beauty* lost and found: 10.10.10 *FOUND | The Esther Benjamins Trust

About six months ago, my good friend looked me square in the eyes and said, "Tanja, God is not a narcissist." At the time I was agonizing over the the tug on my heart to press <enter> and buy my ticket for a trip that I knew would change my life but go against all "responsible" logic for my 38 year-old life. Narcissism: egotistical indifference towards the plight of others. The opposite of redemption or empathy. The common thread that ties all of this lost and found together. Every one of the women I meet on this journey is remarkable because they defy the odds.

Esther Benjamins took her own life when she tragically couldn't come to terms with her own childlessness. Her husband Philip Holmes moved to Nepal, a place close to the heart of both of them, and opened a refuge home for women and children to honor her life even in her tragedy. A way to breathe life in to death. A beautiful redemption.

A Refuge has sprung up in the hills outside of Kathmandu. Not a shelter, or an orphanage, but a Refuge—a safe place to start over. EBT (Esther Benjamins Trust), focuses their rescue efforts on children kidnapped, trafficked or sold to Indian circuses. Poverty=desperation. Families sell their children unknowingly and knowingly, or children in abusive homes run away and are picked up by pimps, preying upon the need of the desperate naive. These are not circuses as in clowns and elephants. This is forced, confined labor, often violent and abusive including rape. Their lives are not their own. Many of these young people want to return to their families. Some of their families don't know what happened to their child. One day they never came home. They hope for reunion, not knowing if it will happen. Some just want out but don't want to return to their families who sold them in the first place. EBT facilitates the rescue and repatriation of these young people. They are rehabilitated and either reunited with their families or are given a new life in the Refuge including education and vocational training.

Vocational training is a word that I say a hundred times every day. It's one of the answers to ending poverty. And there needs to be more of it. If you have limited education (half of Nepal is illiterate), then yes you need a Plan B. You need to learn how to do something to make a living if higher education is not an option. Many of the programs showcased in prior blogs are creative because many of these cultures have that built in to their heritage. Many come from villages where knitting or weaving was part of daily life. It is not uncommon when driving through mountain passes to see mounds of yak wool being knit in to beautiful blankets. Working with their hands is not only a familiar tool, it is an act of community. It is time to be together, to share stories. And in many of these vocational centers, there's a similar replication of "gathering"—there is a sense of peace when you see a room full of bustling hands, lively banter, huddles of humanity contributing to the world around them.

In addition to rescue and refuge, EBT has developed several training programs which also generate income for its participants. Vocational training and income generation usually go hand-in-hand. It's the golden ticket, because it makes a program sustainable. The uniqueness of EBT is that they make mosaics. Mosaics you say? Yes, mosaics. And they are gorgeous.

They have two studios, and one is in a little house up in the hills outside of Kathmandu. The path to the studio is full of colorful pieces of broken tile. Inside the studio there are collections of brokenness which trimmed up and smoothed off turn into gorgeous masterpieces. They are then sold in various shops and hotels around Kathmandu or exported to the UK. EBT is also starting a new silver-smithing program lead by jewelry designer Nicola Turnbull. The top four women in the mosaic program are going through training — three of whom are deaf. It's amazing to watch them work and communicate knowing the lives they were rescued from and the lives they now live.