Somebody Had to do Something

Recently, a heavy-hitting documentary came out called “Seattle is Dying,” focused on the drug-addicted homeless on the streets of my hometown.  One observation in the report was that the problem has become so big, so difficult, and so overwhelming, that people have stopped seeing because they don’t know what to do.

It’s easy to assume someone else is going to do something.  Someone with the right training, the right background, the right skillset.  Someone who knows exactly what to do, what will work.  Someone.

I met Friska at a Starbucks in downtown Bandung, Indonesia.  She is in her 30s, unassuming, with a ready smile and laugh.  I was surprised that I didn’t have to slow down my speech much for her to catch every word.  “Where did you learn English?”

“Watching episodes of ‘Friends’ on repeat!”  Her cultural nuance showed from the sitcom exposure and she had a great sense of humor.  English is her 4th or 5th language.  She also has a huge heart, and eyes that see.

Friska started noticing children playing in a sketchy area of town, unsupervised.  She asked around and learned that they were the children of women working in the brothel nearby.  Somebody needed to do something, so she did.  She started organizing weekly playtimes for the kids, with stories, songs, and lessons.  The girls were especially at risk, as they could just as easily be in the brothels someday too.

As she was working with the kids, she started building relationships with the moms.  Most felt trapped by their situation, either by pimps or economic necessity.  But they didn’t see a way out.  Friska just kept talking to them, loving them, and being a friend.  As they learned to trust each other, many women began talking to her about leaving prostitution.  Some were hesitant, but a few were ready.

Friska connected with an organization that helped provide a safe house for these women and their children.  Some of the women had developed mental illness from their experiences.  They all had trauma of some kind.  Friska read everything she could get her hands on about psychology, counseling, and trauma recovery, and tried her best.  She knew she didn’t have the right skills or education, but she was the one who was there, so she had to try.

As she kept building relationships with the women in the brothel, she caught the attention of the local police.  The police are part of the prostitution industry, paid off by the owners to keep away any threats, not to help those inside who might be threatened.  The police had heard that a few women had left.  That was costly to the brothel.  He warned Friska he’d better not see her there again.

When I met with Friska, the safe house was being closed down due to lack of funding.  She was preoccupied with one resident who had ongoing mental illness, precluding her from having another job.  “What will happen to her?  What can she do?  She’ll just be abused by someone else.”  She was also applying for a graduate program in psychology at a U.S. university, and hoping for a scholarship.  She didn’t have the money she needed, but she knew she needed the training to continue her work.

Friska partnered with an organization called Kita Designs that employees women rescued from trafficking, or at great risk of being forced into it.  The women come in very broken, and through a holistic program that starts with spiritual and emotional healing and trauma recovery, they slowly start working, learning, and producing.  It’s a long process.  Some women are naturally more skilled than others.  There are the normal interpersonal issues that you would have in any workplace.  But the women take pride in their work and have some beautiful creations.

I met with Jane, who started Kita Designs.  Jane came to Indonesia to work in other areas, but saw a huge need to provide employment and skills to transition women out of trafficking.  The social enterprise had been going for a for a few years, but Jane still felt overwhelmed and unequipped.

We sat down to talk about business planning.  “I’m not a business person.  I don’t have the right skills.  I don’t think I’m even the right person to do this.  I know there are so many people who can do it better.”

Funny enough, I have heard iterations of that line hundreds of times.  “Jane, if I can assure you of one thing, you are not that different than most businesses in the U.S.”  I went on to tell her that in my past career, I worked with hundreds of small and medium sized companies.  Most are just like her.  They have an idea or a passion and then they just keep going.  They try things, they make mistakes, they learn from them, until one day they become a company that you’ve heard about.  They don’t usually start with the MBA CEOs.  They started, and just kept going.

Her face softened into a relieved smile.  “Thanks.  I needed to hear that.”

Jane and I talked more about dividing the business into departments, the merits of specialization, and the mission of recover before profit.  That was the essential part that that made Kita Designs special.  The women were the mission.  The products were beautiful, but they were part of the process of recovery.  The dignity and hope developed from becoming a skilled creator was the magic of Kita Designs.

The leadership of the business don’t have training in counseling, in trafficking, in business, or in organizational management.  But they saw something that was working and just kept going, because somebody had to do something.

Neither Jane nor Friska were the perfect fit.  They are still working on the right skills for their mission.  But what impressed me so much was their dogged determination to do something, even if they didn’t have the exact solution figured out yet.  They just keep going, learning, trying, and then trying again.  They have made mistakes.  Things don’t always work out.  Many times they do.  But they see people, people who are not always lovable, and they love them.  Somebody had to do something, so they did.

 

If you would like to support these women in their recovery, check out the beautiful products from Kita Designs.