Me

what can be done?
    When I took an interest in this cause, I knew it was not going to be easy. It’s not that the situation was being ignored completely, because much has been discussed and written on the subject for many years. However, a true awareness of the gravity of what is really going on was lacking. The crime happens on various levels: The term “human trafficking” includes the factories that exploit their workers, prostitution, forced labor, sexual exploitation of minors, servitude, and organ trafficking. Within prostitution, there is child prostitution and child pornography. It is a pyramid with various levels.
    The more I researched, the more I found. I educated myself on even the smallest details, which is how the People for Children project of the Ricky Martin Foundation came to be; through it, we defend children who are being exploited or who run the risk of exploitation. This project, which has been in effect for many years, was born from the rage I felt after what I saw, and all the people whom I met. It is my way of supporting the cause, although I know that the work we do will never be enough. I would like to be able to do so much more.

THE BIRTH OF MY FOUNDATION
    PEOPLE FOR CHILDREN was actually an offshoot of a foundation that already existed, the Ricky Martin Foundation. The foundation was started to help disabled children in Puerto Rico, a project undertaken with the help of the Easter Seals/SER organization of Puerto Rico, through which a children’s rehabilitation center was created. What happened was that Easter Seals/SER already had a rehabilitation center in San Juan, the capital. But there are children who live elsewhere on the island who could not get to this location because of distance. So we created a rehabilitation center in Aibonito, a town located in the center of the island, where people can easily come from farther away. Ever since its doors were opened, children have been able to receive treatment that was not previously available to them.
    Later, when the foundation was up and running, we decided to broaden the spectrum of its functions to bring music to the children of Puerto Rico. And like so many things in my life, the project was born out of sheer happenstance. Or was it?
    My niece, who at the time was attending art school, is a flute player, and she was showing me the flute her father had just bought for her. But while we were talking, she mentioned something that surprised me: She sometimes had to lend her flute to other kids in the class because they didn’t have one. What?! I thought. An island like Puerto Rico, with its beautiful musical traditions, and the kids don’t even have instruments! So I looked further into the matter, and informed myself more about musical education in the school system of my island, and I realized that it simply didn’t exist. I called the Department of Education of Puerto Rico several times, and I discovered that at that time there was not one single desk that was focused on music, and if there was, they just didn’t answer the phone. I don’t know if things have changed since then, but I certainly hope so. Investigating a bit more, I realized that some schools did have music departments with classes and a few instruments, but generally the instruments were already used or in terrible condition, and they are usually scarce. Like in many parts of the world, there are never sufficient funds for education, much less for music.
    The first thing we did was to form an alliance with Yamaha and FedEx to raise $1 million in musical instruments for the schools of Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, I couldn’t participate in the delivery of the instruments, but my brothers and my friend Mireille Bravo, who were in charge of the whole program, organized it so that all the boxes of instruments were placed in the middle of the basketball court. It was a huge success, because the students would show up and say “Wow!” when they saw all the boxes. Even the students who were not enrolled in music signed up so they could have the chance to use the new instruments. The teachers couldn’t believe it when they saw everything that arrived, and, on a personal level, I was happy to see that we were doing something for the future musicians of my island.
    These were the first projects of the Ricky Martin Foundation, which since its inception has been an important part of my daily life. Today the foundation focuses on various fields—we can’t do it all,