For those of you who haven’t been following the adventures of The Human, Earth Project through 2014, it’s been an incredible year. Here are a few of the most memorable moments:
The year began with Hmong friends in Laos.
Days later, my trafficked Hmong friend M contacted her family for the first time in 2.5 years, only to disappear once more.
In March, we succeeded in crowdfunding Sisters For Sale, our feature-length documentary on human trafficking.
In April, we succeeded in contacting, locating and meeting with P, a second teenaged Hmong friend who was trafficked from Vietnam and sold as a bride in China, and had not been seen for over three years.
Against all odds, we also succeeded in meeting with M herself in May.
In June, we completed our epic overland journey covering 40,552 km (25,198 miles) and 10 countries, having found no less than 80 of the 100 local people for whom we were searching.
Now working alone, I spent three months frustrated in my attempts to bring M and P home to Vietnam.
In October, only three days before her arranged rescue, P succeeded in escaping the “husband” who’d bought her, travelling more than 1,500 km (over a thousand miles) alone across China, and returning home to her family in Vietnam.
Over the following months, I had the pleasure of seeing P come back to life.
Meanwhile, M’s dilemma continued, as she struggled to decide between her Chinese-born child and her own freedom.
The year has ended with an international documentary crew joining P and I for Christmas celebrations in her village.
I would never have imagined that 2014 would have brought us so far, and there are some very exciting things on the horizon in 2015…
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