Emily Parker spoke with Ben Cooley, the founder of Hope For Justice, about his new book 'Impossible Is A Dare', his quest to put an end to the modern day slave trade, why he and the charity are successful, and what inspires him to do the impossible.

Those people who take up that dare are the people that change the world. I wrote a book because I wanted to inspire a generation to not settle for normality, not settle for average, not settle with the problems of our world, but to be world changers and to be people that step out and say, "Yes, we will change the world."

Emily: You mention in the book that people like Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King and William Booth have been people who have inspired you in the past. You use this particular phrase that I loved, about how they use their voices, not just for communication but for creation. How much power do you believe our words have?

Recent raids in Preston where Hope For Justice joined with police

Ben: It's amazing. If you look at the scriptures in Genesis, when God first spoke it wasn't for communication, He had no-one to communicate to. He used His voice and said, "Let there be light" and there was light. That created something. I think that we have that same power, whether you are of faith or of none, your words can start or stop feelings or emotions or concepts. You have power when you speak.

When I speak to our staff, I speak vision into them and it creates something. When I stood on that platform at the NEC Arena and I said, "We're going to end slavery," suddenly some people started saying, "This is what I want to do with my life." It created something. It created a vision that they took hold of and they became part of.

Throughout the pages of history, speeches and calls to action have created legislation that has changed things and created movements. One of my favourite examples of that is Martin Luther King. I mention it in the book, but one of my favourite speeches of Martin Luther King is not the speech, 'I have a dream', although that is a wonderful speech, it's actually the speech that he delivered in Memphis where he was ill.

At that point in time Memphis was going through some riots, and the pastor of the church asked him to come and speak. He was ill and he said, "No, I don't want to come and speak. I'm really tired and sick," but the pastor said, "Martin, we need you. We need the voice of the movement to speak." He got up on stage and delivered this message, and these were the words he said, "I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, we will reach the Promised Land." Little did he know when he said, "I may not get there with you," that less than 24 hours later that man would be shot in Memphis, on a balcony in a motel in the city centre of Memphis. They were words that created something in them of a promised land and a better future.

Interviewing a victim

Whilst there are tensions, just a few years ago there was a black president, and who would have known that those words, "I have a dream, I may not get there with you, but I want you to know there is a Promised Land," created a movement? I fully believe in the power of your words.

Emily: You're so passionate, how do you keep your passion going?

Ben: There are lots of things that keep me going; family keeps me going, my faith keeps me going, friends keep me going, and my work colleagues keep me going. I've realised that in the history of starting Hope for Justice, I needed constant inspiration around me. I needed to be close to the issues, so I needed to make sure I remember the quote that we say at Hope for Justice, 'Remember the why behind the what'. I needed to be so intrinsically linked to my 'why' and I needed constant inspiration to keep going through the battles of starting something; whether that be the financial worries or anxieties, or whether that be the fact of the heartbreak of dealing with what is such a traumatic issue.

One of the things I've learnt in recent years is that a great leader doesn't need inspiration; a great leader is constant throughout every situation. I've learnt now that I'm not going to always be inspired, but what I can do is make decisions through the highs and the lows to be a constant source of passion and a constant drive to the vision. People give up because they've lost their inspiration and their 'why'; they've lost their motivation. Now I've almost taken the emotion out of that and I've gone, "Look, here's a task that needs to be done, I'm going to get it done, and I'm going to see it through to completion." I'm not in the highs or the lows, I'm trying my desperate hardest, because it's not my personality type, to be a constant person that's constantly driving towards a vision to live in a world free from slavery.

Victim

Emily: You've mentioned that you've had friends and family that have surrounded you, not just on a personal level, but also from a work perspective in your colleagues. You've also had the likes of Christian music artists Rend Collective, Natalie Grant and also the actor Tom Lister over the years. How did connections like this form for you?

Ben: All of them are friends of friends. One thing I often talk about at churches and conferences, is that vision takes you places and it's a passport that takes you to different relationships. I think the thing with Tom Lister, who was an actor on Emmerdale for many years and was a well-known British soap star, he heard about us and he tweeted me and said, "I want to connect with you, let's go out for coffee." We ended up meeting in a Starbucks, sharing a few muffins and before you know it we're on a bike from Latvia to Southampton! Rend Collective was the same sort of thing. I was speaking in Northern Ireland and some of them were part of the worship band in my mother and father-in-law's church, so that was that connection. Natalie Grant came through a great friend of mine, Charlotte Gambill. We all sat around a table one day and it was like, we've all got the same heart, we've got the same passion, so let's make something happen.

One of the things I've learnt is that vision attracts people. There's a Bible verse that says, 'Where there is no vision, people cast off restraint', but where there is vision, I believe people flourish. Whether people are well-known or not, people want vision in their lives; they want something that's tangible and real, that's going to change people's lives. Particularly the millennial generation, they want something that's going to make a difference in the darkness, that's going to make a difference to Government, and that makes a difference to the oppressed.

One of the things we've worked so hard at, is not just having an organisation that talks about this issue, but has real, tangible, and measurable outputs. We almost look at it from a business mind-set with a return for investment. We've got a workable model. In some of the areas that we're dealing with in the UK we've seen nearly 10 times the rescues in that city since we started an office in that city. Hundreds of people now are walking free because of the workable, replicable, scalable model that we have.