Empowering Victims of Human Trafficking with Dignified Employment Opportunities

Recently, a student had the opportunity to travel to Kolkata, India with a team of three other Simon Fraser University students to work at a non-profit organization called Destiny Reflection that has a goal to economically empower female victims of human trafficking by providing them with dignified employment opportunities designing and sewing textiles.

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The goal of the project was to build a partnership between Simon Fraser University and Destiny Reflection to design and produce custom products for students such as book bags and pencil cases. These products would be made by the women at Destiny Reflection and sold on the Simon Fraser University campus to staff and students with the profits being returned to Destiny Reflection to provide funds to hire more survivors of human trafficking.

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While at Destiny Reflection, the development of an inventory system to track finished products, the development of a sustainable nutrition outreach program and grants were processed.

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Even after returning home to Canada, this student was continually involved with the project and has decided to pursue further studies in social inequalities, specifically disparities in economic opportunity, education and gender, and their impact on health. Mahatma Ghandi said that you need to "be the change that you would want to see in the world." With this quote, the student is now determined to be that change.

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The impact the student was able to have at Destiny Reflection, as well as the influence their time in Kolkata has had on their own life, was definitely invaluable.

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