10K for 10 years

The original blog post can be found at http://chabdai.org/blog/2017/11/26/10k-for-10-years.

Ten years ago, I was working for a small child protection consulting company in Canada, writing policy and (slowly) learning how to apply all my theoretical undergraduate knowledge to the real world. I was also learning how to be married to my husband of 3 months, and we were excitedly saving and planning to leave the next year for our first overseas placement. Where and doing what we were unsure, we just knew we wanted to go!

Charlie and I got married in 2007
Photo cred: Michel Tremblay

I applied to every internship under the sun – in Africa, of course, because I had focused most of my International Development Studies on African development – and never heard back. In the midst of knocking, pounding, and kicking on every door, my boss sent me to represent the company at a conference on child trafficking and exploitation. And I met a certain woman named Helen Sworn.

I interviewed Helen for a concept note I was writing for my company and we hit it off. I learned about what Chab Dai was doing in Cambodia, and immediately gained a deep respect for their values and approach. Well, to make a long story short, it turned out Chab Dai needed someone to do exactly what I knew how to do – write Child Protection Policies!! And, very providentially, Chab Dai’s partner, Child Helpline Cambodia, also needed a volunteer, for which my husband was well suited.

We went to Cambodia for the first time in September 2008 and spent
6 months interning with Chab Dai.

When Charlie and I went to Cambodia for the first time in 2008, we were well aware that our experience in the anti-trafficking sector would either tear us down or light a fire that would not easily go out. Ten years on, we are both still very committed to this sector and to Chab Dai. Over the past 10 years, I have held multiple positions with this organization I love so dearly, as a volunteer, paid staff, co-founder of Chab Dai Canada, and now as a board member with Chab Dai International.

After grad school, we moved back to Cambodia in
2012 and have been here ever since.
Photo cred: Tiffany Tsang

What better way to celebrate 10 years than to run my first 10K marathon?! On December 3, I will run the Angkor Wat 10K and I’d like to invite you to donate $10 to Chab Dai for my 10K. As we all know, the fight for human rights is a marathon, not a sprint, and I hope the skills, passion, and knowledge I have gained in the past 10 years will propel me on for the next 10!

Post from my first ever run on May 24, 2017

To commemorate my 10 years of involvement in this sector, here are 10 things I have learned:

1. Human trafficking is not just sex trafficking;
2. Human trafficking is not just about movement, but about vulnerability;
3.  If we want to understand vulnerability, we need to understand injustice, poverty, and discrimination;
4. We can cause more hurt if we do not help in thoughtful ways;
5. I am not a savior and the solutions are so much bigger than me;
6. Survivors of trafficking are not homogenous, they are as diverse as all human beings;
7. The anti-trafficking sector needs more than “rescuers,” it needs researchers, social workers, writers, artists, psychologists, fundraisers, community workers, foster parents, business owners, etc.!
8. Victims/survivors want to be treated with respect, not pity, and we need to be careful about how, when, and why we tell their stories;
9. Trafficking and exploitation are a spectrum, with coercion and choice playing varying and nuanced roles;
10. If we want to end human trafficking, we need to fight for all human rights.

If you wish to join me in support of Chab Dai, you may do so by donating here.

Thank you!! 

Unemployed.

4 lessons from a period of non-work

This year has been a year of "redirection," a year I decided I would stop taking short-term contracts in areas I liked to try and pursue a vocation I love. Anxiety, fear, and low self-esteem promptly ensued. But I have stayed at it, and I feel like I'm actually learning some things. 

Here are 4 of my big lessons this year.

1. We are incredibly loved and supported.

Over the last year, we have struggled financially. Taking time away from work because E was born, and then taking time away from work because of my decision to redirect my career have taken a toll on our budget and bank account. And yet we are making it. Last year, in a particularly strained month, our good friends casually gave us an envelope with $400 in it. This past week, in the aftermath of our home invasion, friends and family have graciously and unceremoniously given and sent us money to help cover the losses. We have also received incredible words of comfort and encouragement and have felt our entire community lift us up in prayer and support. As I have struggled to find my way in a new career path, our supporters have been patient and they and our wider community have loved me so well through all my uncertainty, impatience, and tears. Like never before have I felt the beauty and comfort of my village.

I hope I do not take it for granted.

2. We are incredibly privileged.

Even though we have struggled financially, we know for a fact that we will be ok eventually. We will make money eventually. We are taking money from our line of credit this month to buy a car, confident that we will pay it back pretty soon. We are both well educated, we have a vast safety net (as evidenced above!), we buy international health insurance, and we have a privileged notion that hard times are temporary. And it is clear as day that this is not how the majority of the world lives. And so, even though we’re in a “dry” patch right now, we are still stewards of our income and possessions, and ever humbled by the privilege we have luckily inherited.

I hope I use my privilege to build up others.

3. Taking time away from work really does give you room to think.

The idea I had at the beginning of the year of what type of work I would pursue is a little different from what I am gravitating towards and pursuing now. And that evolution happened because I actually took time away from working. I made the decision to not take any contract that came my way, but to be “picky” and, as of August, only apply for full-time work. As much as this caused me anxiety, it also gave me room to think, network, and ask myself (and others) the tough questions about how I want to engage in the development sector. And the answers have led me in a different direction than I was expecting but am now incredibly excited about.

I hope I can remain reflective as the process continues.

4. My worth is not in my work.

Yes, I am guilty of placing far too much of my self-worth in the job I have and my professional/academic achievements. I have been to some dark places this year where I have felt like I was drifting because I wasn’t employed and didn’t know when I would be (I’m still there, but not feeling so dark). Meanwhile, Charlie got an amazing promotion and is feeling more fulfilled than ever in his career. I am so proud of him and my heart is so full seeing him so passionate. Although I’m not jealous, it was a stark contrast to my seemingly aimless professional period. And then my Mom reminded me that we are not in Cambodia just “to work” and that work is not who I am. This year I got to spend tons of time with my kids, went on play dates and coffee dates with friends, and I got to know a beautiful and supportive community of stay-at-home moms. I also have a lot of friends who are figuring out their own career paths, and I have felt a deep sense of purpose when chatting with them about similar issues we are wrestling with.

I hope I can hold true to a deeper sense of purpose when I become employed.

Have you ever felt adrift in your professional life? How do you balance your sense of self when it  comes to "work/life balance"? Any tools or resources to share in this areas?

3 Things that Scare me About Taking a Leap of Faith

It's time. Time for a leap faith.

After dedicating much of my work time over the past few years to Chab Dai projects, I've decided, after a lot of prayer, discernment, conversations with mentors, family, and friends, tears, dreaming, and anxiety...

I have stepped away from contractual work with Chab Dai and am working on building up my skills and experience to work in something I feel a strong passion and calling for. It's hard to know what to call it, because it could take many forms, but basically I am pursuing my calling in economic empowerment. Whether that is community economic development, social enterprise, economic resilience and reintegration programming, or research and model testing, I'm not sure. I'm open to all of it! 

A few weeks in, and I am pretty evenly split between utter excitement and talking myself out of a panic attack. Because it's scary. I'm scared. And this is what scares me most:

1. Financial uncertainty: after writing a research report on the subject, I self-diagnosed: Hello, my name is Julia, and I suffer from financial anxiety. Making the decision this year that I won't take work unless it is in the economic development and research realm has meant we're living really tight. And that's OK (that's Charlie talking). We're able to cover our basic expenses every month. And of course that leads me to feel incredibly guilty that I even feel anxious because we live in a country where many people can't say that. But there you have it: I worry about eeking it out every month.

2. What if I'm not good? What if up until now I've taken the easy road and excelled because I wasn't pushing myself and now that I go after what I really truly want to do, I fall flat? What if I'm all talk and can't deliver? What if I'm a fraud? No matter how much someone (*ahem*Charlie*) can tell me logically why I'm ready for this, that little voice is there, telling me I'm not.

3. What if I can't actually balance work/parent life? Since S was born, I've worked, quite a lot, but never in a full-time, 9:00-5:00 job. I've been able to make my own schedule, which worked great, because I wanted to have the flexibility to take a morning here or a day there to be with my babies. I think I'm ready for full-time work, but I haven't tried it yet, so what if it doesn't work? 

So that's it. My three biggest fears this year. Welcome to my panic attack.

Here's my antidote to fear and anxiety: prayer. I'm 100% serious. When I feel the fear creeping in, the anxiety taking over, I try to sit down and meditate, focus on communing with God, and most often it calms my spirit. It doesn't mean the fear and anxiety go away forever, but sometimes it's just enough to get me through the day. And not only does it calm the anxiety, but I often end meditating being reminded of the excited part of this journey. I'm going after my dream! I'm following a calling! I live in Cambodia and it's pretty awesome!

And I think, "See you later, fear and anxiety!" (And I do.)

5 Reasons We Do What We Do

This year we got 2 Thanksgiving dinners! One with dear friends, cozy chats, and amazing food, another at a good friend's restaurant, where we met new people, had equally amazing food, and almost got blown away by a tropical storm! Take a look at our stormy meal here!

Thanksgiving makes me reflect on the providence and blessing that has been our calling here in Cambodia, and recently got me thinking about all the many reasons we "ended up" here, doing what we do.

Sometimes when our parents tell people who don't already know us what we do, a common follow-up question is, "Do you fear for their safety?" And the answer is (mostly), "No, not really." And it's not because our parents are cavalier about our safety (there's a reason I don't show my Mom pictures of our whole family on a motorbike), but it's because the type of work we do in anti-trafficking is not really of the "unsafe" variety.

We're not directly doing investigations, rescue operations, or survivor aftercare. Charlie works in human resources, volunteer management, and organisational development, while I do a lot of research, strategic planning, and program support and development. 

We could be doing something else, somewhere else (yes, we are hoping our skills are transferable!) Why this? Why here? Why now? So here are 5 of the reasons we have chosen to do these things in anti-trafficking, in Cambodia.

One of the many gorgeous views from our apartment in Phnom Penh

1. We're not social workers, police officers, or counsellors

• In order to do direct work with survivors of trafficking, one usually needs a background in one of these or related areas. But there is a need for so many types of skills in the anti-trafficking movement. A movement needs all kinds of people to make change. So we have found a way to use our own skills to join the movement against exploitation, slavery, and abuse.

2. We are skilled, and are committed to using those skills to participate in change-making

• Through a long road of education, internships, mentoring, reading, and other work experience, we came to Cambodia and found we could apply skills learned elsewhere to contribute to the anti-trafficking mission. We love being part of something big, and we hope we're a part of making change in the world for the better.

3. We believe in doing with, not doing for

• One of our favourite writers is Bryant Myers, who wrote Walking with the Poor, and we are challenged to look at why and how we participate in development and human rights championing in ways that empower and strengthen our Cambodian colleagues. This often means doing more "behind the scenes" work, rather than frontline work.

4. We're passionate about how development and human rights are intrinsically linked

• We love discussions about human trafficking in the framework of human rights and development, and using our development background to understand the issues within the big picture of human capabilities. It is helpful to have people from many walks of life and work sectors come together to form a holistic view of community transformation.

5. We're excited about change and hope in Cambodia

• We don't know for sure how long we'll be in Cambodia, but we are both so in love with this country and find it incredibly exciting to be here during this time in its development. There is a lot to do, but there is also hope for the future, and it's exciting for us to be part of that.

We feel so thankful for being where we are, being challenged and contributing to something we believe in deeply.

Why do you do what you do? What are you thankful for?

Books We Love

Charlie and I both LOVE to read. Our reading styles are very different; if I love what I'm reading, I'll say, "Charlie, you have to read this book!" upon which he will either later read or not read the book in question. On the other hand, if Charlie is enjoying what he's reading, he likes to interrupt whatever I'm doing to read whole excerpts aloud to me, upon which I either graciously stop what I'm doing and listen, or snap, "Just a minute!" and proceed to listen or not listen to what he's saying.

It's not a perfect system. But we're working on it.

And we both LOVE to read!

And so, in honour of our love of the written word, here are our respective Top 10 Books That Have Had a Lasting Impact on Our Lives.

Julia

It took me a while to be OK with making this list, and then I remembered that I don't have to commit to it forever and ever, and I acknowledge that it may change, A LOT, in years to come. My main method for choosing my books was to choose ones that I enjoy going back to read wether in whole or in part, or books that touched me deeply and I kept thinking about long after finishing them. So here goes, and in no particular order:

1. Walking With the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development by Bryant Myers
2. Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
6. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard J. Foster
7. The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis
8. The Giver by Lois Lowry
9. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo
10. The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version

Charlie

1. Dune by Frank Herbert 
2. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
3. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere
4. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
5. Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
6. Walking with the Poor by Bryant L. Myers
7. Ordering your Private World by Gordon MacDonald
8. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9.  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
10. The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs

The Importance of a Learning Spirit

Originally published at Along the Paths of Justice, the Chab Dai team blog

Charlie and I recently met with two social entrepreneurs from Australia who are interested in replicating their very successful social enterprise cafés in Cambodia as a transitional employment and training venture for survivors of trafficking and exploitation. So much of our conversation was inspiring and interesting I thought it should be shared!

Their original idea coming in was to run a four-story center, including large café, training center, and housing for their employees. Through our conversation, and the couple others they had had in the less than 24 hours since they arrived in Cambodia, their minds were already changing to adapt to the environment!

Although he now works for an NGO, the lead on this project is first and foremost a businessman, and knows this is where his strengths lie! And he really loved Chab Dai’s ethos of collaboration, and the idea of sticking to one’s core competencies. When he heard that we already have a number of aftercare program members, whose competencies lie in counseling, trauma recovery, and survivor reintegration, he quickly started to re-evaluated his plan, and started thinking about how to build a business that could support those organizations.

He was also told by a number of people that sit-down, higher end cafés have already saturated the market in Phnom Penh, but when he visited a well located gas station coffee counter and saw a hundred clients waiting for coffee at 8:00 a.m., he knew this model could be successful in other key areas of the city.

They also recognize Cambodia has the largest number of NGOs of almost any country in the world and prefer to join the cause as a socially minded business, rather than an NGO doing business. One of their top priorities is financial sustainability, and using business to prepare young survivors to integrate into mainstream economic activity.

This new social business idea is still in its nascent stages, but what I loved about meeting these two visionaries were their flexibility and willingness to learn in a new environment. They are excellent at what they do in Australia, but recognize they need to adapt their model, marketing, and plan to the needs of both the Cambodian market and the survivor group with which they want to work.

This is the type of collaboration and open-mindedness we love to see in our partners, and we are excited to see the direction that they will take when they finalize their plans.

The Economics of Freedom

by Julia Smith-Brake

Originally posted at Along the Paths of Justice, Chab Dai's team blog.

Speaking of heroes, I recently got to meet one of mine. At the beginning of March, a few of us from Chab Dai were lucky enough to receive some coveted tickets to a Social Business Hub event to hear Professor Muhammad Yunus speak. Having had the opportunity (and squandered it!) a couple years ago to meet another development hero of mine, Amartya Sen, I was not going to chicken out this time!

The event was wonderful, it began with a panel discussion on the infrastructure of social businesses which included the different definitions of what a social business is, the biggest challenges that can arise and the kind of achievements you can expect in this sector. After a session of workshop presentations, Professor Yunus gave a thorough and superb talk emphasising the concept of freedom within economics. At the end of the event, a Cambodian social business acrobatic group, Phare, gave an amazing performance.

What I love about leaders such as Mohammad Yunus and Amartya Sen is their ability to link, so eloquently and well-thought out, the connections of economics to freedom. Sen’s theoretical model is based on helping individuals and communities achieve freedom. This freedom can be economic freedom, personal freedom, societal freedom and/or the freedom to be who they want to be. Ultimately, all development should be viewed through the lens of freedom. Yunus’ foundational logic for lending money to the poor, which led to the creation of microfinance itself, is essentially, “If I lend money to the poor myself, they won’t have to go to a loan shark, and they will be free!” So many of the poor stay poor or sink even more into a cycle of debt and poverty because of predatory lending practices; and though there is no such thing as a silver bullet in poverty reduction, Yunus saw microfinance as a powerful tool to combat the violence of these practices.

As an aspiring economic sociologist engaged in counter-trafficking, this is music to my soul. It also, in my opinion, promotes the thought that communities have within themselves the potential to end exploitation and trafficking, and the counter-trafficking community’s job is to come alongside them to enable and support their journey to freedom.

Yunus is an inspiring person; after all the challenges he has faced, he remains so positive and hopeful for the future. He truly believes this generation’s youth has the most power and potential in history, and keeps pushing the boundaries of innovative business and economics. At the end of his address, he said (paraphrased), “Poor people are like bonsai trees, there is nothing wrong with the seed, society just didn’t give them room to grow. We need to fundamentally change the system to give them room to grow.”

I am a big believer in “doing with” in development, not “doing for,” and Yunus’ ending words inspire me. Fighting poverty and violence not only requires giving the poor and the oppressed space to grow and achieve their potential, but also working tirelessly to change a system that accepts the status quo and allows a continuous cycle of violence and poverty in the world.

Along the Paths of Justice

One of the links from our blog is for our Chab Dai team blog. The members of the international team take turns writing about issues having to do with human trafficking or human rights. It's sometimes program-related, but mostly it's a space where we can share our thoughts as counter-trafficking practitioners and researchers.

From time to time, I will share the same post on both this blog and the Chab Dai blog, but in case you want to read some of my old posts on Along the Paths of Justice, you can do that here.

Also check back in the next week as I will have a post published on my recent encounter with Professor Yunus of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank!

Oui, allo?

A word that a lot of Christians use, and I try to use well and meaningfully, is "calling." I am often keenly aware of why and how I use it, mainly because it may not mean much to those outside a Christian (and perhaps a narrow segment of Christian, at that) culture.

What is calling? What is calling to me?

I recently responded to an online survey for humanitarian aid workers and one of the questions really got me thinking.

[Sidenote: Are you a humanitarian aid worker? Take the survey here! It takes about 30 minutes.]

The question was:

Which statement below *best* describes your primary reason for becoming an aid worker?

• Ended up as an aid worker by accident or "unintentionally"
• I felt called by God or a higher power
• I was following my dream to provide aid for those less fortunate than myself
• I needed an adventure in my life and being an aid worker sounded like a good idea
• I could not find any other employment
• I followed a friend or significant other into the field of aid work
• None of the above even comes close to articulating my reason for becoming an aid worker.

As I read "I felt called by God" I thought, "Of course, that's the one." Until I read the next line, and then I had a mini brain explosion. I stared at the two options for a good couple of minutes, talked to Charlie, stared a little longer. And came to the conclusion that both answers are the same for me, and that one doesn't even follow the other, but they are weirdly and beautifully intertwined.

I believe that God uses what I am passionate about to call me, while also being the source of that passion. I think calling is about using my God-given gifts (which I have tried to steward by developing into usable skills), resources, and passion to live a life that is other-centered. 

God is love. Jesus was all about loving and serving others, especially the vulnerable and marginalised. This doesn't mean everyone, or even every Christian, needs to work in some form of humanitarian aid, but it sure does mean we need to treat the vulnerable and marginalised with dignity and respect, as Jesus did. 

Working in development and human rights is how I live out this "calling."

As always, still haven't figure it all out. Does anyone? How do you see your "calling"? Do you have issues with the idea of "calling" in the first place?