COMMUNICATIONS INTERN
🔆 Talitha Qum is a formative after-school program that works to empower young girls and adolescents from underserved communities and to reduce the various risk factors that could lead them to fall victim to abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. Children Exploitation Prevention is Talitha Qum’s core focus.
🧠 As a communications intern, I helped organize and document public events to inform underserved communities around Cartagena about Human Trafficking Prevention. Furthermore, I facilitated the creation of internal Communication initiatives such as Talitha’s first yearbook. Since this is a program that serves underage girls, the images I am allowed to post are limited.
🛠️ Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Lightroom.
📍Cartagena de Indias, Colombia
Being a preventive program based on Christian principles, human values, respect, and self-esteem, Talitha Qum has been described as a “refuge of hope in the middle of Cartagena’s prostitution scandal”.
“World Day Against Trafficking in Persons” Community Event organized by Talitha Qum, July 30th 2019.
Talitha is an initiative created in 2014 and led by Sister Blanca Nubia López Rendón, who is undoubtedly the most compassionate and empowering woman I know. With the support of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cartagena, she has taken under her wing over a hundred girls between the ages of 8 and 17. The program of Talitha Qum meets everyday after school and provides the girls with meals, tutoring and homework spaces, access to health care professionals, human trafficking prevention trainings, religious formation, and social work counseling.
Talitha Qum leads its community engagement efforts focusing on the empowerment of women and the social responsibility of everyone to play honest, respectful, and dignified members of their communities. One of my favorite things about the program is their Agentes Multiplicadoras (Message-magnifier Agents) performance. Through acting and dancing, the girls educate the public on how to spot abuse and how to protect yourself and those around you from sexual exploitation and human trafficking. They have performed at schools, public governmental events, and various parks around the city.
The following images are from the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons Community Event organized by Talitha Qum. They include the Talitha Qum staff as well as other organizations that are also combating Human Trafficking.
To this day, I continue being involved with the program as it has now expanded to two other communities. Talitha Qum will forever occupy an incredibly special place in my heart. It was an honor to work alongside this powerful and driven group of women, and it is a relief that such a remarkable organization is looking after the young girls of Cartagena, Colombia.
Message that Sister Blanca Nubia wrote to me in a book.