Creativity Shell Fights Human Trafficking – With Textile Therapy!

When I was in the initial concept phase of the Creativity Shell, I met a woman at the grocery store that volunteered for an organization that rescues women from sex trafficking. My husband always wonders how I end up talking to the most random people, and in this case, he wondered how I ended up talking to a random person about sex trafficking at the grocery store. I’m a firm believer that things happen for a reason, and I could not remember how or why I started speaking to this woman, but it was one of the most insightful conversations I’ve ever had at the grocery store.

At that time, I never knew that sex trafficking was a problem outside of the Super Bowl. Furthermore, I never knew sex trafficking was happening so close to home! (Houston is the #1 city for sex trafficking in the USA!)

I decided to do some research and reach out to this organization to see if the Creativity Shell could offer sewing and textile arts classes to teach the women new skills and offer a type of textile therapy. After a few meetings, I outlined the program that we could offer as well as some of the benefits the women could receive by gaining the ability to learn the skills we would teach.

I initially planned our programs to benefit older mature women. I figured we could teach sewing, fashion and merchandising skills they could use to be self-employed or to find jobs upon leaving the shelter. Little did I realize that more research was necessary to educate my lack of knowledge about the sex trafficking industry.

These older and mature women that I though would be in my classroom learning to sew, turned out to be young children (as young as 9, but I’m told they can be much younger). It was at this point when I realized how I started talking to a random woman at the grocery store about sex trafficking. She asked me what I did and I told her I was on a mission to find creative ways to educate and inspire earth’s most precious resources…our kids! And she said “Maybe you could help this program…”

The programs for trafficking victims at the Creativity Shell have since been revised to include women and children of different age groups. We will offer vocational fashion programs as well as basic sewing/textile arts programs to teach our students new skills and hopefully provide some healing.

All of our programs are funded through fundraising, sponsorship and donations for people like you.

To donate to the Creativity Shell, please visit www.creativityshell.org.

Stitch and Sip Go RED!!
Date: Friday, February 26, 2016
Time: 6PM – 9PM
Please contact: sdaniel@creativityshell.org for directions!