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St. Philip’s New Hope to raise sex-trafficking awareness during monthlong effort with Free the Girls

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Many people would be surprised, if not shocked, to learn that more than 40 million people worldwide lived in slavery in 2016.

The United Nations has called this lack of awareness “a knowledge crisis that shames us all.”

A local Episcopal church aims to do something about that. During the month of February, St. Philip’s New Hope is partnering with Free the Girls (freethegirls.org), a U.S. nonprofit that aids trafficking survivors, to raise awareness and donations. Donations of bras, primarily.

Since 2014 the church has held hugely successful bra drives to support Free the Girls, which helps formerly enslaved women set-up microbusinesses selling secondhand bras. This year, the church want to do more than “raise” the over 1,000 bras it netted in last year’s drive. “We’re looking to raise people’s consciousness,” said Liz Oliver, a St. Philip’s parishioner who organized the past drives.

The bra drive began Feb. 1 and will continue through Feb. 28: The church will have specially designated boxes where gently used bras can be dropped off for donation.

Secondhand bras – really?

Free the Girls focuses on the resale bra market for several reasons. There is strong demand for used clothing in poorer countries, and bras are especially valued. They are easy to store but complex to make, so they don’t compete with local goods. Setting up a microbusiness can be as easy as hanging a half-dozen bras from an open umbrella in a marketplace.

Free the Girls provides participants with their starting inventory at no cost; the women then buy additional inventory at below wholesale prices with a portion of their profits. This helps them learn basic business skills and keeps the program sustainable.

Free the Girls’ bare-bones operation helps with sustainability too. With just four full-time staff, the group has sent more than 600,000 secondhand bras out of its collection center in Indiana to women and girls in Mozambique, Uganda and El Salvador. The organization hopes to expand to other countries by inspiring more “everyday abolitionists” to start drives.

The Very Rev. Michael R. Ruk, rector of St. Philips, admits he was skeptical about the church’s first drive. “I wasn’t sure what kind of response we’d get when we started” in 2014, he said. “Then the donations started pouring in.”

To learn more about Free the Girls, to donate money or to start your own drive, visit freethegirls.org/get-involved/. To donate a bra or learn more about this month’s events, contact Liz Oliver at lizfieldingo@yahoo.com. St. Philip’s Episcopal Church is located at 10 Chapel Road, New Hope (Solebury Township).


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