Bread Baking to media making to picture taking… sure why not?

Rahab’s Rope operations in India have taken a major shift in the last month. In the four weeks that I have been here, the organization has decided to transition its major programs to Vasco de Gama, essentially closing down the training center in Bangalore and moving everything to Goa. As far as the women who have been participating in the program in Bangalore, Rahab's Rope is helping one of their best sewers to start a training program of her own, giving her the sewing equipment she needs to teach classes to women about 2 hours from the city. The other women in the jewelry and sewing programs have been with Rahab's Rope for years, and the organization is trying to help the girls stand on their own two feet and support themselves, because there are so many other commercial sex workers that need help and could be enrolled in the programs.

Doors have continued to fly open in Goa, and its been an adventure to have the opportunity to help Rahab’s Rope establish its first prevention programs, since its previous focus has been aftercare.

1) By investing in two preschool ministries in slums on the coast, Rahab’s Rope is working to combat sex trafficking on the very front end. Children from these two preschools have a 100% rate of entering Standard 1, and for the past 6 years, there has not been a single drop out. In the preschools, the children are supported by caring teachers, taught the importance of education, learn discipline as well as basic academic skills, and are better prepared to enter the government schools by the time they are 5 years old. Rahab’s Rope has committed to funding several students tuition, paying for breakfast/snack programs to ensure the children are getting at least one nutritious meal each day, supplementing the pay of at least one school teacher, and funding programs for the Sunday school.

2) Tuition is the Indian way of saying “tutoring,” and Rahab’s Rope is currently organizing a Tuition Program for Teenage Girls in Birla slum who have dropped out of school. During three-hour lessons, the girls will re-learn material they either failed or missed while they were in school, receive a nutritional snack, engage in fellowship and devotion, and be encouraged and supported on a personal level. The goal of this program is to reach out to the girls who have the highest risk of becoming prostitutes through protection and prevention, keeping them out of the slums during the day and helping re-enroll them in school so they can continue with their education.

3) David, Steph, and I have been conversing and planning and throwing around ideas for a nutrition program as well. There is a medical clinic in Baina slum that is currently vacant, and we have been trying to figure out a way to re-open the clinic by implementing some sort of medical/nutrition program for the slum residents, looking at the clinic as an effective way to identify sex-trafficked victims and commercial sex workers. Prostitutes and victims of the sex industry are often beaten, abused, diseased, and sick, and so by offering medical care, we hope to meet the immediate physical needs of women and children in the slum as well as locate girls that need to be rescued and can be enrolled in one of the Rahab’s Rope programs.

As far as the baking program, I will be setting up the kitchen in the Rahab’s Rope apartment next door to Baina slum, getting the oven and cooking supplies ready for training. When we were in Goa a few weeks ago, one of the women in the stitching class said she would sell some biscuits (cookies) in her store, so I am planning on meeting with her and getting the program rolling. I am currently working on setting up a cost bracket and formula spreadsheet for the 5 products we will bake and sell, and I am really wishing that I paid closer attention during my calculus class last fall…

Along with building relationships with women in the community, I have been spending most of my time putting together media material for Rahab’s Rope, working on brochures, sex-trafficking awareness resources, and other projects. I also had some fun designing a few bracelets and money pouches for the women in Goa to go along with the HOPE Campaign Proposal that I’ve been putting together. “HOPE” stands for Rahab’s Rope’s four-fold approach to fighting sex trafficking in India: Providing HOPE through Healing, Opportunity, Power, and Education…we’ll see how the campaign goes haha…
These past few days, FLEXIBILITY has been a mindset I’ve had to embrace, learning to put aside my own aspirations and just go with the flow…trying to serve whomever, whenever, however I can, even if its not who, when, how I planned. IT’S NOT ABOUT ME has been another message I’ve had to replay over and over in my mind, learning to let go---to let go of expectations, of anxiety, of stress, of frustrations…and to cling to love and hope and humility. I may have come to India to be a bread baker, but if I need to be a media-maker and bead-stringer and picture-taker to best serve the people around me at this moment, then that’s exactly what I need to do.