GEORGIA MORRISON
Casual chats with Peninsula people by Kate Sears Georgia Morrison spent a few months volunteering in Kenya, and then in Cambodia. Through this she became even more passionate about the development needed in these areas, but she remained sceptical about development organisations considering the corruption that she had witnessed first-hand. It was after this that fate served Georgia her next step in life. While working in a café in Mornington, she served Nicky Mih, the managing director, founder, and board member of Free To Shine. After an enthralling chat with Nicky, Georgia became a volunteer for Free To Shine in 2013. Six years later, Georgia’s now a board member. She talks about her role, the organisation’s work and its next fundraiser. Tell us a little about your journey with Free To Shine. I left that meeting (with Nicky) with a newfound appreciation for nongovernment organisations, blown away by the earnest transparency that she offered me, the thorough research that the organisation was founded on, and the scope and rational optimism of Free To Shine’s vision. After a number of years, my involvement grew to the point where I was asked to join the board of directors and it has easily been the most challenging and the most rewarding position I have held — working with the most incredible people who genuinely want to make a real impact. Free To Shine is an organisation that empowers with education to prevent sex trafficking. What does Free To Shine’s work entail? At Free To Shine, we dream of a world free from sex trafficking, and there are three main goals that we are working towards to get us there: creating communities that are safe for children, getting girls in school and keeping them there, and creating women leaders. “Before
Free To Shine existed, Nicky Mih was in Cambodia working with survivors of sex trafficking, and all of those young women had the same wish — they wanted nothing for themselves; they wanted someone to prevent girls from being trafficked in the first place.”
Georgia Morrison started volunteering with Free To Shine in 2013 and is now a board member.
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From there began two years of research that eventuated in Free To Shine. Nicky had found that the survivors of sex trafficking had something in common — they weren’t in school when they were trafficked. We found that, critically, children in the most marginalised communities with the lowest levels of education, or none at all, are the easiest targets for traffickers to manipulate because they are more likely to accept the false promise of lower paid and unskilled work, such as construction or domestic servitude. Once granted access to education, girls are physically protected by sitting in the classroom, and by becoming more self-assured and empowered through their academic achievements they become more able to make decisions, critically evaluate situations, and exert control over their own lives. Evidence suggests that even keeping children in school until age 16 dramatically reduces their likelihood of being trafficked and will significantly improve their standard of living.
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