On Jan 28th I’ll be traveling to the Gede villages of West Bengal, India, opening a small vocational school for the young village girls, ages 10-17. This project is made possible by our partnership with International Support Affiliates, a 501(c)(3) non profit organization based out of Utah.

Extreme poverty & starvation forces village families in rural India to face impossible choices, which often includes the young girls being forced into prostitution, being forced into abusive child marriage, or being sold into bonded labor - which is literally modern day slavery. As bonded laborers, they’ll face grueling physical labor & years of abuse, and it’s nearly always expected that the girls will be available to the men of the family.

I’ve been working with many of the Gede village families buying & selling the quilts the women make each month. Previously, these women, out of desperation, had no other option but to prostitute, making at most a few dollars a day, but are now able to support their families through our quilt sales!

Unfortunately we can only buy as many quilts as we can sell, so there are countless other families in the villages that we are not yet supporting and those families still face unimaginable poverty.
 

By teaching the young girls valuable, in-demand sewing skills, providing business training, and giving them support in finding a job, they can become financial contributors to their families. Instead of selling their daughters into sex work and bonded labor, it will become more financially beneficial for them to keep their girls at home.

After training, I’ll employ the young girls to sew dresses for Kantha Love, giving them valuable work experience while they find jobs with the skills they’ve gained. This isn't just about teaching a trade - it's about giving these girls a chance at a safe, independent future that their parents and grandparents never had.

Along with ISA, we have raised the money to rent a little building for the school, hired a local expert seamstress to teach the girls and have her salary covered, we have most of the supplies for the school and have enrolled the first 12 girls, with more wanting to join. We still need funds for a few more professional sewing machines, school supplies and hopefully enough to open training up to some of the adult women as well. All other funds we raise will go towards helping families in the village with relief support from the historic flooding that affected this area last year and any other immediate needs they have.

My partner in building the school, Sondra, has been doing non-profit work in India for over a decade and has experience building schools, sewing centers, and supporting village girls in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, & India. She is amazing at making sure every dollar donated helps change lives for these families, while also carefully navigating the social, religious & physical impacts these changes can have on the families.