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Talk about a leader.
Jeremy Lin takes annual trips to Asia in the offseason to greet fans and handle other priorities associated with his foundation.
This past season, Lin has teamed up with two Asian-based charities, One Day’s Wages, whose objective is to raise awareness regarding girls education. As we wrote, Lin donated his game check from the Boston Celtics game on March 17. He will do the same this upcoming season.
The other charity is the Hug Project at the Children’s Advocacy Center in Chiang Mai in northwest Thailand, where Lin spent time this past week. The organization aims “to prevent, protect, and restore children from human trafficking, exploitation, and abuse.” This is especially tough. Lin tour the remote facility, met with leaders, played some hoops with the kids.
Truth be told, it’s rare for NBA players to take a stand on human rights issues, particularly something like human trafficking. It’s even more rare for a player to travel halfway around to world to witness the horror.
On Monday, Eugene Cho, a pastor and humanitarian leader for One Day’s Wages, posted this telling photo of him and Lin walking through one of the red light districts in Bangkok where 10,000 sex workers, many of them children, are exploited. As Cho writes in his caption, most of the workers are from poor rural areas. Most of them did not choose this life.
The concern on Lin’s face is visible as he walks through the tawdry side of Thai tourism. For him, a trip to Asia is not about adulation. There’s plenty of that. But of greater importance, he’s using his voice, his platform to impact thousands of lives.
Good for him.
- Jeremy Lin’s perspective on life rocked after seeing horrors of human trafficking during trip to Asia - Nicolas Parco - New York Daily News
- Seeing the world’s horrors is changing Jeremy Lin - Brian Lewis - New York Post