Club Hope spread awareness about human trafficking in Ventura County at Ventura College on Mar. 29, with the help from a local celebrity and childcare center.
Shannon Sergey, President of Forever Found, was the speaker of the event and helped share her experience with trafficking and why she created Forever Found.
Forever Found, which was established in Los Angeles in 2008 by Sergey, is an after care center where children, who have been rescued from slavery, can go to and helped get restored back into civilization. An after care home is a restoration center set up by teachers and others who take care of abused children until they are able to leave on their own.
Sergey addressed the crowd about bringing in girls to the aftercare home where they would try to build the girls’ self esteem and self confidence back up after being thrown around and being treated like dirt for a majority of their lives.
“As evil and as horrible as this evil is, there is equally that much hope and that much joy and that much frustration possible to change this and change yourself,” said Sergey.
Club Hope is a new club to VC and the members couldn’t be more excited to do their first event to bring attention to this horrific subject.
Christina Licea, 19, president of Club Hope, expressed her worry about this epidemic happening locally.
“When I heard about human trafficking in Ventura, it opened my ears and heart to those who suffer,” said Licea. “Hopefully these events will help the students too.”
Sergey told stories about children as young as four-years-old being thrown out of their homes to please others sexually just to get money and please their family members’ drug addictions. She pointed out that drug habits are one of the biggest factors of human trafficking.
Another big reason for human trafficking is poverty.
Sergey told a story of how a little girl was being sold by her mother to traffickers for $24. The girl was supposed to be taken to Bangkok and become a prostitute for those criminals. An acquaintance of Sergeys found out about this and offered the mother $34 to take her away and the mother agreed to the small amount of money because it was more than the traffickers offered.
Sergey informed the crowd that more than 200,000 children are sold into slavery and every two seconds, a child is sold into trafficking. With children aging from 4 to 18 years old, these young girls and boys never had a chance to really live a normal life.
Club Hope has open meetings every week on Mondays and Wednesdays at 2:30 p.m. in Room 229 in the Math and Science Building. Anyone is welcome.
Miranda Smith, 19, advisor of Club Hope, knows these events will help anyone that is having trouble with something in their lives.
“Everyone is a slave to something in their life,” said Smith. “You just have to find help to change that.”
For more information about Forever Found, visit www.foreverfound.org or email the staff at [email protected].
