Crowdfunding Site Helps Kenyan Home For Sexually Exploited Boys

Arthur Goldberg
by Christine Niles
February 25, 2017
Reproduced with Permission
Church Militant

A Kenyan home for abused boys needs help - and a faith-friendly crowdfunding initiative is featuring the the home as its newest featured project.

Founded by the Jewish Institute for Global Awareness (JIFGA) based on a concept developed by its co-director Arthur Goldberg, fundingmorality.com is focusing the spotlight on the Kenyan Youth Center for Sexually Exploited Boys. According to Goldberg, JIFGA 's mission is to educate people and develop projects to implement the universal ethical and moral values promulgated by God to Noah after the biblical Flood.

Rich male tourists come to Kenya and lure these boys into this lifestyle.

"Rich male tourists come to Kenya and lure these boys into this lifestyle," Goldberg told Church Militant, "and the boys, many of them extremely poor, see it as a way to make quick money and get out of poverty. However, once they experience this life, they come to realize there are numerous damaging emotional, physical and psychological costs."

According to fundingmorality.com , "[A] child prostitute can earn more in a couple of days than a teacher does in a month."

"But boys who end up wanting to leave the lifestyle face ostracism from their families," Goldberg explained, "because homosexuality is considered taboo in Kenya."

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This is where the Kenyan Youth Center for Sexually Exploited Boys comes in to help these adolescents break free from sex trafficking and enable them to go on to lead productive lives. The Life Choices program, an initiative of the Anglican Church in Machakos, provides spiritual and psychological counseling for the boys, as well as everything else they need: food, clothing, housing, education and, most importantly, job training to lead a productive life.

"These boys need to be healed," Goldberg told Church Militant. "They're coming out of an abusive situation where they've been exploited for their bodies."

Begun in August 2015 with only 12 boys, the program now assists almost 40, and the demand is exceeding the home's ability to accommodate them all.

The daily operations are conducted by Peter Mulinge, a former gay-identified social worker who overcame same-sex attraction, and who himself escaped sexual exploitation. He also travels around Nigeria to raise awareness about the topic of sexual abuse of boys. Bishop Joseph Mutungi of the Anglican Church of Kenya, in the Anglican Machakos diocese, established the center, and Rev. Dr. Martin Olando, principal of the Hannington Institute of Theology and Development in Mombasa, provides oversight to the center.

Goldberg recounts that the idea to create fundingmorality.com in 2016 came from his personal experiences. He endured litigation brought by gay activists, who sued his former organization for seeking to help provide resources for people with same-sex attraction.

Brought by the radical leftist group Southern Poverty Law Center, the lawsuit accused Goldberg of consumer fraud, a charge Goldberg vigorously denied. The court, evidencing clear bias in several rulings, refused, for example, to allow him to bring expert witnesses to testify on his behalf. The judge even wrote in the opinion denying Goldberg's use of leading reparative therapists that anyone holding the view that sexual orientation can change is behind the times and then compared these experts to folks who believe the earth is flat.

After protracted and costly litigation, the court ordered Goldberg to shut down operations in December 2015, after which he went on to found JIFGA .

Goldberg commented to Church Militant on the ordeal. "I said to myself, gee, I am fortunate that I could raise the financial costs assessed by the court, but wondered about all the people who can't. I therefore felt called by God to create a vehicle for others less fortunate."

"I also observed how the existing commercial crowdfunding web platforms discriminated against pro-life, pro-family, and pro-religious liberty issues," he continued. "For example, Kickstarter rejected two pro-life films seeking funding - Gosnell and Stolen Moments - while GoFundMe formalized a policy that excludes campaigns in defense of 'claims of discriminatory acts,' an intentionally ambiguous standard which has been used to deny people of faith the ability to seek funding."

I also observed how the existing commercial crowdfunding web platforms discriminated against pro-life, pro-family, and pro-religious liberty issues.

Examples include Arlene's Flowers, a Washington State florist penalized for refusing to provide flowers for a gay wedding, as well as Sweet Cakes Bakery in Oregon, fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple's wedding. Both parties tried to raise money for their damages through GoFundMe, but were rejected for allegedly being "anti-gay" (or what GoFundMe would characterize as "defending a discriminatory act").

"Thus, JIFGA's decision to create a non-profit crowdfunding platform dedicated to raising funds for those who believe in traditional biblical values," Goldberg explained.

According to its website, fundingmorality.com "provides a venue for people of faith to be supported because they will not compromise their moral and biblical convictions and who thus have been persecuted by those intolerant of traditional Judeo-Christian worldviews."

"We thus seek input from your readers as to other situations that may be appropriate for us to highlight," Goldberg told Church Militant. "They may contact us at fundingmorality@JIFGA.org"


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