12 Days of Reclaimed

Starting on Dec. 1, we began sharing businesses and nonprofits that sell amazing gifts that you can give this Christmas. These organizations fight sex trafficking in various ways, so you can rest assured that as you give to your loved ones, you're also giving to trafficking survivors around the world! Below is a list of all twelve companies that you can shop from this Christmas and all year long!

 DAY 1: Eden Ministry

http://edenministry.org/

Eden Ministry sells gorgeous jewelry (such as the Change the World Collection, pictured here) that serves a higher purpose: To restore freedom for the captives of Asia’s red light districts through holistic programs that transform the body, mind and spirit. They even provide career and skill training, which empowers women for a new life and future.

DAY 2: Sari Bari 

http://saribari.com/

Sari Bari doesn’t just create amazing bags, home décor, and apparel. They give women who have been exploited in the sex trade or who are vulnerable to trafficking a change to experience a new life in the making. They provide employment in a safe, loving environment, where women are trained as artisans.

DAY 3: PURPOSE Jewelry

 http://www.purposejewelry.org/

PURPOSE Jewelry provides professional opportunities to young women rescued from sex trafficking while creating beautiful jewelry. Their nonprofit, International Sanctuary,

and includes education, health care, and counseling.

DAY 4: Rahab’s Rope 

http://www.rahabsrope.org/

Rahab's Rope sells boho chic scarves, bags, accessories, and jewelry to give hope, but their real mission is to give hope and opportunity to women and girls who are at risk or have been forced into the commercial sex trade of India. With their help, the women and girls grow and develop physically, mentally, and spiritually.

DAY 5: Thistle Farms

http://thistlefarms.org/ 

Thistle Farms has gifts for her and for him! They’re a powerful global community of women healing from prostitution, trafficking and addiction that employs 50 survivors through their social enterprises.

DAY 6: JOYN India

http://www.joynindia.com/

JOYN is a socially-conscious fashion brand that sells handbags, wallets/clutches, accessories and more that are 100% handmade my local artisans, who are provided with steady jobs, education, vocational training, medical, and a daily meal plan.

DAY 7: Love Calcutta Arts

http://lovecalcuttaarts.com/  

Love Calcutta Artsis known not just for their cards/stationary, notebooks, and sari blankets but also for providing girls with the economic freedom of a job as they promote their holistic freedom in an effort to restore their sense of dignity and self-worth. 

DAY 8: FASHIONABLE

https://www.livefashionable.com/

FASHIONABLE's beautifully designed leather products, jewelry, scarves and more create jobs for women around the world! The company originally started when Barrett (one of the founders) was living in Ethiopia and met women coming out of the commercial sex industry who were in need of jobs. 

DAY 9: Freeset

http://freesetglobal.com/

Freeset sells trendy bags, scarves, and tshirts. This fair trade business offers employment to women trapped in Kolkata's sex trade. Their goal to see the 10,000 sex workers in their neighborhood empowered with the choice of leaving a profession they never chose in the first place.

DAY 10: Sudara 

https://www.sudara.org/

Sudara's PUNJAMMIES® can help the men and women on your gift list stay cozy, comfy while they support a cool cause! These items are made proudly in India by women working to remain free from sex slavery. 

DAY 11: Good Paper

http://www.goodpaper.com/

Good Paper's greeting cards give you the opportunity to send Christmas cheer to your loved ones as you support sex trafficking survivors abroad! Their cardmakers are women who have escaped sex trafficking in the Philippines and young adults orphaned by disease in Rwanda. 

DAY 12: Malia Designs

http://www.maliadesigns.com/

 creates messenger, tote, and cosmetic bags as well as many other recycled and fair trade products. Their goal is to increase economic opportunity for women in Cambodia and to support organizations that fight human trafficking in Southeast Asia.

Meet an Abolitionist: Taylor Almquist

BRINGING THE HOPE OF CHRIST TO THE DARKNESS

Reclaimed leadership team member Taylor Almquist with her husband, John

I was first exposed to true poverty during my junior year of college at a church in Waco called Church Under the Bridge. Out of that experience, God awakened a deep desire in my heart to respond with some form of mission or non-profit work. Shortly after, I discovered Word Made Flesh (WMF), an international organization committed to serve Jesus among the most vulnerable of the world’s poor.

When researching WMF, there was one trip that stuck out: Kolkata, India, where I would have the chance to work with women who had been trapped in the sex trade. The previous year, I had gone through a deep depression and only walked out by trusting the hope and light found in Christ. While I didn’t personally understand the evil of trafficking, I wanted to bring these women the same hope and light that I had found in Christ — the solution to it all. Despite everything else going on in my life (job applications, college graduation, etc…), I knew that I was being pulled to go to Kolkata. Just a week after accepting a job offer, I heard back from WMF, and I was invited to join in on the four month trip that fall. By God’s grace and hand in it all, the company deferred my start date. Within a few short months, I was in India.

I remember stepping off the plane like it was yesterday … I had just met the two women in the Dallas and Frankfurt airports with whom I would spend the next four months learning, mourning, and fighting trafficking. We had each attempted to prepare for the realities of trafficking leading up to the trip through reading, but the books only say so much. Our time in Kolkata was mainly spent working alongside and building relationships (no matter how broken our Bangla) with the women of Sari Bari, an organization created by WMF that employs women leaving the trade. This enabled them to find alternate employment and also to seek healing and restoration found only in Christ.

Each day as we walked up the stairs to the Sari Bari units, people would greet us by saying “Joy Jisu,” which means “Praise the Lord!” We began each morning with a devotional and some of the sweetest praise and worship in Bangla. Soon after, the ladies would go to work sewing hand-made blankets and other goods made of recycled saris. This was a perfect metaphor for the beautiful work He was doing with their lives — old saris that had been left and broken were redeemed and made new. Sari Bari provides a space for the women to create these beautiful items, but also desires to raise up strong leaders and managers within the organization, further empowering them and the redeeming road ahead.

I went to India wanting to share the hope and love of Christ, but I took away so much more …

It was easy for me to be full of hatred toward the men and abusers of these women, but while I was there, the Lord tremendously softened my heart toward the ones I would have called enemies. I had not stopped to realize that the johns, pimps, madams, etc. are just as enslaved as the victims of trafficking are. The root of their pursuit for money, power, and pleasure is simply a desire to fill a void within, and it becomes a cycle for them. It was challenging to get a very close glimpse into each end of the spectrum of the trafficking world, and to find my heart flooded with compassion for the johns, pimps, and madams, etc … because they are people just like me — broken and in need of our savior, Jesus Christ.

Now I have the opportunity to educate people about the worth and dignity of women and men because of who they are in Christ. Through the leadership team at RECLAIMED, I’m able to connect with people, get them plugged in and help spur change here in Dallas. There is a quote we use in the curriculum by William Wilberforce that says,

“You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”

I hope you’ll join with us in our next curriculum study and be part of the change!