FREEDOM Kids

I've been back for a few weeks now knowing there was still one post I had left unwritten. I talked about Home of New Beginnings. I talked about VCDF. I didn't talk about us.

If lack of education leads to poverty,

And poverty is Thailand's trafficker,

Then, education is the key to prevention.

In a word, The SOLD Project is about prevention.

The fact is, it costs money to keep kids in school in Thailand. Many of the parents of the kids we are involved with are hard working rice farmers who simply do not make enough money to be able to prioritize education for their children. The SOLD Project provides scholarships for over 60 children and teenagers living in a small village outside Chiang Rai (and there are many waiting for sponsorship!). All of our kids exhibit one or more risk factors for ending up in the sex industry that range from single parent homes to being raised by a relative other than their parents to substance abuse in the home to family members formerly or currently in the sex industry.

The dream is that the cycle will stop with these kids. The FREEDOM kids.

But this business is tough. What our staff has come to is this: Prevention isn't sexy. We don't come home with a bunch of harrowing stories of us rescuing kids who are chained to beds or being sold by their mothers for drug money. We know those stories. We hate those stories. We will be damned if that becomes one of our kid's stories.

I went on this trip excited about many opportunities, but what I was completely unprepared for was how fast I would so deeply care for our kids. I'm absolutely crazy about them. I wish you could know them! They are crazy boys who like showing me their muscles and sneaking up on me from behind. They are tiny peanut girls who giggle unstoppably at anything Pi Nate does. They are teenagers who are learning english and planning what steps they are going to take next to become teachers or doctors.

(Photo by Daniel Showalter)

The SOLD Project is building a resource center in the middle of the village where many of the kids live. Practically, the center will be a place we can hold parent meetings and house long term volunteers. But something I didn't realize before I went there - something I needed to see to understand - was that these kids just need to have a place to BE. And in that light, I think all of SOLD has been individually daydreaming ideas for what that could look like. For me it means a birthday board and science projects and organized after school sports and a library with reading time and puppet shows and Saturday afternoon nail painting with the girls and exposing them to educational computer programs and maybe trying to talk about some public health issues. I daydream of truth being spoken into their lives - that they are Smart. Capable. Beautiful. Interesting. Confident... and Loved! Well loved.

So this post, really, is a primer. Because we need your money to do this. There is nothing I can think of that I want to do LESS than fundraising. But I realized this trip that I just haven't previously encountered something I feel strongly enough about to be asking for money. Rest assured, I've found that thing haha! I think this resource center will be a cornerstone to the SOLD Project in Chiang Rai. I think it will be a lasting place that will, ultimately, allow us to entrust it fully to local staff and free us to grow into other places. But most importantly, it will be a place for the kids to just be.