Changing Their Trajectory and Empowering Their Future with Mushrooms
Would you consider mushroom growing as a means to prevent human trafficking? While the individual act of mushroom growing may not wholly shift a person’s life trajectory, it may have a greater influence on breaking the cycle of trafficking than you might think.
One of the primary ways World Concern fights trafficking is by empowering individuals with the skills they need to thrive in their community. For Mr. Sanguan, this means learning how to grow and cultivate mushrooms to sell in a local market. But why mushrooms? As a father to six children, Mr. Sanguan was only able to provide enough income to send three of his children to school – until he learned the skill of mushroom growing. Before that, he was growing and selling marigolds and vegetables, which hardly provided enough money for food in addition to other expenses.
Last year, he started planting bags of mushroom spawn in a small plot of land. The mushrooms took off within two months, and he earned high returns from selling the harvest. The return Mr. Sanguan yielded and continues to yield from sales now generates enough money to support his family entirely. With this new source of income, his children no longer need to go to a bordering country for work but can stay close together.
Oftentimes, children in poor families must travel to a bordering country for work in order to help support their family. But along the way, they become vulnerable to traffickers who offer high-paying jobs, without realizing the reality of what that work entails. Mushroom growing not only offers protection for Mr. Sanguan’s children but also provides a way for them to learn and develop their own skills and education, which has the potential to change the trajectory of their futures.
“My wife and children love mushroom farming very much very much,” Mr. Sanguan said. “This is actually a double blessing: first, the mushroom farm helped me in providing for my family; and secondly, our family will stay together in our village.”
Empowering individuals with skills and education that allow them to provide for their families is a crucial step in addressing the human trafficking crisis. It can be easy to underestimate the value and significance of seemingly small investments and changes in a person’s life, but something even as simple as mushroom growing has the potential to change a person’s whole life and offer critical protection to vulnerable and innocent children.
Investing in World Concern means investing in training and education for individuals that will help reshape the direction of their lives and create ripple effects that impact generations to follow. We invite you to partner with families like Mr. Sanguan’s, through World Concern, to empower future generations with the skills and education needed for a better future.
