As a healer, my main goal is to relieve pain. I want to erase the physical and emotional suffering that my patients experience with the magic of my tiny needles. I also want to make my community stronger, more cohesive, and a better place to live. We are all connected, and we are only as strong as our weakest community member. In my hometown of San Diego, one of our most vulnerable groups is sex-trafficking victims.
My eyes opened to the alarming statistics and the realities of sex trafficking in 2015, which lead me to start my non-profit organization, the Pain Free Project. The Pain Free Project is dedicated to relieving the suffering of victims and survivors of sex trafficking through natural and holistic therapies. Our practitioner-survivor matching program allows survivors to experience the one-on-one care of an acupuncturist, chiropractor, or massage therapist to initiate the healing process at the deepest and most transformational levels.
At the Pain Free Project, we believe that no survivor should heal alone. We work to ease the physical and mental pain of sex trafficking and put survivors back on their feet.
Why Victims of Human Sex-Trafficking?
After working in social work for many years, then transitioning to health care, I started to notice something troubling. I found that the members of our community who need our help most often have the hardest time accessing our holistic and compassionate care. In the best cases, they have access to side-effect-ridden pharmaceutical drugs that numb their symptoms but do little to heal their bodies and minds.
Sex-trafficking is a major problem in my San Diego community. There are an estimated 8,830 – 11,772 survivors of this horrendous and cruel act in our city alone, and millions more across the US and worldwide. Sex trafficking robs its victims of their safety, health, and happiness. Even after victims escape their captors, the physical and mental abuse persists. Illness, pain, anxiety, and sleep issues often persist as survivors try to re-assimilate into “normal life.”
The more I learned about sex trafficking in my city, the more I felt capable of making a real impact. As natural healthcare providers, there is so much that we can do to help these women overcome their fears, regain their health, and take back their lives.
How We Help
The main goal of the Pain Free Project is to ease the pain of sex trafficking, create a better future for survivors, and beneficially impact our community as a whole. We do this by offering one-on-one care and support for survivors and hosting wellness events in the community to bring attention to this important cause.
We offer a range of holistic health care options for our survivors: acupuncture, chiropractic, and massage. Research has proven that our holistic therapies are effective in treating the major issues that survivors face (insomnia, anxiety, and pain) and fill the gaps that conventional medicine and rehabilitation programs leave behind. We also offer a safe space for survivors to release, heal, and grow.
The Bigger Picture
We believe that helping the one helps the many. By improving the health and wellness of one of our community’s most disadvantaged groups, we will improve the health of our community itself.
In the coming year, we want to expand the reach of the Pain Free Project. Our goal for 2020 is to match 350 San Diego sex trafficking survivors with a practitioner for one-on-one care. We aim to host 12 local wellness events to raise awareness and funds to support our program’s growth. Lastly, we hope to partner with influential and dedicated brands, companies, and donors who share our ambition and match our passion for creating a better world for survivors and ourselves.
We dream of a world where no survivor has to heal alone, and this is our next step.
How You Can Help
December is the perfect month to practice generosity and give back to the community. In fact, giving back not only makes your feel good, but can even be good for your health!
We would love for you to consider the Pain Free Project this giving season. Our dream is big, our efforts are mighty, our team is heroic…but our funds are small. While we have already raised over $4,500 to help grow our outreach, we hope to multiply this amount in 2020 to be able to provide at least 350 wellness scholarships to deserving survivors. With your help, we will transform the lives of hundreds of women with the powers of our unique and natural medicine.
Would you like to help a survivor receive the holistic care she needs? A $50 donation allows a survivor to receive a compassion-based treatment by a trauma-informed practitioner. Please visit ThePainFreeProject.com to make your donation – and make a difference in someone’s life.
