The Pomelo Project

I've alluded once or twice to my dear friend Rebecca's innate desire to save the world. While I wish she would devote the same amount of energy toward SHUTTING THE FREAKING KITCHEN CUPBOARDS, I have to admit it's pretty admirable.

Rebecca Lambson: Attorney, neuroscientist, saves the world, has a fake gluten allergy, ruins all of Eli's pans. 

Well over a year ago Rebecca came up with an idea for a non-profit organization she has spent every free minute building and figuring out how to make work. And at long last, The Pomelo Project launched this week. And I am so proud of her.

I'll attempt to give a brief explanation of its purpose, but for more information you can see the website here.

The Pomelo Project aims at helping survivors of sex slavery by creating a network for survivors to interact and provide support to one another. Rebecca has spent years researching and learning about the personal tragedies of women and young girls throughout the world who have been trapped in this terrible industry. She wanted to get involved in helping people escape the life of sex slavery so she began looking at various organizations that assist in this work.

Rebecca has come to find that there is a lot of great attention aimed at helping women escape the sex trade. But, a survivor's struggle does not end with her escape. She also learned of the very serious problem that many "survivors" of the sex trade, after discovering that they have no skills, no support network, no way to sustainably survive, feel they have no choice but to voluntarily go back to the only life they have ever known.

Rebecca decided to try to help pick up where so many of these wonderful "escape" organizations leave off by providing those resources for survivors.

The Pomelo Project has big dreams, but it is starting small. Initially, Rebecca is working to gather people and money for purposes of making a documentary where survivors of the sex trade are able to share their stories with other survivors. Pomelo Project will also provide aid packages to women who desperately need it, and hopefully, a little further down the road, actual skills training and opportunities to fully integrate into society.

Rebecca asked Kyle to help make a quick video to introduce The Pomelo Project and the Kickstarter campaign, which will serve to raise funds to get the Project off the ground. They have spent an absurd amount of time working on this video. They had creative differences. They screamed at each other. They were both heard to say, "I'll never work with her/him again!" People died over this video. PEOPLE DIED, YOU GUYS.

Ok. I exaggerated a bit. But they did work very hard on this video. Kyle put it together, composed the music for it, and then launched it yesterday. You should watch it. Mostly because Rebecca and the woman in it right after her are both wearing the same ridiculous gigantic earrings. AND THERE IS NO EXPLANATION FOR THIS.

You can see the three-minute video on the Kickstarter page here.

The Kickstarter will run for 30 days and seeks to raise $25,000. You can track the progress on the video link above.

And what I would like to ask our Stranger community to do is pull together the way we do and help get the word out about this incredibly worthy cause. If you have any opportunity to donate to it as well, the donations will be so appreciated. But even if you can't donate to the cause, you could help so much by sharing the kickstarter link on social media and helping it get the attention it deserves.

We may not be able to totally save the world, but helping desperate people find support after, and while, enduring the horrors of sex slavery is a great way to try.

Oh. And, not that we know what any of this is, Cathie.

~It Just Gets Stranger