Kelsey Galaway, the founder of Willow International, shares her strategic plan that is implemented in Uganda with Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak. She emphasizes restoration, partnership, and prevention as interrelated strategies that are necessary to work together in order to create a holistic program to combat human trafficking.

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Transcript

Dave: [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 183, Restoration Partnership and Prevention in Uganda.

Production Credits: [00:00:10] Produced by Innovative Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave: [00:00:29] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: [00:00:35] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: [00:00:37] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, I am so, impressed with how much work you have done over the years and how much work the Global Center for Women and Justice has done over the years to build so, many partnerships around the world. And today’s conversation is yet another example of wonderful partnerships that are working together with us to really address this issue.

Sandie: [00:01:07] Well I’m very excited to introduce to our show Kelsey Galaway, founder and executive director of Willow International. Kelsey, welcome.

Kelsey: [00:01:19] Thank you.

Sandie: [00:01:20] so, let’s just dig right in. When I think of the word Willow, I think of one of those really big overarching trees that where the leaves reach all the way to the ground. And I imagine that there is probably some sense of connection with that image in the selection of the name of this organization. So, will you tell us about Willow International, what it is? What does it do?

Kelsey: [00:01:51] I’d love to! And our name comes from one of the Psalms and it talks about when the Israelites were going into captivity or slavery that they hung their harp on the willow tree. And I read a commentary about that and it said that part of the Israelite’s identity is that they were worshippers and when they went into slavery they didn’t want their captures to take advantage, to exploit their identities. So, they put their instruments on the willow tree for safekeeping so, that when they were released from slavery they could walk into that identity, pick up their instruments, and worship again. And so, that’s part of the core of who we are at Willow, is that we are a safe haven and a protector so, that when people are released from horrible situations of exploitation, they can walk into their God-given identity again.

Sandie: [00:02:45] Well how did you end up in Uganda? I mean you’re a California girl, right?

Kelsey: [00:02:51] I am yeah. I grew up in Orange County and my whole life I wanted to travel to Africa. Just one of the places since I was a kid that I wanted to go to. And I went on a mission trip when I was 17 with Rockharbor Church in Orange County. And it was quite the contrast from what I knew growing up and I loved every bit of it. But it also completely challenged my worldview.

Sandie: [00:03:19] Challenged your worldview. I need to know more about what that means.

Kelsey: [00:03:24] Oh that’s a whole other podcast in itself.

Sandie: [00:03:26] Let’s just take a three-minute detour because I think we do have like these really established worldviews where we think we know what we’re talking about.

Kelsey: [00:03:38] When I went, my first trip was to Namibia, and I saw a developing nation. And what I found was so, much different than what I expected. There was so, much joy, so, much resiliency, so, much community, and social support. It was so, different from the old commercials we used to see of the starving child with wives all over them and sad eyes. There was so, much joy and at the same time, there was also a lot of exploitation, a lot of poverty, and a lot of diseases that broke my heart. And when I came back to Orange County as a 17-year old I didn’t know how to put all of that together. Like OK, I wanted to be a first-grade teacher. Yeah, that doesn’t, I don’t feel like that’s what I want to do anymore after I’ve seen all of this. I just wanted to learn more. I wanted to dive into what nonprofit work looks like on the ground and how I could make a difference. And so, I started exploring that.

Sandie: [00:04:43] Well and you’ve developed an amazing strategic plan for Willow. How did you prepare to develop your strategic plan first? And then secondly let’s talk about your strategic plan.

Kelsey: [00:04:58] First of all, I spent three years on the ground in Uganda as country director for a nonprofit that did aftercare for victims of human trafficking. So, that was step one, was living it out, learning it, and being there on the ground. So, a lot of exposure to the issue. When I had an opportunity to start Willow, I knew that I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. That there are incredible organizations and incredible leaders out there who have been doing this for 15, 20 years. And so, step one in that was talking to anybody who would talk to me. So, I spent hours and hours on skype phone call at crazy hours talking to people in Cambodia, and Thailand, and China, and Kenya and anybody who would share their experience with me and taking it from there. So, learning what they had done and then talking to our team in Uganda and saying hey how would this work in our context talking to our Ugandan national staff. And saying these are the programs that are out there, this is what other people are doing, how do we want to do this at Willow? What do we want to take in? What do we want to leave out? And so, we worked on that strategic plan together.

Sandie: [00:06:13] Okay so, you mentioned Cambodia, and you and I have mutual friends there. And I’ve learned a lot from Helen Sworn who has been very instrumental in developing coalition models and the Freedom Collaborative, we’ll put links to that. So, I can kind of imagine how you collected all of this experiential wisdom. And I applaud you for that because so, many times we sort of start out with our plan before we collect all of the wisdom from people who have already had an engagement in these issues.

Kelsey: [00:06:50] Thank you. Yes. Helen was very instrumental in developing our program. I traveled out to one of their coalition member meetings in Phnom Penh and got to see their work on the ground, learned about their research projects, learned about their prevention programs, ...