By Mike Mercer | President and Founder
We feel particularly encouraged to send along this report to you. While our growth on all reportable fronts remains modest and, more important to us, stable, there has been an internal growth with our staff and work this year that has been astounding. And with a sincere belief that the hand of God is on our work, it feels like a set-up for the years to come.
Winda Winowatan, our Indonesian Executive Director, and I were in Jayapura, Papua late last year. We were there for several purposes that include preliminary discussions toward future police trainings as well as gaining a better understanding of this place that so many of the girls in our care have been trafficked to and rescued from. It was over a dinner that the head of the PPA (the investigative unit protecting women and children) told us that since our inception in North Sulawesi six years ago, the incidents of minor girls getting trafficked to Jayapura brothels has been reduced by 50%. While her number wasn’t a scientific one, rather, a line-of-site estimate, it was a meaningful one to us. We were making an impact. We were changing this impossible-to-change landscape.
I was so grateful for this news, mostly for the sake of our staff, because the day-to-day realities of this very difficult work, like so many things, can sometimes feel a little “one step forward, two steps back.” This gave our people a chance to look back on the work and see miles of progress; to understand that there are so many who they know and love who are living productive lives of their own agency; but to also know that there are countless numbers of girls who have since not been trafficked to these familiar places due to their work.
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By Kallen Hawkinson | Communications Coordinator
By Keren Baldwin | Director of Development, Jakarta
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