Having taken a roadtrip from the UK through Eastern Europe in January, I'm now on the road (or the air, more accurately) towards the Love146 Round Home in Asia. I have to move quick while the Icelandic volcano is on lunch break. I found myself in a window seat next to a couple of what my dad would call ‘hard working lads’: sun drawn skin from a construction site causing an unnaturally furrowed brow, one in his 50’s the other mid 20’s.

I'm flying out of the UK at a time where the first 3 pages of most tabloids are still the story of the Cumbria shootings of Derrick Bird which left 12 dead. On the morning I leave the headline is "Gunman's Double Life as a Sex Pervert" accompanied by images of a Thailand sex bar with scantily clad girls dancing. My neighbour for the flight introduces himself by showing and tapping his finger on the page stating, ‘Now that’s got to be a bar we need to find.’ Our destination for this flight is Bangkok, Thailand.

I know, I know, we don’t go to the movies for moral inspiration. We go to enjoy a good story, to escape, to feel, to laugh, and for the most part that’s exactly what I did during the movie “Date Night” recently. Unfortunately, Tina Fey crossed a line and ruined my date night. 

“Work the pole like a runaway,” Tina Fey says in a scene in a strip club. I winced, remembering that 1 in 3 runaways in America are approached by a sex trafficker within 48 hours of becoming homeless. At the end of the movie (during the outtakes) Tina Fey adds, “work that pole like a Russian Immigrant,” solidifying the fact that she is poking fun at victims of sex trafficking.

Today is my third day visiting our prevention programme in Moldova. I was especially keen to get out of the capital city Chisinau and see the rural villages. It was not that there isn’t enough to do in the city, but I was glad to balance all of our meetings about the programme with some face to face time with those most at risk.

Gaz here, writing from Moldova where I arrived yesterday at our prevention programme (gladly unaffected by the latest blast of icelandic volcanic ash!) I am here with the team who work on the ESCAPE prevention magazine for youth, with its 3rd edition now close to completion.

I spoke today at a state school for older economic orphans. Most orphans here in Moldova are not the result of deceased parents and war, but of mass economic migration often involving both parents. One orphanage in the city had 74 young people. 73 of these were economic orphans.

Several years ago, our friends at Brains on Fire asked me a question that took my breath away. Partly because of how unexpected the question was, and partly because of how deep the chord struck, when they asked it.