It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. —Charles Darwin
What a week…or two, it’s been.
So, after the flurry of changes, meetings, research, conference calls and a few sleepless nights, we have selected a charity doing incredible work for women and children who have been subjected to the harrowing experiences of sex trafficking.
Every time we select a charity we extensively research around the cause and researching this particular topic is hard on the soul. Even just the thought of a child or young girl or woman being subjected to that reality is horrifying at best.
The bright side to this is that we get to see many wonderful organisations that are working incredibly hard to liberate, empower and educate the victims as well as educate us: the rest of the world, about this growing human rights issue.
So without further ado, the charity we have selected is the Somaly Mam Foundation. The Foundation works alongside AFESIP Cambodia to rescue, rehabilitate, reintegrate and educate women and children that have been sold into the sex trade in Cambodia. The Foundation works to eradicate sex slavery, liberate its victims and empower survivors to create and sustain lives of dignity.
We’ve added a twist to this year’s approach. Dine for Life has joined forces with Sydney-based not for profit Project Futures, who are representatives of the Somaly Mam Foundation in Australia. The story of how Project Futures started is not unlike that of Dine for Life’s, so when we found the Somaly Mam Foundation and saw that this Aussie posse over in Sydney were also champions of the cause, we gave Stephanie; the founder, a call and proposed a collaboration that would strengthen our ability to raise awareness and deliver the funds raised at Dine for Life’s dinner to the right place.
Cheers to strength in numbers!
Tags: Cambodia, Charities, charity, dine for life, dining, dinner2013, human trafficking, project futures, sex trafficking, somaly mam, somaly mam foundation
