Every Day Miracles

Thanks for taking the step of coming to our website after reading about me in REDBOOK Magazine.  I am truly honored to have been chosen as a REDBOOK hero!  I am a REDBOOK reader too, because I love how the magazine focuses not just on how women look but on the beauty that is inside each one of us.   Our survivors also possess deep inner beauty and courage, far greater than the damage and evil that has been done to them.  They are the true heroes of our organization, and I thank you for caring enough to want to help them. 

The quickest way you can help is to buy a survivor-made product, and spread the word every time you wear it.  You can also make a donation to help support our many programs - the Destiny center in Calcutta, our new jewelry program, the Freedom School for former quarry slaves, jobs and education programs for survivors in Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Uganda and New York, clean water, aftercare and rescue.  Believe me, we stretch every dollar, re-use every box, and keep overhead costs in the US to an absolute minimum so that every donation can go where it is needed most - to help people get free from slavery and remain slavery-free through empowerment and education.

MEET OUR SURVIVORS AND INDIA STAFF - LEARN MORE ABOUT HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND HOW WE FIGHT IT:

Each year we make site visits and take a team of volunteers to work with survivors and high risk kids at our partner shelters. We assess programs, and offer therapeutic art project to kids, teens and adults, to build relationships and to learn more about their needs, hopes and dreams, so that we can provide continuing and meaningful services throughout the year.

On Monday morning, we began our 2 weeks of programming in Calcutta shelters and red light areas, starting with our very own Destiny girls.  After some very silly and hilarious icebreakers, we joined in a forum discussion about women’s rights,  comparing progress and continuing challenges in the women’s rights movements of each.  We talked about the fact that although the girls all consider America more progressive, we have yet to have a woman president or vice president, whereas India has had two women in the two highest offices.

 The girls felt that the biggest difference between Indian and American women is their confidence.  American women have more
confidence, they unanimously think, because we are allowed to make all kinds of decisions for ourselves – what to wear, where and how long to study, who to marry, where to live, if we work, and in what field.  In India, especially among the poor and in villages, male relatives make all these decisions.  Even Becky has to give her father’s name every time she wants to rent an apartment of get a cellphone or Internet connection.  Obviously, this systemic sexism is a huge factor in human
trafficking.  

I’m writing this from the plane, en route to Calcutta, India, to participate in our annual volunteer trip, and to launch a whole new program which will train and eventually employ survivors as silversmiths, a highly respected and marketable trade.   We already sell a range of survivor-made jewelry on our website, but up to now, we’ve bought all the components, and the survivors have designed and assembled them into the finished pieces.  We’ve never before trained survivors to pound, bend, blowtorch, drill, rivet, melt and cast the metal into any shape and de