Partner Programs Archives - Page 4 of 6 - Shared Hope International

October 21, 2014 by SHI Staff

Celebrating 16 Years of Hope – and a Visit to Pike Place Market!

We have had such an amazing time celebrating our 16^th year of restoration here at Shared Hope International. We have also truly enjoyed hosting the Night of Hope events this month, which you can view photos from on our Facebook page.

In addition to the 6 Night of Hope events this month, our beautiful guests from Nepal (Savita, Pooja, Ajay and Manisha) have also truly enjoyed themselves here on their first visit to the United States. We have had the privilege of seeing them grow up in a loving and nurturing environment, free from the tumult and pain of trafficking in the early part of their lives. Now, they have grown to be healthy, happy and productive young people able to share authentic messages of hope with others around the world.

We at Shared Hope International are so grateful for what God has given all of us and we hope to mark this occasion with an even larger push for freedom for the many other millions of women and children still caught in a web of fear and exploitation by traffickers. Please join us in viewing these photos of joy and gladness and remember the things you are grateful for as, together, we celebrate 16 years of life-saving work that continues to this day.

Below you will find beautiful photos of our guests from Nepal and their recent visit to the famous Pike Place Market in Seattle. Enjoy!

Pike Place Market | Seattle, WA - Photo Credit Tom Fideler

September 20, 2013 by Guest

A Father for Freedom

Written by: Marissa Montalvo

Life is one of the most precious things in the world and it takes tremendous courage to save one. Sparsh Founder, Timothy Hirwale, shares what motivated him to rescue and raise dozens of India’s children as his own and how his organization is making an impact.

“There was a time in my dad’s life he was left alone to die on the street of Marathwada, a rural place in Maharashtra, India. An American missionary named Elizabeth Walton picked him up as a malnourished child and cared for him and gave him the name Daniel. Looking at the beautiful lifestyle of my orphan mom and dad I was inspired and thought I would love to care and love these precious children.”

Dedicated to offering that same love and care that Walton gave his father, Timothy decided to create Sparsh, an organization that offers protection and a family to children and orphans.

“For me the thought of a child being left alone without care and protection and without love makes me move in my inner spirit. You can call it a call of God or inner urge to do something for children, but from the age of 18 there was only one aim and goal or ambition and that was to serve the children.”

When he was 18-years-old, he was called “bachelor dad” because he had already taken in two 3-year-old children.

“The first time when we picked up Payal and Sunny from the red light area to Sparsh, there was this tremendous joyful satisfaction in my heart but it took 10 days for Payal to accept me as a father because she had horrific time with her father.”

His mission isn’t easy. Timothy says some of his greatest challenges are overcoming the helplessness he feels when he can’t accept more children because his home is full, caring for the education and development of so many children, and finding the time between fundraising, administration and running the home to offer individualize love and support to all 17 children. Not to mention the logistics of transporting 22 people using one small six-passenger van. Placing his challenges into perspective, he says stories like Nandini’s are worth it.

“We brought Nandini from the street. She was full of mud and carbon all over her body. When we started giving her a bath, all the black water flowed from the bathroom. Seeing that, all rest of the children screamed and ran away saying that she is very unclean. But as the days pass by, when I look back, I thank God for this little life, full of joy and smiles every day.”

Timothy says being a good father means being a good role model, building comfortable communication so children feel free and open to be themselves, finding creative and resourceful ways to provide for the family, and by taking the time to instill values in the children.

“In my opinion, a good father introduces his children to the future and does not try to keep them from world. I feel [parent should] let them see everything, have experiences of their own and when the time comes for them to make the right decision of following any religion or career, it is their own choice. I will rest assured because the values, the love I have showed to them, is genuine and you will get a genuine result. Your love and values will always guide them to be a successful human being.”

The time and energy Timothy invested in being the best father he can is paying off. He says he has seen an increase in the children’s level of trust and sense of security since coming to the home. They are sharing their feelings, hugging and showing intentional acts of kindness-actions that indicate the children are developing healthy patterns of affection and relationship skills which can be more difficult for children with traumatic backgrounds to develop.

Timothy is a man of prayer, passion and purpose. He says men must step forward with courage and boldness to fight against injustice.

“I feel God has blessed America with everything, what other nations covet. The God given freedom is being taken away by human traffickers all over. Our negligence is bringing the HIV rates high on rampage. Our negligence is seeing our own daughters and sisters being taken away in front of our eyes…Feeling sorry for the horrific act is not just enough. It is the time to act. Many think it won’t happen to me or my family, but greed and pleasure does not know any relation and color. I pray and plead, let’s make human trafficking a history.”

About Sparsh
In 2011, Shared Hope International expanded its impact in India by welcoming a new partner in Pune. Sparsh, which means “touch” is a restoration refuge providing a family environment to women on a journey of restoration after sex trafficking, their children, and children whose mothers are still enslaved in Pune’s red light district.

September 25, 2012 by SHI Staff

Return to India: A Warm Welcome at the Brothel

The oppression of the brothel is palpable, assaulting all the senses in unison. The stench of the street mingles with the sickening sweet mask of incense, the dank narrow staircases feel like upward winding tunnels, each floor reveals clusters of women—lovely, dressed for work, bejeweled bodies, empty gazes staring. Quiet, there is no chatter. They languish. It’s hot; it is the slow season.

Each floor is owned by a separate brothel owner and we wind our way to the topmost floor where Reshma is the brothel owner. Timothy is welcome there, a rare visitor gaining entrance through trust. Like many of the brothel owners, Reshma herself was trafficked and her only memories are contained there. She wanted her own children to have a life away from that place, so entrusted them to Sparsh’s care. Two years ago along with Reshma we met one of her ladies, a very beautiful and sad Rekah, who also had given her two children into Sparsh’s care. Later that day at Sparsh we see Rekah again—now a transformed woman! She smiles broadly as she describes her new life reunited with her children, helping in the home and going to cosmetology school.

Reshma is more compassionate than most brothel owners and says she will come out as soon as her debts are paid. On this day we visit with four ladies that work for her. Haseena looks very downcast and holds her naked nine month baby boy as she pours water into his bird mouth from a plastic bottle top . How will baby Imran grow up there? What chance does he have? Rupa tells us she worked in a sari factory very long hours and made $2 or $3 for a 12 hour day; when she was offered the opportunity for similar work at higher pay in Pune she seized the moment… that ended up here. She will stay, she says, because she cannot read or write and she has three children somewhere.

Is there something you would like to do if you were freed from this place? Rupa and another girl giggle nervously. Puzzled by a question that called for a vision of a future beyond these walls, Rupa asks us how learning to read and write could help someone. Each of the ladies’ stories were the similar—they were tricked or sold into this life. Now here, with children to care for, with no education, they are trapped. We look on as Reshma helps dress Rupa for work, carefully folding the beautiful sequined sari and fastening a sparkling necklace. They urge Elizabeth to try on a sari—turquoise to match her t-shirt…everyone laughs and takes pictures of Rupa and Elizabeth together. But Elizabeth gets to leave.

To view the complete facebook photo album, click here.

August 15, 2012 by SHI Staff

Reunited: How Reshma Reclaimed Her Baby

Reshma looked like a child herself as she lay sobbing for her baby. In painful recovery from a C-section, but with no baby in her arms, she was inconsolable. Seven months earlier, she had nearly decided to abort, but a missionary she happened to meet in Kathmandu urged her to preserve the life and promised to take the baby and raise it. Besides abortion, that was her only other choice.

Reshma’s pregnancy was the result of one of the many times she was raped. From a remote village in Nepal, she was lured to the city with the promise of work, and ended up enslaved by a bar owner that sold girls for sex along with the drinks. She had no family to run to, no friends in the city, knew of no place to flee where she and her child could survive, so in mid-May when the baby came, the nameless little girl was delivered from Reshma’s womb into the hands of the missionary family.

The family had heard about Shared Hope’s partner, Asha Nepal, outside Kathmandu—a place that understood and loved young women like her and would offer her a place to recover from her surgery—and they made arrangements for Reshma to come to Asha Nepal. She was received with warmth and tenderness, something she was amazed to experience. But more than that, she learned that this was a place that was alive with children also! As she lay on her bed, hearing their voices, the regret of giving up her baby overwhelmed her. She had no idea there was a place like this–that would love and care for her—much less her child too!

The Shared Hope team arrived at Asha Nepal the day after Reshma came to them and was immediately caught up in the dramatic events as Asha Nepal’s director interceded with the missionary family to reunite mom and baby. With sadness but with blessing, they agreed to give back the precious little one that Reshma named “Angel.” There was great emotion at Asha Nepal and a joyful welcome into their new family when little Angel was placed in the arms of a beaming Reshma.

The timing of the Shared Hope visit was serendipity! It gave us a first hand, vivid demonstration of how our supporters love and generosity changes tears of sorrow to tears of joy! We’re so thankful!

June 4, 2012 by SHI Staff

Story of Hope: Shamita and Kala Flee From Trafficking to Open Tea Shop

In the mountains of Katmandu, Nepal up a winding cobblestone street surrounded by ancient Nepalese buildings, garlic cloves hang from windows and hay bales dry in the sun. Women dressed in traditional garb spin yarn on the side of the road and children dressed in matching uniforms scuttle by on their way to school. Smoke from the chimney stacks can be seen in the distance as brick makers are hard at work. There on that winding road in the hill country sits a quaint tea shop. To the average passerby, it might appear to be a typical tea shop consisting of nothing more than a small front kitchen and several tables. Yet to Shamita and Kala, this tea shop signifies strength, success and freedom from Nepals’ brutal sex trafficking industry.

The owners, Kala and Shamita, are two female business leaders in Nepal—a rarity in a culture that often devalues women as property of men. Shamita and Kala once thought their lives were no more valuable than providing their bodies to man after man in the brothels of Mumbai. Even after they escaped the horrors of sex slavery through the support of Shared Hope’s partner, they were shunned by their village upon returning to Nepal. The life they never chose now banned them from those who were supposed to love and respect them most- their own father forced them to leave.

This story is all too common for women in Nepal. There is big money for traffickers who trick the women to leave through the false promise of love or a better job. Sometimes the trafficker exploits a family’s poverty- convincing parents sell their own daughters. Even if these women find a way to pay off their “debt,” the payment that the brothel owner paid the trafficker, or escape from the violent, forced situation, they often have no home to return to in Nepal. This lack of options forces many back into the violent arms of the brothel.

But Shamita and Kala did have another option. After leaving their village their next stop was Asha Nepal. “Asha” translates to “hope” in Nepalese, and this is exactly what our partner provided to the sisters.

Shared Hope staff originally met Kala and Shamita in Mumbai. They were living in an apartment that our President and Founder, Linda Smith, had secured while our partner was still building a permanent home for women and children in Nepal. Previously, their home had been one of Mumbai’s infamous brothels in the red light district. They were one of many women who desired to return to the home they knew before their exploitation, Nepal.

To meet this need, Shared Hope partnered with a visionary leader in Nepal and a team in India to develop a Village of Hope in Nepal. This home allows women from Nepal who were trafficked to India to return to their home country, even if they are banned from every returning to their family again. Together, Shared Hope Founder Linda Smith and our Nepalese partners built a home and a nurturing family for these women.

Now, moving beyond restoration, Shamita and Kala are breaking barriers in the community, showing they are more than survivors; they are thrivers. Their success is helping to shift cultural norms in Nepal. Their lives are testament that life beyond the brothel is possible. Success is possible. Freedom is possible. Anything can be possible.