This Guy Rode His Unicycle from Canada to Mexico to Fight Human Trafficking Paul Caridad - Visual News
go to original October 31, 2014

As if the 2,755 mile Great Divide mountain bike trail from Banff, Canada to the Mexican border weren’t difficult enough, Gen Shimizu tackled it on a mountain unicycle! With a mission to raise money for Polaris Project and bring awareness to the modern day slavery that is human trafficking, he spent 88 days on the trail and documented his journal entries each night on his blog. Considering the fact that the profits from human trafficking exceed Google, Nike, and Starbucks combined, Shimizu’s efforts were much needed. From the contributions of people following the trip, Shimizu was able to raise $10,000 for Polaris Project.

He explains:

    I rode my first unicycle when I was 10 years old. When I think back to that time in my childhood, I couldn’t comprehend how people could allow something as horrendous as slavery to happen. Today, I’ve woken up to the reality that slavery still exists. How can we allow people to be bought and sold, abused and exploited? Right now, there are young girls, children, men and women who are slaves; they are sexually exploited, forced to beg, forced to work. It can be hard to know how to help, how to actually make a difference – but we can, and it starts with making people aware of the problem.

There are more people enslaved today than at any other time throughout history and the average price for a slave today is just $340 versus the adjusted rate of $40,000 back in the 1800s. Learn more about these horrifying statistics and what you can do to help at the Polaris Project website.

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