A Central Alberta humanitarian group wants to help women and children who are victims of human trafficking for the sex trade in Thailand.
Lacombe’s A Better World is partnering with Raise Their Voice to assist Home of New Beginnings, a safe house operating in Bangkok since 2006.
Red Deer playwright Andrew Kooman with Raise Their Voice wrote She Has a Name, inspired by the 2008 discovery of an abandoned storage container in Thailand. Inside were 121 human trafficking victims from Burma. Fifty-four of them were dead.
She Has a Name premiered in 2011 in Red Deer and Calgary and has been on a 13-city Canadian tour since May. It returns to Red Deer next month.
“When we first did the premiere, people responded so deeply to the play we felt a responsibility to direct them to opportunities for action both locally and internationally to address human trafficking,” Kooman said.
While the play is creating awareness about human trafficking, A Better World is helping fundraise and will implement the improvements projects at Home of New Beginnings.
The home focuses on counselling, life-skills training, opportunities for education, and spiritual healing.
“It’s a place where girls and women who have left the sex trade can become healthy and financially sustainable.
“Basically it’s a place where they can recover, gain life skills, build healthy relationships with people who don’t want to pay for their bodies.”
The facility currently has 17 residents, ages 11 to 33.
A Better Word projects to assist Home of New Beginnings include $9,000 for vocational training equipment, $18,000 for two motorized rickshaws, $9,000 for a training facility, $12,000 for an outstanding payment on the property, and $5,000 for the gift shop where residents sell baked goods and other products they make.
Eric Rajah, co-founder of A Better World, said the projects are “direct and specific ways” to assist the children and women.
“It might be a drop in the bucket, but still that drop would be missed,” Rajah said.
Raise Their Voice is a group of five family members with previous connections with Home Of New Beginnings.
Raise Their Voice and A Better World began discussions about a year ago.
“We are so inspired by the work A Better World does. That they have partnered with us is really exciting,” Kooman said.
She Has a Name returns to Red Deer Oct. 2 to 6 to close the tour at Scott Block Theatre. For tickets call 1-800-838-3006.
For more information, visit a-better-world.ca or shehasaname.net.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com