A Business Solution to Fighting Slavery
Location
TEN fights slavery with empowerment, 'slavery-proofing' survivors and high risk communities by giving them economic alternatives and education and using the Made By Survivors products to help build the abolition movement in the US.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Sector Focus
Business
Year the initative began (yyyy)
2005
YouTube Upload
Web site (url)
Positioning of your initiative on the mosaic diagram
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Vulnerability of targeted populations
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Increase community resilience
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic
This field has not been completed. (333 words or less)
Name Your Project
A Business Solution to Fighting Slavery
Describe Your Idea
TEN fights slavery with empowerment, 'slavery-proofing' survivors and high risk communities by giving them economic alternatives and education and using the Made By Survivors products to help build the abolition movement in the US.
Innovation
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence?
TEN fights slavery with empowerment, 'slavery-proofing' survivors and high risk communities by giving them economic alternatives and education and using the Made By Survivors products to help build the abolition movement in the US.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field?
Our innovation is creating the link between raising awareness about slavery and improving the lives of survivors. This solves a core problem for the shelters (limited space and reintegration), creates a new future for the survivors, and offer consumers an easy opportunity to make an impact. For those who want to do more, we provide a path to becoming a modern abolitionist. Shelters that try making products typically find they are very hard to market. We are experts at marketing the products and we link our marketing to growing consumer awareness about slavery.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing?
We help the shelters start or grow their income generation programs and provide free business and product development to our partners. We are also our parners customer and we buy and market their handicrafts. We sell throughout the US in home awareness parties online and in stores and use our marketing to educate US consumers about slavery and how they can become abolitionists. We are building a branded line of Made By Survivors products. By having a recognized brand and strong marketing we help small shelters market thier products to a much larger audience than they could using their own resources. You can see an example of our marketing and how we link our story to education in this article in Family Circle read a recent article about us from Family Circle here www.madebysurvivors.com/images/familycircle.pdf
How do you plan to grow your innovation?
There are more NGOs that want our service than we can manage, so by growing our marketing program, and increasing the numbers of volunteers and reps we have, we sell more and generate the funds we need to expand our business development services. We educated at least 5000 Americans about slavery at Awareness events in 2007, and over 500 survivors were involved in making products for us, part-time or full-time. Our program is growing virally, and we expect to impact twice that many in 2008.
Do you have any existing partnerships, and if so, how do you create them?
We currently partner with anti-slavery NGOs in India, Nepal, Cambodia, the US, the Philippines, the Ukraine, Uganda and Thailand. We create partnerships by offering business development help and markets, then build them with regular contact and volunteer trips, and by following through on our commitments to offer income generation help. We also parter with US abolition groups like Free The Slaves and Polaris. At this point, we get most of our overseas parters when they seek out our help, but we also get referrals from our US partners and the US State Department TIP office.
Impact
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact.
We empower survivors and high risk women/youth to rebuild their lives free from slavery and exploitation, and empower Americans to take concrete action to fight slavery and assist survivors.
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact?
Reintegrating survivors into mainstream society is extremely challenging because of social stigma, and because some struggle with lack of education or with the physical and emotional effects of severe trauma.
In the US, while more and more people are now learning about human trafficking, we still need to get more people to take action and to really commit themselves to the anti-slavery movement. Taking people from 'oh, that's so sad' to 'That is unacceptable and i am going to do something about it!' is a continuing challenge.
Our main business barrier is capital. There are not a of funding options for growing social enterprise. The rate of our growth would accelerate significantly if we had more capital.
How many people have you served or plan to serve?
There is no natural limit on the number of survivors we can serve or the number of consumers we can motivate to become Abolitionists, at least until slavery and trafficking have ended.
Directly
We have reached approximately 10,000 Americans with slavery education at home parties and community events, and are currently employing about 300 survivors/high risk people part time or full time at shelters and prevention programs.
Indirectly
We could site things like website clicks to try to show large numbers, but for us the direct reach is our sole focus. We are happy when we recruit people to help our partners but we don't keep count of those connections.
Please list any other measures of the impact of your innovation?
On my last trip to Calcutta one of the survivors in our Destiny program told me her mother, who had also been trafficked, wanted her to go back the the brother and become a trafficker. Against her mothers wish, she is going to keep her job with us (she is a great designer). We cant easily measure these kinds of results. We cant yet, but hope to, measure things like how many people go to our home parities and then get involved in the abolition movement outside our programs (for example, getting involved with one of our policy or direct service partners)
Is there a policy intervention element to your innovation?
No, at least not directly, but as we recruit abolitionists we partner policy groups.
Exactly who are the beneficiaries of your innovation?
Survivors of human trafficking and slavery. The majority are women aged 16-25 who were trafficked into brothels as children but we are expanding into labor slavery survivors (like quarries) and in doing so reach more men. We also serve women and youth who are extremely vulnerable to trafficking through our work with prevention programs like DEPDC.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)?
So far a combination of personal investment from savings, debt, and internal cash flows through sale of handicrafts. TEN Charities has received mostly individual donations but has had some foundation support. We are seeking all forms of social capital for working capital and growth capital.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization
We currently have four employees and hundreds of active volunteers. While we are happy to disclose financial data to individuals, investors, or donors, we prefer to respond to requests as opposed to open publishing, at least for TEN Inc.. As part of the hybrid model, TEN Charities fully complies with IRS and State disclosure rules but the business aspects of our program as described here are completely separate from TEN Charities. Unless our capital structure changes, all profits from the business are to be donated to TEN Charities. We are not profitable yet.
What is the potential demand for your innovation?
All survivors want independence. While not all survivors will fit into our model there are still many millions we hope to reach. The Made By Survivor's product categories and sales channels are all measured in billions so even small market share goals provide huge opportunity for the survivors.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability?
Access to working capital. We can limit our growth to manage cash flows but would prefer to take the risk of growth and if we don't have access to working and expansion capital we could grow faster than we can support on internal cash flows.
The Story
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
In 2003, Sarah saw a documentary film which told the stories of girls enslaved in Indian brothels. After being rescued, they participated in an Underground Railroad with local activists - rescuing others, working the borders, and raising awareness in remote villages.
Their courage compelled us to find a way to help, and we resolved to dedicate our lives to the issue.
Sarah began volunteering with one the largest rescue and rehabilitation programs, Maiti Nepal. In 2004 she visited Maiti and asked the founder what was needed most. She said their biggest problem was reintegrating survivors and finding them jobs. Maiti had a crafts program for art therapy but was unable to sell the products.
After exploring this problem and researching and contacting other shelters, we resolved to address the problem of trafficking with an economic empowerment model. Many friends and people from our community soon joined our efforts, thus we have been able to grow quickly and add other NGO partners.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material
Prior to starting TEN, Sarah Symons worked both in the nonprofit and business worlds, serving as Program Director and Artist in Residence for Creative Arts Workshops, a program serving homeless kids in New York City. She has
John Berger brings 18 years of Wall Street business experience to the organization, having worked as an investment banker at Prudential Securities, Smith Barney and BB&T. John is a Chartered Financial Analyst and has extensive experience evaluating, improving, and financing business models in a variety of industries.
Emphasis of Work
Prevention, Rehabilitation, Empowerment, Education, Movement Building
 | GORDON CREATIVE ARTS said: I appreciate this is really good work! about this Competition Entry. - 1232 days ago read more > |
| MadeBySurvivors said: Thank you for your comments and your support. We are working on a program to improve the metrics we use to demonstrate and evaluate ... about this Competition Entry. - 1253 days ago read more > |
| Amelia Forrest Kaye said: On July 16, 2008, the judges reviewed the entries for the Changemakers “Ending Global Slavery” Competition and would like to pass on the ... about this Competition Entry. - 1265 days ago read more > |
| A Business Solution to Fighting Slavery has been chosen as a winner in Ending Global Slavery: Everyday Heroes Leading the Way. - 1280 days ago |
| mitideas said: John and team, It has been enormously inspiring to see your work deepen and expand over the last several years. I think your "insight ... about this Competition Entry. - 1281 days ago read more > |
| JMattimoe said: John, I am glad that I had an opportunity to read more about some of your (your organization's) work. The more I read the more I ... about this Competition Entry. - 1281 days ago read more > |
| kathyb50 said: I have seen people that have gone to do work for TEN in India and come back different people....You cannot see these girls and women and ... about this Competition Entry. - 1281 days ago read more > |
| atlascorps said: For two years I worked in India helping coordinate the US Government's efforts to fight human trafficking and I have seen a lot of ... about this Competition Entry. - 1286 days ago read more > |
| Wambui said: Hi John, it is for a good cause, it will change many, i hope you win, best wishes. Rachel www.peacecaravan.wordpress.com about this Competition Entry. - 1288 days ago read more > |
| MadeBySurvivors said: I want to thank you all for your kind comments. I also want to thank Changemakers for putting on the great competition. We are very ... about this Competition Entry. - 1288 days ago read more > |
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Comments
Dear John;
It is obvious that TEN does great work and is making great strides in impacting the lives of survivors. In your entry you mentioned that as TEN expands you hope to be able to reach more men. It would be interesting to hear more about this. Why are men currently a vulnerable population in terms of trafficking? Are they more vulnerable to trafficking, are they underserved, are they hard to reach, any if so why? How would your current programming objectives and strategies have to change to successfully reach men and incorporate them as beneficiaries?
Also, it would be interesting to know what types of products survivors are making, how they are marketed to the public and even a bit about the process of deciding what products survivors produce. It is market-driven, skill-based, or resource-driven?
Keep up the good work!
Laura Cardinal
Public Health and Trafficking Specialist
Laura,
Thanks for your questions. I’ll try to keep my answers reasonably short but it’s a complex and important topic so please ask any follow-up questions my answer might raise. You probably already know a lot about this but since there might be folks reading who don’t Ill try to keep it fundamental.
There are a variety of different types of slavery that people are trafficked into, so while women are trafficked primarily for sexual exploitation or domestic service, men are often trafficked for labor. The reasons men are venerable are the same reasons women are vulnerable: poverty, lack of opportunity, culture, and poor or corrupt law enforcement. Are they underserved? Well, slavery and trafficking in general is one of the most underserved human rights problems in the world, so yes they are, and there do seem to be more NGOs currently working on trafficking for sex than for labor.
There is one other element that to be honest I had not thought much about until this past year. This really gets to the prevention of trafficking. In communities that have a lot of trafficking for sex, like brothel communities and border/transit communities, its obvious the girls grow up vulnerable to be exploited. But we can’t ignore the fact the boys are growing up venerable to be the exploiters. The boys in these communities are future pimps and traffickers.
An NGO that works to prevent trafficking in these communities made a pretty good case to us that it is just as important to educate the boys and give them opportunities for a life that gets them out of the trade as it is for the girls, and having seen their programs work, this makes a lot of sense to me.
You asked how our programming objectives would need to change to work with men. This is not so much a forward thinking policy shift for us as it has been an evolution. We started strictly working with women survivors of sex-trafficking. We then met some great prevention programs working with young women and their families and started working with them (groups like DEPDC). Then Free The Slaves asked us to work with a group of women that had been rescued from intergenerational slavery in rock quarries. They were making beads but needed help expanding the program. (product example - http://store.madebysurvivors.com/product-p/san10glass.htm ) In that case whole families were rescued so we asked what the men were doing. We also have a current need for a group that can do lost wax casting for jewelry and it turns out the men in the community have casting skills. Now we have not set that up yet as we don’t have the resources available, but just because those families have been rescued from one form of slavery does not make them immune in the future. Their poverty, lack of opportunity, and low social status make their daughters and sons prime targets for sex and labor traffickers. So helping the whole family unit is an important part of the prevention strategy and I would be happy to able to work with the men in that community – especially as it would be very practical for us to combine the bead making, and jewelry casting possibility into a really nice and productive community enterprise.
So in a case like that, it’s an evolution. There is a group on the border of India and Nepal that has been asking us to set up a program and this is in a community where the only business is trafficking and prostitution. If we are able to help them I can see opportunities there to help the boys as well, for the same prevention reason I wrote about above.
So we are not talking about making dramatic changes to our program objectives or strategies. We believe in being very focused and have no choice but to be as efficient as possible with our resources. The only area I see that we should make an effort to expand the program about men is with the training videos we use for ambassadors and home parties. We now have a lot of people who have done multiple parties and we need to get them fresh material and use that opportunity to educate them further about other aspects of slavery. So we plan soon to do some videos on labor trafficking and more about men in sex-trafficking.
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John Berger
The
Hi John,
it is for a good cause, it will change many, i hope you win, best wishes. Rachel www.peacecaravan.wordpress.com
Laura,
Im answering the business part of your question separately as the other part was getting long.
We currently focus on jewelry, handbags, homegoods, paper products, and clothing. (see http://store.madebysurvivors.com/ ) This is all meant to be demand driven in that we want to help our partners produce products for western consumers. We start with what our partners already know how to do (like sewing) and we look carefully at other products in their local markets, and what materials and trainers are available locally. But we don’t just buy what they can make just because they can make it, we shape the products to work for a western consumer.
Also, most of our partners don’t know how to figure out things like product or order level profitability, so we help them focus on products that are the best products for them to make.
We market to the public in several ways. Our favorite way is the home party, which as you may know is a $10 billion a year industry in the US. We like that channel because it lets us educate our customers about slavery and recruit the party guests to get involved. This does not just mean recruiting them to host more parties, we recruit volunteers for our other partners as well. It’s a tool for growing the abolitionist community.
We also sell on the web and use traditional product placement marketing to drive that channel. For example, our placement team got us a full page article in Family Circle lately. Things like that drive web sales and party recruitment, and educate a reader base that mostly is unaware slavery still exists.
And we are expanding into wholesale as well. With e-commerce and wholesale we still try to keep an element of education, so we have educational tags on our products and are working on improving educational materials that will go to all our customers. Most of our wholesale customers are fair trade or socially conscious gift shops and they really get behind us and help us educate their customers so we need to create more display based educational material we can give to them.
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John Berger
The
sorry - double post
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John Berger
The Emancipation Network
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
Hi John,
It would be great if you could include some more details about the impact of your work.
Thanks
Dana Frasz
Ashoka's Changemakers
Sorry it took me so long to get to this question about impact. We had one of our Nepali partners in the US this past week working with us on expanding their operations and I was buried in the details of that work.
Our impact is on three different populations. The first population is the survivors and at risk women that work in our programs. I’m going to add a quick story about one survivor below, but these women have been through so much that it is amazing they can function, let alone become successful and live happy, normal lives. But they want the same things all of us do, security, safety, and family, and the jobs they get through our program are an important part of living a normal , happy life.
The second way we make in impact is on the next generation and the community. This means the impact on the children of the survivors and the high risk groups (like the children in the red light districts we work with). Extreme vulnerability to trafficking and slavery is not caused by random bad luck: vulnerability is caused by poverty, lack of opportunity, culture, and other factors that we can change. Basically the community is not strong enough to protect its children. Our belief is that the empowerment, jobs, education, and community strength that is created by programs like ours and many others in this competition, will result in reducing trafficking and slavery.
The remaining systematic impact we hope to make is to help building awareness about slavery and recruiting a generation of modern abolitionists. Most people in the US are unaware slavery even exists, let alone how they can help survivors and end slavery. This is why we don’t just buy the products and market them generically as Fair Trade. We sell Made By Survivor products, and link our selling to education. When a consumer gets one of our products we want to use the product and the materials we send with it to open them up to the reality of slavery and the reality that they can do something to end it. We are especially interested in working with other Abolition groups that need volunteers and funding so we can help recruit our interested customers to help other Abolition groups.
I know this is long but I wanted to add one story to make the point that even the best success stories are at risk of failure if we don’t make systematic changes to ending slavery. This story is about a survivor who was trafficked into a circus in India at about 7 years old. Circus trafficking is part labor trafficking, as they are slaves that are made to perform dangerous acts, and part sex trafficking, as the circuses are also traveling brothels. This survivor was rescued in her teens and had several years of excellent therapy and rehabilitation. As a young adult she went to go work in one of our partners income generation programs, and now sews some of the bags we sell. It is amazing that she could go through what she has and end up where she is as, but this and most other stories are never that simple. She is unable to return back to her home because her parents and community think she is a slut. Trafficked at 7, against her will obviously, and this lost daughter is viewed as a slut. So she has an enormous barrier to feeling like part of a community or family.
One day she went to the manager and said that she was going to leave the sewing work because she we going to the middle east. She was going to pay a recruiter $2,000 that she had saved from work to be sent to the middle east to be a maid. For those of you who don’t know – this is very often a trafficking scam. This young woman, who had already survived trafficking, was about to put herself in a situation that very likely would have resulted in being trafficked again. Because she had a great relationship with the staff, she told them about her decision and they were able to work with her to make her understand the risk she was taking, and happily, she decided to stay.
I tell this story to help explain how complicated and fragile even the best success stories can be. But there is another part to this. Two months after deciding to stay she randomly met a young man she knew as a child from her village. They fell in love and were married, a “love marriage” as it is called in her country where most marriages are arranged. So this survivor now has the kind of future to be normal, have a family, a job, and a happy life that is the right of all people. I believe her children and her community will be at much lower risk of slavery as well.
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John Berger
The
Thank you John - It would be great if you could include some of this information on your impact back into your entry form.
Thanks!
Dana Frasz
Ashoka's Changemakers
Hello,
I am one of those people that don't know much about human trafficking and reading about your project I am thinking it makes a lot of sense to try and help them reintegrate in the society.
Is your work mostly or entirely in the communities where these people live? Do you actually send your volunteers there to help?
Thank you
Yes, and thank you for asking. We work where the survivors are, so thats means red light districts, border towns, etc. We do send volunteers to work with us and our partners. The opportunity does depend a lot on what you can do and how long you can stay. Some places and roles we would only send a volunteer if they can stay for six months. But we also have shorter, two week group volunteer trips that we run as well.
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John Berger
The Emancipation Network
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
Thank you for responding.
The story about the young lady that wanted to pay money to somebody to send her to Middle east to be a maid, after she has been abused for years... it's so sad.
Like I said before, I am one of those people that almost can't believe that things like this are happening in the world nowadays. That's why I am thinking that many of the organizations that are trying to help these people, should incorporate in their regular activities a working side that has to do with build awareness among people in all possible countries. If everybody knows about it, it would not be as easy for the perpetrators to continue doing these horrible things.
I think your organization is doing a great job on both sides of building capacity in the survivors communities and educating people here in the U.S. about the existence of such things.
Thank you.
Liv
Hi John,
Thank you for the important work you do. I live in Portland, OR and work with a local non-profit in the arena of sexual assault advocacy. A couple years ago I attended a training for our crisis line volunteers where a local human trafficking advocacy organization gave a presentation on human trafficking in Portland. I was very surprised to find out how prevalent it is in Portland. The advocates also spoke of how difficult and dangerous their work was because of feared retribution from the captors. Do you find this in your work within the U.S?
Thank you,
Matt Flax
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Portland State University, Current Student
Matt,
Its the folks who do rescue work and operate the shelters that seem to be in the most danger for retribution. So fortunately this is not a problem for us - we just face the risks any traveler would have working in these locations.
I have a great OR story - I was at a conference on human trafficking about two years ago where I found myself talking to a vice cop from OR. He was really out of place at this conference which was mostly US NGOs with a huge group from Catholic Charities and Salvation Army.
So I asked this man why a vice cop was at a conference like this. He told be he had been doing vice work for almost 20 years and had only just recently learned about human trafficking. He told me that in learning about it, he realized that he personally had probably caught, and arrested at least 20 victims of human trafficking, probably more. And of course he released these women back to the traffickers. To him they were just prostitutes and he was completely unaware that they could also be slaves, let alone that they had rights of a victim not a criminal. He was at the conference to learn as much as he could so that others in his department would have the proper training to recognize and help trafficking victims.
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John Berger
The Emancipation Network
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
Dear John
You have an intersting and very relevant initiative going on. Good wishes for the future.
I have a question for you:
What differences do you find in the conditions (physical, social & mental) of the target group associated with your work in developed and developing countries?
Reagrds
Puneet
Puneet,
I should preface my answer by pointing out that there can be a wide range of results for rehabilitation of survivors. Because our program is about longer term employment, we work mostly with high functioning survivors. Some of the shelters we work with have women that are severely scarred, both physically and emotionally. I cant really speak well about that group.
With the group we work with we find remarkable similarities across countries and cultures. There are areas we work where you almost never see women working at all, let alone survivors, but women from those areas have the same core work ethic and personality as any western women. We see a lot of common things like delayed emotional development (they can be 25 but dealing for the first time with issues the way teenagers would). They are often an interesting mix of being very tough and street savy, but also much younger and more emotionally immature then non survivors of the same age.
All in all I am constantly impressed at how resilient human beings can be, at least to their young adulthood.
Does that answer your question at all?
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John Berger
The Emancipation Network
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
Dear John
Your understanding of the scenario is commedable. Also, the fact that you are working in one of the most difficult segments, makes your effort even more significant.
Good wishes for the future
Regards
Puneet
In some of the comments I made above I mentioned circus trafficking. Esther Benjamins Trust just put up this great video showing a raid on a circus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KS6f2z0aH8
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John Berger
The Emancipation Network
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
Hi John,
I think you are closing a gap here that many NGOs and Social Entrepreneurs face, since I see a lot of initiatives on Changemakers who have a great idea and show a lot of intiative, but lack the entrepreneurial skills to work it properly. Also, economic alternatives for slavery survivors seem one of the most important elements of a sustainable strategy. What I don´t quite get right now is how you generate income. You help other people towards financial and organizational sustainability, but where does your money come from? Donations? Governments? Percentages from what your customers produce?
All the best for your work,
Jasper
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Jasper Nicolaisen
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
Jasper,
Thanks for your comments and support. We generate income in the same way a traditional Fair Trade distributer does in that we mark up the products before we sell them to stores or customers.
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John Berger
The Emancipation Network
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
The merger of social and financial responsibility seems complete with this great initiative and clear website. It may seem like a simple observation, but too many initiatives get bogged down in their own weight and then their websites may be overwhelming with information. Your website strikes a perfect balance of information, clearly presented, and then the opportunity to help immediately either by purchasing or getting involved via volunteering or following the links.
When deciding what products you will offer for sale, do you focus on what the communities are already familiar with or do you introduce new designs/products?
Sincerely,
Brad
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Portland State University, Master of International Management, current student
Thanks Brad for you nice comments. Im glad you think the website works. We still do all that in house and I dont think our web design skills are any good at all, so its nice to know we at least have the content right. We are in the middle of a content rethink and are redoing almost every section to have some kind of positive story and call to action, but other than that will keep the current structure.
Good question about products. There is a mixture of both working with what is already familiar and introducing new designs. While there are many times that an local product will be great for the western market, we have to be very careful to avoid what we call the "Carved Giraffe Fallacy". This is a mistake we see groups make all the time. The false logic of the fallacy is "hey - tourists buy this carved giraffe we make, that must mean westerners like it and we can make a business out of selling it in the US!" . That almost never works. You have to sell what people want to buy even when its linked to a good cause. You also sell more when people look at their friend and ask "hey - where did you get that cool X? - Oh this, its Made By Survivors...."
We sometimes start by buying something with a local design that we dont think will sell all that well - but we do it to establish trust with the group. But we always try to move towards designs that sell well in the west - those designs can be inspired by local designs, but not limited by local designs. We support groups that exists to preserve local artisanship, but that is not our primary mission.
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John Berger
The Emancipation Network
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
hi john
i am more than inspired with what you all are doing!
and wanted to touch base with you to see if you are still in need of jewelry designers to partner with your exsisting program? and if so, in which countries are the women making the jewlery as their source of income?
thanks so much for what you do!
melissa tyson
Melissa,
Im sorry that I did not get back to you earlier and will reply via email. We are certianly in need of jewerly designer/trainers as well as tailors, (general sewing also), bag designers, english teachers and many other skills - most of which we have up on our website http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
The best jewerly we have now comes from Thailand - in fact one of those parters Rahab is in this competiton. The area where we need the most help is India.
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John Berger
The Emancipation Network
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
What better way to fight human trafficking and slavery than to go to the root of the problem: poverty. This is the most innovative way to end slavery that I've seen. Not only does it help survivors, it also prevents slavery by involving those at high risk. This is a amazing idea, thank you for making a difference!
Best wishes to everyone at The Emancipation Network, and keep up the great work. Now, off the spread the word about voting for you!
Dear John,
Hello and HUGE CONGRATS! Your work is so crucial and also highly innovative, definitely a winning combination! The focus on handmade arts and crafts serves so many purposes, including adding beauty and creativity to the world, surely something we all need, especially in these challenging and sometimes disheartening times.
The links between skills-building; income-generation; helping women to create a better life for themselves, their families, and communities; the making of a beautiful product that can be enjoyed by many people around the globe; support for fair trade; improvements in health, education, and opportunity; and the concurrent effects all of that will have on trafficking, make this project a necessity for women the world over.
My apologies for being out of touch for some time (due to family health issues and my own caregiving), but I hope I might be more helpful now. In particular, I can still help to network for you in Africa. And I see that you mention needing help in India.
As it turns out, there is an organization very near and dear to me located in Jaipur, that is very interested in your work. They do produce handcrafts already, and address issues related to trafficking, sex work, health, education, and income-generation.
I will be happy to introduce you! They are linked to other orgs, and there are other connections I and we can hopefully help to make there for you.
Thanks again for this inspiring and vital project, and very best wishes and appreciation always, Janet (Feldman, kaippg@earthlink.net)
I
I want to thank you all for your kind comments. I also want to thank Changemakers for putting on the great competition. We are very impressed by the other applicants and finalists.
If we are fortunate enough to win, we have decided to spend the entire $5000 on our new Destiny program, specifically on sewing machines and wages for the survivors. You can learn more about the Destiny program here, http://www.madebysurvivors.com/destiny
In short, the Destiny program is a new production for survivors and at risk women in Calcutta that we have set up in partnership with TEN Charities and four NGO partners in Calcutta. Here is a video of the first few women on their first day at work: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8889388793055158194
Thanks again for all your support
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John Berger
The Emancipation Network
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
For two years I worked in India helping coordinate the US Government's efforts to fight human trafficking and I have seen a lot of projects around the world. I think the work of the Emancipation Network is a critical part of the solution to end slavery.
Good luck!
Scott Beale
Founder, Atlas Corps
http://www.atlascorps.org
I have seen people that have gone to do work for TEN in India and come back different people....You cannot see these girls and women and not have your heart changed forever!!
Thank you TEN!!!!!
with love and admiration,
Kathy Blackwell
John,
I am glad that I had an opportunity to read more about some of your (your organization's) work. The more I read the more I realized that I could be a greater participator once I retire (not that long away). I have lived in India for 18 months; 9 months in Ganeshpuri in Maharastra State at the ashram (Gurudev Siddha Peeth) of my spiritual teacher (Gurumayi Chidvilasananda) and 9 months in Kolkata working with Mother Therese. I'd like to be kept apprised of the efforts of your group.
I wish you continued grace to reach your goals.
In light,
Jan Lalleshwari Mattimoe
John and team,
It has been enormously inspiring to see your work deepen and expand over the last several years. I think your "insight addressed", "Increasing community resilience" is spot on, and should be something that both men and women can pursue together as a necessary goal toward community health and prosperity. I hope your programs will be able to expand to include income replacement programs for men and thus incentive to get them out of the 'trade in bodies.'
Best of luck, to you and the other great people and individuals here working on behalf of trafficked women and children.
lars
On July 16, 2008, the judges reviewed the entries for the Changemakers “Ending Global Slavery” Competition and would like to pass on the following feedback for your entry. Thank you for applying and for your hard work in the field. We are excited to archive your entry to serve as a leading solution for the worldwide community of innovators who are exposing, confronting and ending modern day slavery. We wish you continued luck with your sustainable, innovative, and socially impactful initiatives.
All the best, The Changemakers Team
“This initiative provides economic alternatives and education to people in high-risk communities. It is a fantastic brand backed by a very strong business model and marketing plan. The organization has been quite successful selling ‘Made by Survivor’ products in many places, ranging from local communities to international organizations, including the World Bank. We would encourage a partnership with stop.traffick in Cambodia.”
“We are interested in learning more about how the initiative measures impact, particularly the number of people who not only attend awareness events, but also get involved in the abolition movement through word-of-mouth. The initiative’s programs are a brilliant way to spread knowledge about modern-day slavery to a global audience and expand the network of activists.”
- Changemakers “Ending Global Slavery” Judges: United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Trafficking, International Organization for Migration, Design Within Reach, Vital Voices Global Partnership, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Humanity United.
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The Changemakers Team
Ashoka's Changemakers
Thank you for your comments and your support.
We are working on a program to improve the metrics we use to demonstrate and evaluate our impact, and are working with a foundation to test and measure our ability to recruit abolitionists. So I hope we will be publishing more about this when the study is completed, which should be in the nex 18 months.
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John Berger
The Emancipation Network
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
I appreciate this is really good work!