Episode 245 - Jenny McGee

[00:00:07] Speaker A: Welcome to that makes total sense, a podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis Busetti, a Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice. But the how sometimes eludes us that makes total sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day. Hey, Jenny, how are you today? Good. [00:00:44] Speaker B: It's so good to be with you. [00:00:46] Speaker A: It is so good to have you. And I am sitting here with a cup of coffee, and I know we've chatted before, and you are not, because we're not even. I mean, you're in a completely different continent. I don't even want to know. Please don't tell me the time zone difference. Don't remind me what it is. But I'm so grateful that technology has allowed us to join each other and that. And that we can share this time together, whether it's morning or bedtime for you. I'm just so grateful that we get to spend this time together today. [00:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah, me too. [00:01:20] Speaker A: So I'm with Jenny McGee, who is the founder of Starfish Project, and all of these. I'll link Starfish there and any other resources that we have. I'll link in the show notes, but Starfish project, for folks who don't know, I was introduced to Starfish Project as a fair trade jewelry company. And then the more I kind of got to digging and learning more and more about the organization, I just learned. Oh, wow. You guys are way more than not saying just a but what I was introduced to as a fair trade jewelry company. So maybe that would be a good place to start, is if you could give us, I'll say the elevator pitch because we're going to talk a lot about the organization. But if you'll just give us maybe the elevator pitch of what Starfish project is and what you guys do. Yes. [00:02:14] Speaker B: So Starfish Project is a social enterprise jewelry company, and we help women who are escaping human trafficking and exploitation, and we really work to help them. One to experience freedom, establish independence, and develop careers and. Yeah, so we have our jewelry company that employs them, but we do outreach. We provide all sorts of holistic care for the women. And, yeah, we kind of use our business as a method and vehicle to provide opportunities for women who really need them. [00:02:53] Speaker A: Okay, thank you. That was, you've had practice. That was a perfect elevator pitch. But when I say start at the beginning, experience freedom and then that leads to the question, freedom from what? And I think. I think as, yeah, I'll start with that. Freedom from what, specifically, with the women and girls who come into your program. What has been their experience before they interact with you guys? Yeah. [00:03:27] Speaker B: So we help women from varying backgrounds, but most of the women we work with are coming out of sexual exploitation. And so, years ago, when I came to Asia, I started seeing a lot of women who were being exploited on the street, either working in massage parlors. And so as I connected with them, I found a lot of these young women were uneducated. The families had invested a lot into the sons, but hadn't necessarily invested into their daughters because of limited resources and probably just the value of girls in the countryside. And so a lot of the women end up in these brothels because they don't have education. Nobody's ever really given them opportunities. And so, yeah, the starfish project really exists to provide those opportunities to women who've never had them before. And so we actually go out into the brothels. The experience and freedom for us really looks like going out into the brothels, building relationships, connecting with those women, and inviting them out of that lifestyle, if that's what they. If that's what they choose. [00:04:44] Speaker A: Okay, I want to. I want to pause on that, inviting them out of the lifestyle, if that's what they choose, and. And go back for a moment into the investment part, because things are starting. Starting to click with me a little bit more. So for folks who are listening, I told Jenny, I'm like, I. I feel very, very much like a student in this conversation, so I'm going to try not to trip over myself too much here. Um, but this is just a topic that I feel like the more I try to learn about it, kind of the more intimidated I become. Um, you know, because it is just such a. A sensitive topic. It's a sensitive subject. And I know, or at least I understand that it looks different in different regions, maybe probably for each woman, there's some similarities, but there are some differences in her experience as well. And so, yeah, so, anyway, I just want to kind of say that from the outset. Like, I'm coming to Jenny saying, please teach me, help me understand. But, you know, things are starting to click with me when you, when you put this in context of saying, okay, many of the women who find themselves in brothels or who are being exploited, you know, there's. There is a path that led them there that was not one that was paved with other opportunity for advancement, career wise. Education wise, like, we would say in the states, like, invest in yourself, you know, do these things. And. But as much as that is true, we also have support systems that encourage that. You know, I think I went back to grad school as a, as a grown woman with kids, but I was able to do that because my family valued that, and my family made space, and my family provided, you know, the ways. Yes. They, you know, I was the one reading the books and writing the papers. That was only part of it, you know, that I wouldn't have been able to do that without the support and love and encouragement, you know, from the people closest to me. And so what I'm hearing is that sometimes, maybe even culturally, I'm guessing that this is, this is not something that's regularly provided for women and girls in your region. Yeah. [00:07:06] Speaker B: You know, I think human trafficking and exploitation looks different in every context, but there's a lot of similarities and threads that I, that I see. But in our context, yeah, there's. There's just a different value. It's definitely changing, and I'm thankful for that. But historically, what, what we've seen in our context is just. Just a real lack of value for girls. And so we see a lot of women. Yeah, a lot of women who can't read or write. I would say the average woman we have at Starfish project had around a third grade education, but we have some women who never went to school a day in their life. I have women in our program. We have one woman in particular who shared with me that she used to stand out in front of the gate of her, of her local school and just try to listen in because she so badly wanted to study. But her parents didn't think it was worth spending money on their daughter's education and thought it wasn't important for a girl to be educated. And so we talked to women who said, you know, I didn't want to be in the brothel. I didn't want to be exploiting, you know, being in this life of exploitation. But I didn't, I couldn't get another job. I couldn't read or write. One shared that she even tried to become a waitress, but she couldn't write down what the people wanted to order. And so, you know, I think when we see human trafficking on tv or, you know, in movies, we often think of this kidnapping scenario. And often, really what it is, is a lot of times, women are manipulated or taken advantage of because they find themselves in incredibly vulnerable situations. And so we often hear from women, you know, they really blame themselves. And I found whether it's in the states or in Asia or different parts of the world, a lot of women don't even realize that they have been trafficked until years later because they have, along the way, maybe believed somebody that they felt they shouldn't have believed or made some poor decisions in their own life, and they really blame themselves. And a lot of them had been abused long before, whether that be sexual abuse, physical abuse. But a lot of the women have been deeply abused before they ever even end up in the brothels. And so I found, even in talking with the women at Starfish project, one thing that struck me is when they share about their deep hurts and wounds, often it's the things that happened in their families long before they ever ended up in the brothel that they'll cry about and feel the most pain about. It's not what happened in the brothel by strangers that they're most traumatized by is often the things that happened from their parents or people who are supposed to love them and didn't love them in that way and protect them in the way that they should have. And so they end up in the brothels and end up exploited. But I think, of course, for all of us, it's those people that should love us and the closest people to us that can really hurt us in the most deep ways. [00:10:26] Speaker A: Wow. I wanted to go other places first, but I think, well, I think kind of continuing on this track, that just makes me think, you know, I think right now, especially in the US, more and more of us are becoming aware of the kinds of things that you just talked about of trauma. Now you can get online. If you're looking for a therapist, you want to find one who's trauma informed, if that is your background. Because we are beginning to recognize what effects that can have on us and the people we love, even if we don't fully understand it. And so I just think in addition to the vocational and training and educational opportunities that you guys want to provide and are able to provide for the women coming out of exploitation at starfish, you know, one, I'm thinking, wow, how, what a job. You know, you guys have, like you said, building those relationships for women who have been traumatized and have been hurt by the people who, you know, were supposed to love them most. I'm curious a little bit about what that process looks like. I can't imagine that, that earning trust or gaining trust would probably be a very easy thing for you guys to do. And then also curious about the care that comes in that process, you know, in addition to I. And I'm assuming there is an amount of that in addition to the vocational and educational training, just from the way that you're talking right now, yes. [00:12:11] Speaker B: So we have outreach teams that go out into the brothels and build relationships with the women that we meet. And so we go two by two, usually sometimes small groups of three, but we have specific neighborhoods that we focus on so that we consistently build those relationships and show up in a regular basis. And it takes time to build that trust with people and build that relationship because, you know, a lot of them were tricked by people in their own life that should have. Should have cared for them, whether that be their best friend or their sister, their mother. We have women who were sold by their own parents. And so when you come along and say you want to help or, you know, how can you support them? It takes a long time for them to build that trust. And. And then sometimes, for instance, we helped one woman who, several years later, she told me, you know, I thought when I met you that you might traffic me, but I really had no better option, and so I just came to work for you. And so I think that's very telling of the situation that some of. Some of the women are in. And so we just build that relationship and get to know them and try to build that trust. And then when we have women who really want to start a new life, we. We invite them into our program where we can provide a job for them, because we found that, of course, they need trauma therapy and counseling. But most of the women are in this situation because they're trying to make money for their families or they have financial needs that they need to be able to achieve. We know that having a job and having a way to provide that income is really important. And so we utilize our jewelry business to provide those jobs. But much more than that, we try to use the whole business as a way to provide career opportunities for women. And so women come in, and they begin on the production line, which, you know, I think can be very therapeutic for them because they immediately become part of a team, and they start making the jewelry. They start creating something themselves that they find beautiful and that other people admire and like to wear. And so for the first time in their lives, they're creating something that they feel proud of. But very quickly, we try to see what are their gifts, what are they skilled at. We have a holistic care team who supports them. And when they first come in, we kind of see what are their education levels, what are their health needs? Some of them are moms. Where are their children at, and how can we help reunite them with their children if they want to be reunited and kind of look at them from a very holistic approach and see how we can come alongside them? We start building an individualized growth plan with them, and we even do personality assessments to see what kind of career are they most suited for. But I found when women first come to us, often they don't know what they want to do. I think dreaming is really a luxury that you have when you're not in survival mode. And so we need the women, first and foremost, to just feel safe and feel secure, and then they can start to dream about their future. And so at Starfish project, they come in on that production line. But very quickly, we have women stepping into higher level careers, whether that be graphic design, photography, accounting. We have some women who finished their. They came to us as teenagers, 17 years old, and finished their college degree at Starfish, ended up finishing their accounting certifications. And we have a couple women now working on their CPA license, and so. But then we'll have some women who are a bit older, and, you know, for them, their development plan might look like, how can I be a much better mom to my child? You know, and kind of taking women from wherever they are and looking at, like, how can we help help them move forward in the life opportunities that they want to step into? And how can we support that? [00:16:49] Speaker A: I want to talk more about that, but I want to go back for just a second, because you mentioned it, especially coming in on the production line, but that there are all of these needs, these holistic needs, just to restate couple of the things. But that finances are a big part of it. You know, they've. They have found themselves in the situation because they, you know, needed to provide for themselves. Um, many of the trafficking stories that I have heard is that even when they are earning money, they are. They don't have any. They're not able to have any autonomy over those finances because they belong to the trafficker or, you know, whoever, um, is in charge of their lives, really, at that time. And so I'm not sure if that's the case in your context, but either way, I anticipate, I imagine that when they come and are able to have a job like that on the production line, at least to begin with, that all of those things you named would be therapeutic as well. But in my mind, I'm just thinking, wow, just the opportunity to be able, like, just that part just like, I have a job now that I can control these things. You know, this is something that, like, I'm in charge of this part, and it's kind of on my terms, you know, to probably a greater degree than what they've experienced, at least in their most recent path. I mean, how does that. I mean, does that resonate with what you see with the women that you guys are serving? [00:18:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that's very true. And, you know, we see women coming from different situations. Some of them never had any money pass through their hands. Some were able to work a little bit, I wouldn't say independently, but able to. Able to get a chunk of the money that they, that they, that they earned. But even in those cases, I feel like they still never have any money there. There's always debts that are involved or even when arrests happen. Like, we helped a girl recently who had a trafficker and ended up in jail, and the trafficker just left her there in jail. And then she, some women in starfish who knew her from the brothels actually paid off her bail money and got her out of jail, but she had this debt to repay just to get out of jail. So there's different, different scenarios. And I feel like I am yet to meet a woman who's working in that business, in our situation, who has lots of money from it. Although there might be a lot of money passing hands, they never seem to have any money, that is for sure. And some women actually never see the money at all. It goes straight from, you know, straight from the customer to a man's hands. And so, yeah, so having them really feel, really feel the ownership of their own salary. And we also provide, like, medical insurance and retirement benefits and that sort of thing. And so really trying to help the women start planning for the future. And I remember when we first started introducing kind of social insurance systems and things like that for the women. Some of them were annoyed because they had never had money come out of their pay. You know, they had never had to pay, um, taxes or all those sort of things. And. And all of a sudden, they were like, oh, why, why am I now having to pay this? But years later, some of those same women have come back to me and said, oh, now I'm getting older, and if I hadn't paid into this, I would have nothing now. So we're so grateful that we had this system. And so even for us having to educate people and planning, and we do a lot of, like, budgeting, um, kind of budgeting seminars to help people and even, even women who come to us with massive debt, not knowing how they're ever going to be able to pay that off and just sitting with them and coming up with a plan, you know, every month, if you pay this much back, within two years, you can be out of debt. And so for a lot of the women, they've just never had that plan, and it feels overwhelming. And so to be able to have light at the end of the tunnel for them where they can see now I can be free of all of this, I think is quite amazing for them. [00:21:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the phrasing that you used earlier, like, they have the ability to dream now. And thinking about that, you know, the flip side of that is dreaming, but also then planning for the future, which includes those kinds of things, which is. Yeah, I mean, I think for all of us, it's like, oh, man, this stinks. But how beautiful, too, right? What an amazing privilege it is to be able to be able to plan and work toward the future in that way. Financially, I want to come to, and I think this will go along the lines of what you're talking about with women coming in and helping with the jewelry, being on teams, and then. [00:22:10] Speaker B: You. [00:22:10] Speaker A: Guys working as a team to try and figure out what for these women, what are their skills? What are their skill sets? What are they naturally gifted in? What do they dream of doing? What would they love to do? In some of my context, we might say, what's life giving for you or what gives you energy? You know, what drains you? That kind of thing. And I think that this will lead into. You used a phrase before we started recording that is survivor leadership. And I would love if you would talk about what that looks like at Starfish and with the women that you all work with. Yeah. [00:22:51] Speaker B: So survivor leadership is something that we have put a huge emphasis on, especially in the last, last few years. And I think we just feel it's so important that as a company, we're a place where there aren't these limitations on the women that are coming into the business. And so we really view Starfish project as not a lot of organizations or even in the nonprofit world. You'll talk about the support staff and the beneficiaries, and we really try to stay away from that language. At Starfish project, we don't want to have the helpers and the helpees, but we really talk about women coming together from different backgrounds, different cultures, very different education levels, but all working together, bringing our different gifts and skills to the table and creating a business that we all feel proud to work at. And I think that's incredibly helpful for the women in our program. So what I found is in a lot of organizations that are working in the anti trafficking space, once a woman is rescued, a lot of them will report 70% or figures like that, where women, 70% of the women end up right back being retrafficked or back in exploitation again. And I think that's so discouraging. But at Starfish project, we've had less than 5% ever returned the brothels. And, and once they are trained in those higher level jobs like graphic design, photography, accounting, we've actually never had a single woman trained at that level return to the brothels. And so we just see that such a tie between the high level career development and the keeping women out of that vulnerable place of being re trafficked or re exploited. And so, so the more we saw that correlation of, because I think on the production line, women are still a bit vulnerable. And the production isn't necessarily a transferable skill that they can take somewhere else. But once they learn accounting or once they learn product development, those types of skills, they can take that anywhere. When we have women come in, I also think even though they might start on that production line, they see women who are just like them coming from the same education levels, the same backgrounds. They see women like them, and they're professionals, they're mentoring other women, and some of them are leading teams. And so I think from day one, they can see a trajectory for themselves. And I think that makes a huge difference for the women and gives them hope and purpose. And, and so over the years, we've seen even what women are achieving accelerating at a faster rate, because I think they can see it around them and inspires them. And I think for a lot of the women, even when I visit the brothels every week and I share with women about our job opportunities at Starfish project, and most of them, when I tell them about the job, they say, oh, almost always, the first thing they say is, oh, but I'm too stupid. I could never do that. And I always tell them, no. We take women all the time who don't have a lot of education either will train you. I can see that you have the capability to do this. You're smart, intelligent, and we have to do a lot of building that confidence for women to even take that first opportunity. But once they're there and they start to see other women who are just like them and they're doing amazing things, I think that slowly gives them the confidence. And we actually we originally were taking some of the women who were most eager to learn and putting them in some incredible roles, but there's still always some who are even more nervous about stepping into those roles or lack the confidence. And so we actually started a job rotation for those women to give them the experience. And so they move from, you know, they try out working and helping out a little bit in one department for 10 hours of their 40 hours week. They would be trained up in one department and just learn some of the basics of it. And then we move them to another department, give them some opportunities to learn there, and kind of give them opportunity to taste and see of the different roles and slowly see, oh, maybe I can do this. And so I think in a role just also, some of the women are just waiting for an opportunity, and they seize it and grab it and move forward. And some women need that extra, extra help with their confidence and extra opportunities for them to see for themselves. No, I really can do this. So I think it's really cool in a jewelry company, because a jewelry company is also doing holistic care. So we have all sorts of different jobs, whether that be in the business, but also we have some women who are teachers, and they're starting to teach other women. And even if they're only maybe at an 8th grade math level, they're still higher than the woman who's had a second grade math level. And so they can start to teach her what they know. And so we have this very mentoring culture where women are kind of paying it forward and teaching the next person. And. And I think that's really exciting to see. And everybody's, everybody's growing, whether that's the person at the top of the company or the person who just started is stringing beads. And we also try to, we try to offer everything that we provide for the women in our program to all of our employees, which I think is also this great equalizer. So when we have classes, like, for instance, we had a literacy class, and a lot of the women couldn't read or write. But then we had a british guy who came as our sales and marketing director, and he couldn't speak the local language, and so he joined the literacy class with the women from our program, and they were all learning to read and write together. And I think that was great to see somebody who actually had an MBA, but he was in the same literacy class with them because they all needed to learn. They all needed to learn to read and write in that language. And so we definitely try to build a community where everybody is learning and growing together, and there isn't that mentality of I'm the helper and you're the helpy. [00:29:43] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. There's just so much about that that I love and so much about that that I wish you would elaborate on. But the thing that kept sticking in my mind is, um, I don't know when I've, when I've talked in other con, in prison context, it's called recidivism. I don't know what it's, what it's called in your context, but, but that the rate is so low that the recidivism rate is so low and that it kind of seems to get lower the more training, more vocational training that the women have. And that to me, you, you talked about it and, but I just kind of want to say explicitly what was going on in my mind is that the women are in at least two ways, but they're no longer as vulnerable financially because they've been working towards something. Their skills are now more where they're transferable to other industries and things like that, for example, a graphic designer or someone. But also their confidence takes down that vulnerability level where, you know, I think as a woman, when I can, you know, contribute to my household financially, or just when I have someone saying, like, not only can you do this, but they've taught me how, and then I'm able to implement it. You know, I had something like that in my life where I'm working a part time job right now, and I applied for it knowing full well that I was not qualified. But I thought, well, let's just give it a shot. And the person who ended up hiring me basically said, here's the thing. You're not qualified for this position, but I think you know that. Um, but what I'd like to do is kind of bring you in at a slightly lower level, uh, with a, with a different title, and train you because. Yeah, because I think it's just a matter of time before you would be qualified and you can learn how to do this. And then we'll reassess. You know, give it 90 days or six months or whatever. We'll reassess. And in that case, you know, the person said, I fully anticipate we'll just change your title. You know, we'll up the pay or whatever, and you'll be basically at the advertised job posting. But you know what that did? That did a lot for me. Right? Going into it, going, oh, yeah, I knew this, but let's give it a shot. But then learning, okay, I am teachable, you know, and not only am I teachable, but then I'm capable of actually doing what someone has taught me how to do and doing it with a level of independence. And then if I could do this here, I could do this in other places, you know, and I have something else to put on my resume. And, you know, just those internal, this self talk kinds of things, it does increase the confidence. And then, you know, I, in a context like the one that we're, you're talking about, I'm like, yes, it would obviously decrease the vulnerability because this woman is going, I have choices. I have things I can do now that I didn't have two years ago or five years ago or ten years ago. I didn't have these choices. I have skills. I have these kinds of things. So, yes, I'm hearing that it's about the money, but I think more than that, what I heard from you talking and what I'm imagining in my head is it's really about how the woman has been able to gain so much of those things for herself that decreases that vulnerability level. [00:33:09] Speaker B: Yes, that's very true. I think one of the things I love to see more than anything is when women achieve something that even they didn't think was possible. And I remember one woman in particular. She was getting trained in photography, and I remember the day she looked at the photography that she created and felt so proud. And she came to me and said, jenny, I'm a photographer. And I thought that was such a beautiful moment because she saw in herself, like, she knew I created something great here. And there was, that moment was something that nobody else could give her. She had worked for that and created it, and then it was that realization. But she'll say, oh, I never, never even dreamed of being a photographer. But now this is what I'm doing, and I'm training other women and inspiring them to do the same thing. And I see that all the time where women are, you know, they didn't even have the luxury of dreaming, and now they're, they're achieving things that they themselves didn't think was possible. That's so exciting to me. [00:34:19] Speaker A: So I'm just, I'm just curious about the women. You know, I, again, love this kind of some of the equalizers that you've talked about, not really categories of who's being helped and who's doing the helping, but, um, but people working together in the, in the context of your organization. And then I'm also curious about, um, like, when women gain those skills, then what? Like, do you know? I'm sure it's probably, I'm guessing that it would be different for different women. But, you know, how many women stay on at starfish? How many women decide to take their skills and move on to something different? And what does that transition look like? But, you know, what, what does that look like once women start. Start moving in that direction? Pretty significantly. [00:35:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it can look like different things. We've had some women leave Starfish project and go back to their hometowns and set up their own businesses. Some have gone to work doing sales or marketing for other companies. And then, of course, we have some who stay on it Starfish project and become those leaders and mentors for other women, which we also need to be able to grow our business. That's definitely something we're looking at now, too, is how to form more partnerships. I think during the COVID season, which was incredibly intense here, you know, people were organizations and such were a lot more inward focused because I think we were all in survival mode trying to. We had a lot of intense lockdowns here. And so we were, I think, a lot. It was harder to form those partners partnerships with other organizations. And now, as we're coming out of that, we're seeing the need to develop those partnerships so that we can have a platform to move women from Starfish project into other companies and into other. Into other opportunities so that we can create more jobs for more women. We're always, even the women who are in our program, they are always talking about how one of the key purposes of Starfish project is to continue to create more jobs. And so they really view our sales growth and every piece of jewelry we sell as an opportunity to help another woman out of the brothels and really develop those careers that give her her life and passion for moving forward. [00:36:47] Speaker A: That ownership piece is really powerful. It's really powerful that women would come in and say, like, this is the goal. Like, we need to create. We need to create more jobs. There needs to be more space. There needs to be more opportunity. I think, you know, obviously, it speaks a lot to the value of what they feel like they're gaining as they come out of exploitation. But it also speaks, you know, to me, what I hear in that is confidence in this system, kind of in the process, but also compassion, you know, for the women who are experiencing the things that they've experienced. Can you talk about that piece at all? [00:37:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been interesting because even last year, we actually had two brothel bosses shut down their brothels and come to Starfish project. And one of them brought the women who she was managing in her brothel with her to Starfish project, which I never thought would happen. But what I've seen is that even for brothel bosses, most of them are just women who were exploited as girls. A lot of the women we work with are left behind kids, which here is kids who would be in the foster system in America, but that isn't really a strong infrastructure here. And so they end up being exploited as teens. And then they kind of. Some of the women who are brothel bosses are women who were exploited themselves and just worked up within the systems and eventually ended up managing a brothel themselves. And so I've been surprised that even those women are showing compassion on other women when they have the opportunity to get out of it themselves. And so I think that's been really exciting to see. We had, right after one of our. Our lockdown seasons, about a year and a half ago, we had. We had a woman come to visit. Visit us, and it was a woman I had met in the brothels and had built relationship for a while. And when she showed up to visit the project, she said, can I come and see what you're doing? And I'm thinking about joining. And when she showed up, she actually showed up with her boss, which had never happened before. And I wasn't quite sure what to do, but I just decided, I'll show them both around. I told them all about what we did, and, and the boss was so moved. She said, you know, if I was willing to shut down my brothel, would you hire me as well? And I said, yes, we would love to hire you. And so she did. She shut down her brothel, and both her and the woman she came with, and then the other women in her brothel came to starfish projects. And that was mind blowing to me because, yeah, I just think seeing that, ultimately, I think she was an exploited person who was just in this terrible system and ends up exploiting other people. But when. When she was actually given the opportunity to get out of that life, she brought others with her, which I think was super encouraging to see. [00:40:04] Speaker A: Wow, Jenny, that is. That's amazing. And what I mean, you know, I think part of what I'm hearing, I have way, way, way back in my first graduate degree that I didn't really get the chance to work in. I studied a bit. I studied nonprofit organizational systems and things like that. And what I'm. What I'm hearing is, like, your jewelry is beautiful. I own some starfish project pieces, and they're beautiful, and they're a means of providing this freedom. They're a means of providing this vocation and a self sustaining means, I'm guessing to a large degree. But you can answer that or not. But included in that, I'm hoping that you can help us, me and the listener, understand how can we help if people are today are like, oh, my goodness, this is, like, so powerful. This means something to me. This is resonating with me. And I just want to be able to. I just want to be able to actually tangibly help in some way. What can we do? Shop, I guess, is the number one thing, but what can we do? [00:41:18] Speaker B: Well, yeah, so Starfish project, we kind of have two main parts. We have our jewelry business, which provides the jobs for the women's, that provides all of their insurance and their. And, yeah, their job opportunities as well as. Yeah, so we have. Sorry, can I start that? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So we have two parts to Starfish project. So we have our jewelry business, which provides all of the salaries for the women, pays for all the raw materials and all that sort of thing that goes into the business. So it creates safe, stable work for the women. And then we also have a holistic care program. And so that part of it is funded by donations, which is our vocational training, our counseling, our women's shelters. So we cover all of the business cost by things, by the jewelry sales, and then anything that's not the normal things that a business would cover, that's what we cover from donations. And so if you want to get involved in starfish projects, I think the best ways are you can buy our jewelry and also pass it on. Tell the story of Starfish project. We, word of mouth is the best way to spread it. So we have some people who buy the jewelry and just, you know, give it to their friends and share the story. And we love that. And then, and then also we do have our charity side where we receive donations so that we can provide our women's shelters and education grants for the children. And so you can sign up to be a monthly donor or give one off gifts. But, yeah, that, those are two key ways. And then also we're regularly looking for internsh. Interns who, you know, if you're a young, young student who wants to get involved or you have a recent college graduate who's your child, something like that. We're always looking for interns who will come out and volunteer. [00:43:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. And then I'll get the links maybe to the donation side so that I can put that in the show notes as well. Jenny, what would you, what would you leave us with after this conversation? It could be, you know, something you feel like it's really important for us to know about the exploitation industry. It could be something that has been a meaningful experience or story in your position working with starfish for all of these years. It could be the story of a woman who has come and been a part of your community or anything else. But I'm just thinking, as I mentioned before, I'm very much a student when it comes to this subject, and you live in this subject every single day. So now what would you want to leave us with that you feel like is important or would be impactful something for us to know? [00:44:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I think one thing is, you know, when you look at the issue of human trafficking and exploitation, I think it can feel so overwhelming to people. I think it's such a big issue. It can feel so far from our normal day to day lives. And so I think a lot of people, you know, hear about it and feel concerned and want to do something, but don't even know where to begin. And I think a lot of people ask us where our name comes from. And so the Starfish project is named after a story that probably most of the listeners have heard, but it's about a young boy who is picking up starfish and throwing them back into the scene. Old man comes along and he asks the boy, you know, why are you throwing these starfish back into the sea? And the boy said, well, if I don't throw them back into the sea, they're going to die. And he said, the old man said, but there's so many of them. How can you ever make a difference? And so the boy picked one up and threw it in the sea and said, well, I made a difference for that one. And I think that's really a heart. At Starfish project. You know, you can look at the whole issue and feel overwhelmed. But if you start with one girl and invest in her life and one life and try to transform and help change that one person, it really is infectious. I guess we see women whose life is transformed and then their child is transformed and their husband and their parents, and then they affect other women. We have women who invite women that they knew from the brothels to come and experience freedom together with them. And so I would just encourage people to think about the people in their life and start with one. How can you make a real impact on that person in your life. Maybe it's not somebody from a human trafficking and exploitation backgrounds, but I think a lot of issues, we can just be so overwhelmed by how big it is and what do we do to really make a difference? And I think if we just focus on that one, building a relationship with that one person in your life and really investing in them and seeing that difference, I think it can be really powerful. And what is it they say? Like, we overestimate what we can get done in a. We overestimate what happens in a year, but underestimate what happens in a lifetime. And I think that's true. When you just invest in one, you can feel like it's a slow process that isn't going anywhere. But then when you step back and look, you see, wow, so many lives were changed and so many people were impacted. And so that would just be my encouragement to people, is to look where you can make a difference in somebody's life and start there. [00:47:37] Speaker A: Amazing. Thank you so much, Jenny. I'm so grateful. I looked on the website this morning. Is it 18 years? Is that correct? [00:47:45] Speaker B: Yes. [00:47:45] Speaker A: We had our amazing congratulations. Yes. That's just phenomenal. Again, Jenny McGee with Starfish project. I am going to link the project and also where, where people, folks can shop and where folks can donate. But I also just want to encourage, encourage people. Click on the link for the Starfish project page and then just like, hunt around a little bit. You know, I this morning had, you know, probably I'm one of those people that has too many tabs in the first place, but I probably had a dozen starfish tabs open. Just hearing stories and reading blogs and just looking around at the work and the beauty and the impact that your organization is having on real women's lives, on real women and their families. And it is really encouraging to be able to witness the work that you guys are doing. So I would just encourage folks to do that as well. Just, just look around, not just at what's the pretty necklace or what are the cute earrings, but look around and read the stories of women and watch the videos and listen to those in their own words. They're really powerful and they're really encouraging, too. So thank you so much, Jenny, for coming on. [00:49:04] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you. And I just wanted to let you all know that when you look around the website, you should know that everything that you see there, whether it be the pictures, the graphic design, all of it, was created by survivors in our program. The only thing that's not is the english writing, but everything else is created. So I hope you enjoy their work. And yeah, they feel so proud when people go to the site and love it. So just know that was all created by women in our program. [00:49:31] Speaker A: It's beautiful. Just phenomenal. It's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. It is gorgeous. And that just, that takes it to just a whole new level that women who are learning those skills on the job. That's amazing. Thanks again, Jenny. [00:49:49] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you so much. [00:49:52] Speaker A: The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music and podcast production by Seth Buscetti. Be sure to give us a review on iTunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also visit [email protected].