One day I sat down and to have a chat with *Ba Sally. Sally is a beautiful, kind-hearted Canadian lady who is working with her husband alongside some equally kindhearted and beautiful Thai and foreign staff to run a kids program for families who are less fortunate. Sally explained that they used to run a womens equipping program where they would teach women involved in prostitution how to bake and other skills, however they had to make the decision to shut it down. She explained that perhaps some reasons for this were based in a general characteristic of the Chiang Mai prositution sector. The womens program just wasn't producing any results because attendance was low. Perhaps only one or two women left prostitution through this program in 7 or so years of operating. Sally explains that for many here prostitution is more of a choice (I highlight more as I wonder if there were other options availabe that met the same finacial needs, if these women would still choose prostitution). Women just weren't desperate enough to leave.
Sally admitted she didn't see the womens equipping program in Chiang Mai as successful, but her eyes lit up when she described what sucesses she had seen, successes that involved a change in peoples hearts when they discover the love and fogiveness and acceptance of their creator. Or successes such as hearing that one of their children from the program (because of what she learned there) ran away from being given sexually to her mothers boyfriend and called the help-line. One day as Sally and I were standing in the hub-bub of kids playing around our feet one girl came up smiling and gave her a hug. Sally turned to me and said, "You know, when this girl first came here, you wouldn't see her smile." This is a success.
*names have been changed
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