Goodbye COSA (for now!)

Alright, I have to accept the inevitable; after eight hectic, rollercoaster, wonderful months, I’m now in my last few days of working at COSA. A lot has changed in that time, and I think it’s fitting in my last week to go all the way back to my first week, when we intervened in the trafficking of twenty two children. When we first came across them, they were quiet, reserved and highly suspicious of us. Eight months later, most of the boys and three of the girls are going to a boarding school in Chiang Rai; the rest are living in one of the villages we work with, attending school and living with foster families. On our regular visits to the village, they come up to greet us, no longer suspicious but friendly and open. They have all become very close, and form a solid support network for each other. In only a short time, they have gone from being vulnerable, scared children to smiling, happy kids who can look forward to a better future.

It’s not just individuals who have changed; COSA itself has seen a lot of development over the past while. Eight months ago, we had twelve girls living at Baan Yuu Suk and were working with a couple of villages on prevention. Now, we have eighteen girls living at the shelter, and are busy building another house to meet the increased numbers. We have also reached out to more villages, spreading the message of education as an alternative to trafficking and carrying out the MOSAIC medical trip, which has seen great success in its first few months. There is now a fostering system in place to meet the demand of all the new children that we can’t take in ourselves. This next year will only see more of this growth, with a forthcoming photography expedition, more MOSAIC trips and potential collaboration with other organisations and institutions. The Baan Yuu Suk girls have all seen big changes in their lives too, many moving up from middle school to high school, some in their last year. Their English has come on so well, and a lot of them seem to have really grown up in the past few months; they’re still giggly teenagers, but they’ve also become more confident and not afraid to chase their goals. It’s exciting to think about the future and what it will hold for them all, especially those who are due to leave school soon. The first COSA graduates!

Now, at the very beginning of this blog I said if I ever spouted on about myself too much, you would have license to slap me. I think I’ve been pretty good up til now, so I’m allowing myself one final paragraph of self-indulgence. I have noticed a lot of changes in the past eight months, not least in myself. When I first arrived I had only vague ideas of what career path I wanted to take, and knew very little about the trade in humans, how widespread it is, who the traffickers are, and why it happens. Since working at COSA I’ve learned so much, not only about these issues, but also about the importance of addressing the root causes of a social problem in order to have any hope of alleviating it, as well as the differences in cultures and how central these are to approaching such problems. I’ve also learned about the depth of human strength and resilience; some of our girls have been in unspeakable situations, yet they’ve managed to come out the other side smiling. I’m very grateful to COSA for teaching me all these things, and helping to focus my path in life; I am now hoping to do a Master’s in development in the next couple of years. It’s all down to the fact that this organisation, though small, is one of those places that you know is actually making a difference, and you want to continue to be a part of it even when you’re far away. I’m leaving here with some great work experience, wonderful new friends, and eighteen new little sisters. I hope I’ll continue to be a part of the COSA family even from afar, and that its grassroots level approach will be adopted by more and more organisations; because only then will we stand a chance of truly putting an end to trafficking. 

Holiday fun

I seem to start almost every post with excuses for not having written anything in ages; this time, I don’t really have a good one for April, which was, I shall be honest, a bit of a skive workwise. The summer holidays began at the end of March, and for the first time ever, every single one of the girls went home to their families for three weeks. It was tea-picking season, so the girls were happy to help out their families and get a bit of home life back in the hilltribe villages that they come from. So this meant that a large part of our work at the shelter was suddenly gone! It was a very quiet few weeks, and I’ll admit that not hearing ‘I want to play gaaaame!’ every five minutes was a welcome change at first.  Still, it was very weird not having them around after a while, and we started to miss them a lot. Luckily there was plenty of distraction in the form of fun; us workers took a three day trip to Mae Hong Son, a pretty, hilly area near the Burmese border. We spent a great few days of waterfall diving, swimming in rivers and eating lots before coming home. A week later was Songkran, which is no doubt THE best holiday ever- beats Christmas, Easter and birthdays all rolled into one. Originally a religious festival celebrating Buddhist New Year, it has somehow over the years mutated into a massive, three day long nation-wide water fight. No-one, and I mean no-one, is safe. We spent three days being soaked to the skin and having the time of our lives. You haven’t lived until you’ve poured a bucket of ice-water over some creepy old white guy’s head in front of his young Thai ‘girlfriend’….

I had barely recovered from Songkran (in fact I was still having stomach twinges from accidentally swallowing some of the lovely putrid canal water flung in my face) when my parents arrived for a couple of weeks, and I was whisked away for a week of spoiling and lounging by fancy hotel pools. I had almost forgotten what a comfortable bed feels like, so it felt like a very luxurious few days for me.

So it was right back down to earth when I returned to a full house a couple of weeks ago. The girls had all returned safe and well and happy to be back. We were concerned that we would have trouble getting one of our youngest, 11 year old Aying, back after the holidays, as she had been telling us that her father wanted her to come home for good after the school year ended to look after her younger siblings. There was no trouble though, and it was clear that she was very happy to be back; the girls all realize that they have far better opportunities here than they do at home. We also have six new arrivals; a couple have been on the wait list and have been due to come in for a while now. Three were last-minute arrivals who we were made aware of by Charoen, the head of the main village that we work with. They had all spent time in a brothel last year, and their mothers' whereabouts are unknown. Their fathers, unable to support them, know of COSA through their community and were keen to have the girls come and live at Baan Yuu Suk rather than have them go into sex work again. Given their background, we were concerned as to how they would fit in, but they have adjusted remarkably well, and after a few days of shyness are now getting on very well with the other girls (many of whom come from the same village as them). The youngest, only eleven, is still quite quiet and missing home a lot; she is very intelligent and, unsurprisingly considering her history, seems a lot older than she is. We’re keeping a close eye on her at the moment and hoping that her homesickness passes.

This means that we’re now at full capacity at the shelter here. Luckily the fostering system that I mentioned in my last post has been going well, and we have a large number of children living with trusted families in one of the hilltribe communities. On our last MOSAIC trip, which I missed as my parents were here, COSA approached a new village with the intent to expand our prevention work in the area. The difference between them and the villages we work with is marked; it is a very small village, with virtually no teenagers living there (guess where they are?). They have never educated their children, and were very distrustful of COSA’s offers to sponsor the children to go to a local school, for the simple reason that they have never educated their kids, so why start now? This response is only to be expected, given that they have led the same way of life for decades; we left it to the heads of the villages we work with to try and persuade them that education is a better and more long-lasting alternative to trafficking and exploitation. As locals who have benefited from our assistance, it’s far more beneficial for these men to persuade the village than us, a bunch of foreigners who barely speak the language. This way, it’s the community themselves helping to solve the problem rather than a group of outsiders. The trust-building process is a slow one, but worth taking time over. We will continue to visit the village on our trips up to the community, and in time they will hopefully come round to sending their young ones to school.

And speaking of school, next week sees the end of the summer holidays for the girls; also, sadly the beginning of the end of my time here! I’m stunned to discover that after eight months, time’s played a nasty trick on me and I’ve suddenly got only a couple of weeks left. It’s not quite sunk in yet, and I don’t think it will until I’m on the plane. I’ll leave my emotional goodbye until my next (last?) post – it’s not procrastination, it’s self-preservation. With maybe a hint of denial.