The Long Path to Recovery

By Rachel Curtis, Development Manager

“We teach them first of all: forgive. Forgive the people who do this to you and forgive yourself," said Somaly Mam, who spoke on Tuesday at the second annual Imagine Solutions conference in Naples, Florida. "We say be happy with what you are now.”

Mam, a former sex slave and leader of her own foundation that envisions a world where all women and children are safe from slavery, offers this advice to the victims she helps. Because her mission and many of her methods align so closely with those of Lotus Outreach, when Mam speaks, we listen.

One of her primary axioms is manifest across our range of programs – that victims need more than rescuing. "It takes five minutes to save them. But then what are you going to do with them?" Mam tells news-press.com. We agree – recovery is a much longer, steeper road, and economic empowerment is the best fuel we can give victims who will be faced with paralyzing stigma and discrimination upon their re-entry into society.

Our projects foster economic empowerment in two ways; either directly through skills training and microloans as with NFE and IRD, or through formal education that opens doors to opportunity as with LEARN and GATE. What’s more, our CTC shelter provides physical security and psychological solace on the front line for victims of sexual or domestic abuse and human trafficking. These patients have a choice of the avenues above for their eventual reintegration.

All of these paths meet the same goal: to build confidence, self-esteem and a positive attitude toward the future. Our job, as we see it, is to give our beneficiaries reason to follow Mam’s advice – and be happy with what they are today.