I pulled up in front of a beautiful but nondescript house tucked away in a nola neighborhood and took a deep breath as I knocked on the door of Eden House. I chose EH because of it’s focus on sexual trafficking, a cause that I am very passionate about. The organization provides two year housing for up to eight residents; women who have been sexually trafficked or forced into prostitution. They live in the house free of cost and are provided all the services they need to flourish– everything from life skills classes and legal counsel to psychological counseling to activities like yoga and art therapy. Eden House also works on promoting awareness of the issue as well as legislation that will further protect survivors of these terrible crimes. I had originally heard of EH through a Tulane CELT newsletter and knew this was a place I would want to spend the majority of the summer working at.
Armed with the information provided in the Intern Handbook and my laptop, I stepped into my first day not knowing quite what to expect. My first task was to go through the daily Google Alerts and add articles that could be used for research to a Google Doc. The Google Alerts rounded up news articles of the day containing relevant keywords like “sex trafficking” and “prostitution”. As tough as they were to read sometimes, I now feel so much more informed about the current issues surrounding the topic (like the concern that the World Cup in Brazil will cause a significant rise in sexual trafficking in the area). I am also in charge of monitoring upcoming non-profit workshops in New Orleans and the surrounding area that our staff would want to attend. My first big project was a collaboration with the other interns to completely organize the room that held all the clothing donations for the residents. It was quite the undertaking as many items had not been sorted or had been put in the wrong boxes. We bought bright pink index cards to better label each storage bin and got down to business. It may take a few more days to get things completely in order but it I’m proud of the progress we’ve made so far and I know it will now be much easier for new residents to pick through and find their new wardrobes.
One of my favorite parts of the internship so far is the Professional Development program. Each thursday morning we have a speaker on a different element of sexual trafficking. This thursday we had Dr. Stacy Drury, Tulane Medical School neuro geneticist, talk about the effect childhood trauma has on the brain. The average age of entry for female prostitutes in the U.S. is 12-14 years old, causing many to grow up with psychological scars. Dr. Drury explained that trauma can cause people to pay attention to everyday stressful situations differently- either by completely ignoring them or fixating on them. They also perceive emotion differently, viewing neutral facial expressions as “negative” and mildly negative expressions as very angry or upset. Most importantly, their sense of expectation is skewed towards pessimism, believing that good events/ experiences will end in disappointment. With this new information, I and the rest of the interns felt like we understood the residents a little bit better and could use these facts as a tool to better interact with them.
I also really enjoy my time spent with the residents of Eden House. I feel blessed that they share their stories with me and I’m excited to watch their progress over the next three months. What I hope to gain from this internship is a better understanding of the multi-faceted issue of sexual trafficking, to learn how Eden House uses connections and community partners to support the organization, and to become an effective part of the House residents’ support system and an advocate for the cause. To learn more about Eden House, visit our website at http://edenhousenola.org/