection, and social isolation can drive LGBTQ+ people away from their communities, and can make traffickers seem like saviors rather than abusers.

Many communities have LGBTQ+ centers, though — which you can locate online — to find acceptance, resources, and support that a trafficker can never provide.

Photo by Mercedes Mehling/Unsplash.

6. They might be reluctant to access services and support.

While being shuffled around, many youth aren't properly supported by educational, healthcare, juvenile justice, and welfare systems — sometimes all of the above, making it feel as though there's nowhere reliable to turn.

According to the National Foster Youth Institute, 60% of all child sex trafficking victims were, at some point, part of the child welfare system, and have fallen through the cracks.

This trauma can leave victims reluctant to reach out to social service providers. They might be afraid of seeking out help because they don’t want to be placed back into the same system that they didn’t feel protected them in the first place.

Traffickers may also position themselves as saviors that rescued them from the system, making victims feel trapped and indebted to them.

7. They might not trust law enforcement either.

Youth of color and those from under-resourced communities may have witnessed police brutality or racist altercations, making it difficult to see law enforcement as trustworthy.

Homeless youth, for example, might have been impacted when a police officer disrupted an encampment where they were staying, pressuring them to leave or disperse. For a young person with very little safety, this can feel destabilizing and even violent.

This could lead youth to view their exploiter as safer than law enforcement, leaving them reluctant to get help as their trafficker escalates the abuse.

Many law enforcement agencies haven't been properly trained to support exploited youth, either. They may not self-identify to law enforcement for many reasons including fear of arrest, fear of abuse from their trafficker, or immigration status.

Traffickers can even prey on this fear to keep victims from reaching out, feeding them a narrative that there’s no one that can help them or be trusted. “A lot of times traffickers can use those kinds of stories and experiences to make individuals feel fearful,” Jean-Baptiste explains.

Photo by Matt Popovich / Unsplash.

8. They may not have anywhere to go.

Homeless youth are incredibly vulnerable to sex trafficking. Without the support and resources needed to survive, the idea of leaving their traffickers can feel impossible and even dangerous, particularly if their family members are their exploiters.

In that instance, family members may use the trust they've established to pressure youth into sexual acts to "provide" for the family — which, even when recognized as exploitation, can be difficult to leave without an established safety net.

This is further complicated by the reality that they may not be connected to their communities. This is especially true for homeless and foster youth. “Bouncing from place to place can make it tough to build lasting relationships [or] connect with a new school or neighborhood,” Kendan Elliott, Program Manager at MANY, explains.

9. Their dependency on their exploiters might make it seem like there aren’t other options.

Homelessness and poverty are both risk factors for trafficking, so it makes sense that escaping exploitation can be an uphill battle. Traffickers will use their resources to make their victims completely dependent on them, by offering things like food, emotional support, and shelter.

This can make exploitation appear to be better than any life victims had lived prior to being trafficked, or any kind of life they could build on their own when starting from square one.

Photo by Ev/Unsplash.

“When you are faced with the choice of staying in a situation you know is messed up — or leaving with no money, no place to go, and no one you can call — what do you do?” Elliott explains. “It doesn’t feel like a choice.”

Victims can and do build extraordinary lives after exploitation, though. And local organizations offering housing options and other resources can help them take the first step.

10. They might have a disability that makes it challenging to recognize or escape exploitation.

Disabilities, both physical and mental, can complicate any form of violence.

For example, research has shown that girls with intellectual disabilities are at increased risk for sexual exploitation, because they are less likely to know what constitutes abuse — especially because exploiters are already very manipulative to begin with. They’re less likely to self-identify as victims as a result.

Youth with physical disabilities are also more vulnerable to exploitation by their caretakers because they are dependent on them. They are more prone to isolation, which makes them easier targets with less of a support system to reach out to, and they may not be physically able to ask for help or leave.

Youth with mental illness are much more likely to be targeted as well, because traffickers can exploit their emotional vulnerability, lower self-esteem, or sense of isolation, to make victims even more dependent on them.

11. Their exploiter might have lured them into addiction.

Some traffickers use drugs to entice victims, and traffickers use their dependency to escalate and sustain the abuse. Alcohol or drug dependence only further complicates what is already a difficult situation to leave, giving traffickers one more resource, or threat, to hold over their heads.

Photo by Jair Lázaro / Unsplash.

12. They fear that no one will believe them.

“Boys and young men, trans girls and women, and youth of color overall are more likely to be identified as ‘prostitutes’ than victims of sex trafficking and exploitation,” Elliott explains. “This is also the case with youth who have previous involvement with the foster care or justice systems, or have previous law enforcement contact (sometimes due to unmet mental health needs).”  

Boys and young men can be and are exploited, but because masculinity is often associated with sexual aggression, many people don’t realize that boys can be victims. Similarly, youth who are dependent on drugs or alcohol might fear that they will be viewed as “addicts” and punished, rather than helped.

In these cases, youth fear that their behavior will be seen as consensual or even criminal, and so, not only may it take longer for them to self-identify as victims, but it can also take them longer to reach out for help leaving their traffickers.

That said, all victims are exactly that — victims — regardless of the community they come from.

13. They’ve likely been failed by adults in their life before.

Getting help in the first place assumes that youth trust that there’s someone who can help them.

One of the challenges in trying to estimate the number of youth that are trafficked in the United States is that, for some youth, they were never reported missing in the first place. Coming from places where adults just weren’t invested in their well-being, it makes sense that youth might not trust that there are adults that care.

But support does exist — and there are people committed to helping victims find it.

Photo by Eye for Ebony/Unsplash.

“[There are] resources and [people] who can help them on the journey of recovery,” Hassevoort says. That’s why both Jean-Baptise and Hassevoort emphasize becoming familiar with the organizations in your own community.

“Community organizations can provide temporary assistance through [things like] motel vouchers,” Hassevoort continues. As these organizations continue to expand, Hassevort notes, many offer critical tools, like counseling, art therapy, mind/body practices, and even job training and education.

But the real process starts with first breaking down the psychological barriers that leave survivors feeling as though they can’t leave. Because the reality is, no matter how many attempts it takes, there is a better life waiting on the other side, and people who won't stop fighting for survivors until they find it.

“I have a colleague who often critiques the image of a trafficking victim with their wrist bound in chains,” Hassevoort says. “She says that, in reality, the chains are on your mind, not [only] your wrists.”

Breaking those chains takes time, but thankfully, you don’t have to do it alone.

“There is help and there are people who . . . do care,” Jean-Baptise affirms.

Photo by Clique Images/Unsplash.

If you believe that you or someone you know might be at risk or is being victimized, the National Human Trafficking Hotline can help.

You can text 233733, use the chat feature on their website, or call them at 888-373-7888. They can connect you with local organizations and support to figure out your next steps.

If there's any possibility that an abusive person has access to your phone or internet history, clear your internet history, and consider borrowing someone else's phone instead, or ask to access a phone at a place like a local library.

Photo by Kayle Kaupanger/Unsplash.

Taking those first steps can be scary, but your life and safety are worth it. Because as Jean-Baptiste puts it, “You deserve to be happy in every area of your life.”

And you're worthy of that safety no matter what — there's nothing you have to do to earn it. You're already deserving exactly as you are.

When we are educated and vigilant, we can make a difference in our communities! Learn more about how to get involved, and help us work towards a future where youth are no longer victimized.

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Kavanaugh and Ford might both be telling the truth. And that says something profoundly troubling about our world.

Brett Kavanaugh claims he has no memory of Christine Blasey Ford. Furthermore, he “never did anything remotely resembling what Dr. Ford describes.” To her. Or to anyone.

Either he is lying. Or he is telling the truth.

Throughout today’s hearing, I noted Dr. Ford’s repeated attempts to reign in emotion (she didn’t always succeed.) Judge Kavanaugh, on the other hand, with his fiery pulpit delivery – broken only by sniffs and warbles – unleashed his emotion with abandon. I have little doubt their feelings are sincere. But it’s important to note Dr. Ford’s attempt to control hers versus Kavanaugh’s propensity to let’em rip.

There’s a widely accepted explanation for this: emotional displays threaten to undermine a woman’s credibility — they make them seem “irrational”– a phenomenon of which Dr. Ford, like all women, is already aware.

But her efforts to conceal her feelings are about more than defeating gender stereotype and maintaining credibility.

People – both men and women – don’t necessarily strive to hide all emotions. We mostly focus our efforts on concealing emotional pain: those feelings that threaten to engulf and destroy, because they reveal our most vulnerable selves. Emotional pain is difficult to express anywhere, let alone in public, let alone on a media-frenzied global stage.

I believe Dr. Ford visibly struggles to hide her feelings because she needs to protect herself: she is, at heart, a person in pain.

In contrast, Judge Kavanaugh, has little trouble blubbering on the stand. He is not someone defined by pain, but rather someone who’s had a bad couple weeks. His primary emotion, revealed through gritted teeth and mottled cheeks, is anger. Not pain. Rage. That classic defense against shame.

So, is Kavanaugh’s huff and bluster masking a guilty conscience? I hope so. Because much more terrifying is the alternative: Brett Kavanaugh is being totally straight with us. He really has no memory of Christine Blasey Ford. Just as he has no memory of committing an act of sexual violence – against her, against anyone.

How that’s possible comes directly from Dr. Ford herself, prompted by a Senator’s question: “Three people at the party besides yourself and Brett Kavanaugh have given statements under penalty of felony to the committee,” she began. “Are you aware that they say that they have no memory or knowledge of such a party?”

Dr. Ford replied:

“I don’t expect that P.J. and Leland would remember this evening. It was a very unremarkable party. It was not one of their more notorious parties. Nothing remarkable happened to them that evening. They were downstairs. Mr. Judge [the friend alleged to be in the room with her and Kavanaugh during the assault] is a different story. I would expect that he would remember.”

Her remarks bring to mind a poignant painting by Pieter Breugel, The Fall of Icarus.

The painting depicts a tranquil day by the sea. In the foreground, a farmer plods after his horse and plow, and a humble shepherd herds his sheep. Ships drift by in the shining bay, sails taut with wind. It’s a picturesque scene, and it’s not until after some scrutiny that the viewer finally spots Icarus, plunging headfirst into the sea, legs flailing in a spray of foam.

Now, imagine, if instead of drowning, Icarus had survived. No doubt he would remember that day – the trauma of plummeting thousands of feet into an abyss indelibly seared into his hippocampus (to borrow Dr. Ford’s appropriately Greek word). But what about the shepherd? The farmer with his plow? Or, the sailors manning the ships? Would they remember this day? Would they remember it 40 years later? No. Because, “nothing remarkable happened to them.”

Far worse than a scenario in which one person is lying, and the other telling the truth, is the scenario in which both are telling the truth.

The scenario in which Kavanaugh truly doesn’t remember this night, or this party, or having ever met Christine Blasey Ford, and is truly astounded to find himself accused. How could he forget something so horrible?

Maybe because, for him, to Mark Judge, “the night was unremarkable.” The incident didn’t sear into his brain. It didn’t eat away at his conscience – what he did was normal. He, like so many entitled, carelessly brutal men before him, assaulted a young woman. It was just a regular party. A regular day with his horse and plow.

It was ordinary – and he forgot.

This article originally appeared on GOOD.

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Bill Gates explains the ‘safest’ age to give a kid a cellphone.

Bill Gates sure is strict on how his children use the very technology he helped bring to the masses.

In a recent interview with the Mirror, the tech mogul said his children were not allowed to own their own cellphone until the age of 14.

“We often set a time after which there is no screen time, and in their case that helps them get to sleep at a reasonable hour,” he said.

Gates added that the children are not allowed to have cellphones at the table, but are allowed to use them for homework or studying.

The Gates children, now 20, 17 and 14, are all above the minimum age requirement to own a phone, but they are still banned from having any Apple products in the house—thanks to Gates’ longtime rivalry with Apple founder Steve Jobs.

While the parenting choice may seem harsh, the Gates may be onto something with delaying childhood smartphone ownership.

According to the 2016 “Kids & Tech: The Evolution of Today’s Digital Natives” report, the average age that a child gets their first smartphone is now 10.3 years.

“I think that age is going to trend even younger, because parents are getting tired of handing their smartphones to their kids,” Stacy DeBroff, chief executive of Influence Central, told The New York Times.

James P. Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that reviews content and products for families, additionally told the Times that he too has one strict rule for his children when it comes to cellphones: They get one when they start high school and only when they’ve proven they have restraint. “No two kids are the same, and there’s no magic number,” he said. “A kid’s age is not as important as his or her own responsibility or maturity level.”

PBS Parents also provided a list of questions parents should answer before giving their child their first phone. Check out the entire list below:

• How independent are your kids?
• Do your children "need" to be in touch for safety reasons—or social ones?
• How responsible are they?
• Can they get behind the concept of limits for minutes talked and apps downloaded?
• Can they be trusted not to text during class, disturb others with their conversations, and to use the text, photo, and video functions responsibly (and not to embarrass or harass others)?
• Do they really need a smartphone that is also their music device, a portable movie and game player, and portal to the internet?
• Do they need something that gives their location information to their friends—and maybe some strangers, too—as some of the new apps allow?
• And do you want to add all the expense of new data plans? (Try keeping your temper when they announce that their new smart phone got dropped in the toilet...)

This article originally appeared on GOOD.

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Jeff Flake refuses to look at two women who confront him in elevator after he announces support for Kavanaugh.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Sen. Jeff Flake’s (R-AZ) surprise announcement of support for Brett Kavanaugh all but ensures the Supreme Court nominee will move to a full vote, and approval, to the nation’s highest court.

We need to do better than this.

Flake may be the one senator who was somehow swayed to support Brett Kavanaugh after his widely panned testimony before the U.S. Senate on Thursday.

After announcing his support, he tried to quietly duck out of the Senate in an elevator reserved for members and their staff. It didn’t work out like he planned.

Flake was cornered and confronted by two women who identified themselves as sexual assault survivors.

One woman told Flake that by announcing his support for Kavanaugh, he was effectively, "telling all women that they don't matter, that they should just stay quiet, because if they tell you what happened to them you are going to ignore them."

"You have children in your family, think about them."

It’s an uncomfortable moment that’s hard to watch. But Jeff Flake is an elected member of the U.S. Senate and presumably would have the backbone to engage with a citizen, particularly one sharing such a heartfelt moment.

Instead, he looks down passively, and refuses to address the woman, clearly waiting for the elevator door to close as he mumbles, "I need to go. I need to go to the hearing."

"What you are doing, is allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit on the Supreme Court," she responds. "This is not tolerable."

Without actually stepping into the elevator, she moves just close enough to delay the doors closing and calls out Flake for literally refusing to acknowledge her presence, something darkly symbolic of what many feel was revealed in the Kavanaugh hearing on Thursday by the judge’s supporters.

"That's what you're telling all of these women,” she continued. “That's what you're telling me right now. Look at me when I'm talking to you. You are telling me that my assault doesn't matter."

The second woman in the video steps in and says to Flake:

"You are allowing someone unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions and unwilling to hold the harm he has done to one woman, actually three women, and not repair it."

Over the past two years, Flake has been a consistent check on the power of President Trump and his administration. Despite being a staunch conservative, Flake has won accolades for his independence and commitment to principle in ways that brought to mind the conviction of his former Arizona colleague Sen. John McCain.

But in this moment, we see a man literally racing to get out of responsibility for his actions, refusing to hear the testimony of women clearly affected by his choice.

Flake is fully within his rights as an elected official to support Kavanaugh no matter what these women, or anyone, thinks. However, his refusal to even hear them out and defend his own position is revealing in a way that the entire nomination of Kavanaugh has been.

At worst, we are seeing a serial sexual predator about to be elevated to a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court and one of the essential branches of federal government with the power to affect policy for decades to come.

At best, we are seeing a deeply flawed nominee who is anything but essential being propped up by a broken system incapable and unwilling to do better.

You can watch the full CNN video here.

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Mom breaks down realizing her daughter was practicing lockdown drill in ‘cute’ bathroom picture.

Facebook/Stacey Wehrman Feeley.

A picture may be worth a thousand words but sometimes there’s another story behind a deceptively simple and “cute” image.

That was the case for Stacey Wehrman Feeley, who snapped a seemingly adorable picture of her young daughter standing atop a toilet in their home’s bathroom.

“However, The moment she told me what she was doing I broke down,” wrote in a Facebook post that has quickly gone viral. “She was practicing for a lockdown drill at her preschool and what you should do if you are stuck in a bathroom. At that moment all innocense of what I thought my three-year-old possessed was gone.”

In the wake of horrific mass shootings like the one in Orlando last week, Feeley’s 3-year-old daughter was acting out a safety drill she had recently been taught in case there was active shooter in a building where she was trapped. The post has been shared more than 20,000 times in less than one week.

"In the schools they are very good about telling them that this is a drill for if someone that is not supposed to be in the building is in there," she said in an interview with ABC News. "They do not even bring up guns whatsoever, but the older kids understand."

Feeley says she isn’t overtly political but urged people sharing her post to consider supporting gun control measures and lauded Sen. Chris Murphy, whose gun control filibuster captured the nation’s attention.

“I am not pretending to have all the answers or even a shred of them,” she wrote on Facebook. “But unless you want your children standing on top of a toilet, we need to do something!”

This article originally appeared on GOOD.

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The incredible reason this inspiring teacher started collecting tires for her students.

Tucked away in a remote village in the Fujian province of China, there is a school that is home to more than twice as many tires as students. And for good reason.

Lin with her students. All photos via Nike.

Tires dot the playground outside of the white, three-story Xianling Primary School — and it is surprisingly beautiful. Some tires are piled on top of each other, while others are tied loosely together. Most have been painted colorfully and are covered with cartoon characters.

While the scene may be unusual, it turns out these tires are there to let the kids explore their creativity, play, and be active. Because the tires come in all sizes and shapes, they can be assembled in multiple ways, enabling students to turn them into hula hoops, vaulting horses, swings, and even wheelbarrows. And as an added bonus: they don't cost the school anything at all.

"People lovingly call us 'the tire school,'" says PE teacher Meizhen Lin, who "discovered,"almost by accident, this unconventional learning tool for her students.

Lin first got the idea eight years ago, when she began teaching at the school.

With limited funding and little equipment for sports, PE "classes" consisted of running around the playground with no real direction.  This was partly because the school had never before really had a PE teacher.

Lin with her students.

The student body at Xianling Primary School is mostly made up of "left-behind children" — kids who live in rural areas with extended family while their parents work in urban centers.

"I am also from around Zianling, [so] I understand the difficult time these kids are going through," says Lin.  

Lin's father is a farmer and hadbarely earned enough to support his four kids, but he recognized that Lin was good at sports, so he worked extra hours so that she could go to college and earn a degree in physical education. Thanks to her dad's efforts and her hard work in school, Lin graduated college with a Bachelor’s degree in her chosen field in 1999, and started working as a P.E. teacher at the school.

However, because Xianling Primary School is located in such a remote area, it was not a prestigious posting for the newly qualified Lin — she wasn't sure if she'd like teaching there.

It didn't take her long to see herself in the kids though. In fact, teaching them made her recognize how fortunate she was to have broken the cycle of rural life. Now she was in a unique position to maybe help them do the same.

Lin cleaning and prepping old tires.

During one class, Lin remembers asking her students what their favorite toys were — but instead of a bunch of excited responses, all she got was total silence.

Her heart sank. Most of her students’ families simply couldn’t afford to buy any toys for their kids.

It was in that moment that Lin became determined to find a way to help these kids learn (and love) to play, using whatever resources she could find.

Later that same day, when driving home from work, she spotted a kid playing with an abandoned tire on the street. Thinking this might be a dangerous place for him to play, she pulled over and tried to persuade the kid to stop.

“The kid said, ‘But I like it, it's super fun to play with,’” Lin recalls.

That chance encounter gave her an idea.

“I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept thinking about what I could possibly do with the tires, if kids liked them so much.”

Lin started collecting abandoned tires from auto-repair shops in her village. She rolled the tires to the school, carefully cleaned them up, and then turned them into things that she could use in her PE classes, like a wheelbarrow.

To make the wheelbarrow, she used big, thick truck tires from trucks, put small wheels on the bottom and then attached elastic string on the sides. This way, one student could sit in the hollow of the tire while another student dragged it along by the string.

“My kids love the tire wheelbarrow I made them,” she says proudly. “They literally spring out of the classroom when the bell rings just to get to it.”

On of Lin's students riding in a tire wheelbarrow.

Since she started turning tires into toys, Lin's students smile a lot more. They’re also becoming more physically active and are becoming physically stronger.

“Kids used to not be able to stay in the sun for more than 20 minutes without complaining,” says Lin. “Now our 40-minute PE class feels like a breeze."

In fact, her creations are such a hit that the students are now helping Lin find more tires — and other reusable objects, such as water bottles and old clothes — around town to work with.  The kids are also involved in each step of making new innovations — from designing and engineering to decorating.

Lin’s great work hasn't gone unnoticed. This year, she was one of 100 PE teachers in China who won Nike’s Active Schools Innovation Award.

This award, which was bestowed on her by Yao Ming, China’s legendary basketball player and former Houston Rockets team member, is given to PE teachers like Lin, who bring innovation to sports in schools.  Speaking shortly after receiving the award, Lin could barely contain her excitement.

“I still can’t believe a bunch of tires brought me this honor,” she said.

Meizhen Lin with Yao Ming at Nike's Active Schools Innovation Award. Photo via Nike.

Her efforts earned her fame in her hometown and all across China. Nike created a short film of her teaching in school, which racked up 3 million views within just a few hours of being posted on Chinese social media.

But her new-found local fame won’t divert Lin from her passion to help her students find joy in sport and play.

When Lin first arrived at Xianling Primary school, she had only planned to work there for two years in order to meet the requirements needed to get a promotion and a new job elsewhere. But now, she has no intention of leaving.

“I just don’t think any promotion could compare with these kids," she says. It is clear that she still has a few more tricks up her sleeve for getting the kids moving.

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Facebook security breach affects 50 million accounts

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