FOREST, VA — Every night, thousands of girls in the beach resort town of Pattaya, Thailand, go to work in the city’s red-light districts. Some of them have been taken there from their rural homes and sold into the sex industry against their will. Most of them have no other choice — poverty has prevented them from getting an education and has driven them into the industry to provide for their families.
During January, which is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, World Help wants to provide these women with a different choice. The Christian humanitarian organization is raising money to help open a baking school that will equip Thai women with a marketable skill to help them gain employment outside of the sex industry.
The school will operate out of a Freedom Home in Pattaya supported by World Help, where women who want to exit the sex industry are offered a secure place to live in the environment of a loving community. At the home, the women are provided with daily meals, a fully funded education and vocational training, trauma counseling and medical care.
“Baking would not be the first idea to come to mind when you think about helping women escape modern-day slavery,” said Noel Yeatts, president of World Help. “But for these women, whom I have met personally many times in Thailand, baking represents the power of choice. With this skill, they can find employment with dignity and provide a better future for their families away from the red-light districts.”
World Help needs to raise $125,000 to make the baking school a reality and is only $35,000 from meeting this goal. Once funded, they can begin work on a fully-stocked commercial kitchen designed as a top-notch training facility. Eventually, they would like to help fund a functioning café on the property as well to provide the women with a place to receive real-world experience in their new trade. To donate to this initiative, visit World Help’s Pattaya baking school page.
“Right now, you can decide 2019 is the year we will not stand by as women and children are trapped in the sex industry. They don’t always have the power to choose freedom for themselves, but we can choose to help them today and to give them hope for tomorrow,” Yeatts said.
To learn more about World Help’s work in Thailand watch this video shot on location with President Noel Yeatts.
Media note: To speak with a World Help representative, please contact MediaInquiries@theKcompany.co.
World Help is a Christian humanitarian organization serving the physical and spiritual needs of people in impoverished communities around the world. Since its inception in 1991, World Help has delivered humanitarian aid to more than 82 million people in 71 countries.
Website | worldhelp.net Twitter | @world_help Facebook | World Help
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