Former model Giselle Meza's career allowed her to visit exotic locations and world-renowned sights, but it was witnessing the worst violations of human rights that stuck with her throughout the years.
"The more I would go on great assignments around the world and if we're in Africa for a shoot...we were using that beautiful backdrop for pictures and for making so much money," she said. "But behind me were these beautiful little children and women that were really just experiencing a lot of need and injustice."
Out of her desire to help victims of human trafficking, Meza created Puresa Organics, a faith-based company whose goal is to empower women through spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional rehabilitation. The company then gives rescued women new skills and provides employment so that they are able to sustain themselves and start a new life.
Partnering with Project Rescue Nepal, the company started in 2007 with twelve rescued women and has grown to 265 in three years.
Project Rescue is another faith-based organization that aims to provide a safe haven for victims of sex trafficking.
The women are brought to the Puresa Organics center in Katmandu, Nepal where they are given medical attention, food, shelter, counseling, and eventually job training. They are taught how to sow and become part of the creative process in the design and production of the eco-friendly organic bags that the company sells to fund their mission.
Meza stresses the importance of spiritual counseling in the rehabilitation process.
"Most of the women in other programs commit suicide because there comes a point where there's nothing above and beyond you that can continue to give hope. We try to holistically give them a complete restoration program and as well as employment," she said.
The ministry aspect of Puresa Organics is evident through daily prayers, devotion time, bible studies, and regular church attendance.
"If you can imagine the tremendous healing that has to happen to each individual, that those memories may never go away," she said. "Providing the spiritual aspect of it to us is so important because those girls and those women will always flashback to that but in providing the hope in God, they know that they have something else to grab onto."
Most rescue victims are either Hindu or Buddhist in their faith, since the company's efforts have focused on India and Nepal. Meza states that while their ministry is Christian, the women are never forced into adopting those beliefs. She claims that ninety-five percent of the women seek to learn more about Christianity on their own.
WATCH: Human Trafficking
Puresa from Craig Hastie on Vimeo.
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SOURCE: CNN | Belief Blog
Nicole Cukingnan
WATCH: Faith-Based Fashion Company Helps Women Rescued from Human Trafficking - Urban Christian News
