Anna DonesonThe Lincoln Courier (Illinois, USA)
Lincoln, Ill. - Lincoln Christian College and Seminary freshman Anna Doneson is on a mission. And that mission will take her to Cambodia within the month.
Doneson is involved with Rapha House, an organization that creates safe houses for girls involved in sex trafficking.
“We get girls from their parents, buy them from pimps, get them from brothels,” Doneson said. “We teach them life skills and we get them a job. We give them a new life and a new hope and everything.”
Doneson is currently working with several local organizations to raise money for the project.
She has hosted several fundraisers over the past month, including one Monday at Culver’s that she said had a very good turnout. Her final shot at raising money will be May 31 at Zamrazil Hair Studio, where a donation will get clients a free haircut.
“This is a fundraiser to help me get over there, and the rest will go to the girls,” she said.
Doneson plans to be in Cambodia from June 8 to June 23.
“The goal is to take a group of students over there to get a taste of what it’s like,” she said.
While in Cambodia, Doneson will be working to make Rapha House bigger and better as well as to extend its mission.
Rapha House is an organization “committed to rescuing young girls who are victims of slavery and prostitution and providing them with a safe home where they can heal and receive an education,” according to the organization’s Web site.
“Rapha” is the Hebrew word for “healing.”
Its parent organization, American Rehabilitation Ministries, recently received official Non-Government Organization status from the Kingdom of Cambodia, meaning they were given the freedom to build a house in Cambodia for their rescued girls.
Rapha House had operated without government recognition since 2001.
Rapha’s girls currently live in a rented house with a Cambodian staff consisting of around-the-clock dorm mothers and security guards.
“Some of the girls who will be coming to Rapha House have experienced extreme verbal abuse,” said ARM President Joe Garman.
“The majority of them are younger than 18 and lack proper hygiene. They will suffer from an array of mental disorders, depression, alcohol and drug addiction, fear of being kidnapped again, low self-esteem, rebellious and suicidal tendencies, sexually transmitted diseases, skepticism and suspicion.
“Treating their emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual needs will be a lengthy process and monumental task; but rescuing, rehabilitating, and redeeming these victims of prostitution is the work of God.”
People can find out more about Rapha House by visiting www.arm.org and clicking on the link for Rapha House on the left.
12 comments:
Thank you for your great works !
Khmer children
but the goal is to make them christians
What is the use? She just going to change the moral value from trafficking to prostituting.
Good hearted Anna, thank you.
1:00AM you're plain stupid and childish. Stay out please.
she just try to make cambodian women be educated and be independence, don't khmer wanted that?...
No, Khmer don't want to be educated to be wild and independent gorilla in the jungle like the Long Beachers.
They see saving these girls as a christion mission so they will want to save their souls at the same time
Camboida has many NGO's run by Cambodians that provide outreach to this same group of young woman. It's good to have more help because it's a huge task, but the idea that foreigners from christian organizations must come and save them is slightly offensive.
Anna, thank you for standing out for justice and compassion.. we Cambodians need thousands more like you so our land will be free of that scourge that is sex slavery.
12;09 PM '' Free of that scourge that is sex slavery '' The same as it is in the USA where she comes from. Why she not start with cleaning up her own back yard before shitting in someone else yard
Many thanks to Miss Doneson for your
golden heart toward our Cambodia & its People.
May Lord bless you & your family
Cheers,
Bun H.
Bullshit, Ah Xvakrava, Cambodia doesn't need that. What it needed is jobs to keep people from prostituting, and to accomplish that, Cambodia mus get rid of Ah Zimbabwe's slave Spam Rainxy who constantly deterred jobs from Khmer people for his own political gain.
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