In Gear | Rotary in Southern New Zealand In Gear - Issue 3 | Page 53

“Because these guys were prepared to come on the
whole journey and committed 100 percent to it, that’s
the real bonus, because that’s experience – building the
relationships, making the connections. That’s going to
grow awareness within our Rotary family, and we’ll get
more and more people involved.” throughout the hill country of Thailand, Myanmar,
Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and China are among the
planet’s most powerless and displaced – stateless,
they have no status or citizenship. And that, together
with endemic poverty, makes them extraordinarily
vulnerable to child sex traffickers.
For David, the trip was a significant milestone, both
practically and sentimentally. The mission lays critical
groundwork for succession planning, ensuring there are
plenty of safe, passionate and progressive hands linked
to the project that he’s held so dear since 15 years ago,
when he first became aware of a little place called the
Rescue Mission for Children, tucked away in northern
Thailand. During term time, the Rescue Mission for Children
is home to 30 Akha children. At present, all of the
youngsters hail from nearby Myanmar, which recently
opened its borders to Western business. With the
extra trade, David says, has come a huge growth in the
demand for child sex slaves.
It was 2002, and David had just joined the Rotary Club
of Dunedin Central, and, as newly-appointed director
of the International Committee, he asked his club to
authorise a donation to the small centre, a safe haven
for children from the Akha tribe. But, David wanted to
know more.
In the ensuing years, he visited the Rescue Mission,
which is overseen by an Australian-based board and
runs on donations and fundraising alone, twice before
the latest trip, forging a strong working relationship
with centre co-founder Asa, who is, herself, Akha.
It has been, he says, a powerful and challenging
education. The Akha people, who are spread
At the centre, the children are fed, clothed, taught
life skills and attend a local schools to get the very
education that gives them the best chance of status and
citizenship – and the greatest protection from being
abducted and sold into sex slavery.
“When you look at Asa’s frame of reference, that
includes seeing her best friend dragged away at
gunpoint by a sex trafficker, and another friend dying of
AIDS, when she was a young teenager. That’s why she
does what she does,” David says.
He established Project Starfish to help the Akha people,
and also to support the non-government agencies at
the coalface, which are waging war on the most heinous
trade of them all.
The Project Starfish team on the ground
at the Rescue Mission for Children centre.
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