Me

where there were thousands of fish thrown on the sand, suffocating without water. The man began to toss the fish into the sea. Another man who was strolling by saw this and asked: “What are you doing? You know you won’t be able to save them all.”
    “No, I won’t be able to save them all,” said the first man. And as he hurled one of the fish into the water, he said: “But this one, I can save.”
    The moral of the story is obvious: Every step taken is important. Every effort makes a difference, no matter how small it might be.
    For me this means dedicating even more time to my work as a spokesperson, helping to raise awareness about what is happening. On a personal level, I think I would rather be in the streets fighting in the trenches and saving children every single day. But I know I give more strength to the movement, to the cause, and to the activism if I put on a suit and tie and speak directly to the United States Congress about the horrors that go on. This is why I must speak with the lobbyists, with congressmen, and with all the influential people who can in some way contribute to this cause I have dedicated myself to, because laws must be created and then strictly upheld.
    Sometimes it seems very difficult to me, because I didn’t get into philanthropy to walk around in a suit and tie talking to others wearing a suit and tie. I got into philanthropy because my first contact was directly with those children. It was through this contact with them that I understood the urgency of the situation; seeing the smile of happiness on the face of a child who has been through such horrors is one of life’s most beautiful gifts. But part of what I have learned along the way is that everyone has to help with the tools that have been given to him. So although I could easily spend my days walking through the streets of Calcutta looking for girls to rescue, the fact of my being a person in the public eye creates a whole other dimension of work I can do to help, which isn’t something everyone is able to do.

MAKING NOISE
    GENERALLY SPEAKING, I have always tried to live my life as low-key as possible; when I am offstage, I don’t like to be the center of attention. In fact, when I started the foundation, I wanted to do it anonymously, because I was doing it from a personal desire to help children, not to show the world what I do in order to look good. Many people encouraged me to announce what I was doing, but the last thing I wanted was for people to think I was doing any of it to get attention or publicity. What mattered to me was helping the children in the best way possible, not for people to find out that “Ricky Martin does this” or “Ricky Martin does that.” But some of the human trafficking activists I worked with a few years ago made me see I was wrong.
    “What do you mean, you don’t want people to know?” they said. “That’s nonsense! We need your voice. We have spent years and years doing this, and most people ignore us. But if someone like you, an artist who is well known and respected by the public, starts to scream our message out to the world, don’t you think there will be a difference? People will pay attention to you. Maybe they won’t do what you say, but at least they will pay attention, and that alone is progress.”
    The fact that as an artist I can have the power to convince and create some type of awareness is amazing. Desmond Child once said to me, “Ricky, don’t be ashamed of having that power. Use it! Not everyone has it. Everyone comes to the world with a mission, and that’s why Mahatma Gandhi was and continues to be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., was Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dalai Lama is the Dalai Lama. I am not saying that you have to be like them, but man, when you talk, people listen.”
    People who do it to achieve media attention should not bother doing it at all. They should do it only if it comes directly from their heart. However, I cannot blame the person who doesn’t do it. Perhaps some of my colleagues have not lent their voices to any cause because they have not yet found the one that moves and motivates them. It might be that until now they have not found themselves face-to-face with the problem that will force them to stand up and say, “Enough already!” I worked like crazy for thirteen years before having this awakening. And although it is tempting to think about everything I could have done if I had started earlier, the