It’s been 10 years since Kristi Davidson began her journey saving victims of sex trafficking in India. After welcoming twins last year, the former teacher tells of her plans for the future
“I can never just pop in anywhere,” Kristi laughs.
But no matter how busy life gets, Kristi always makes time for her “other baby”, the Offspring Project which she founded in India 10 years ago.
The not-for-profit organisation, supporting survivors of sex trafficking from its base in Kolkata, still has a hold over her heart after all these years.
Kristi, a former teacher at Christian College, first went to India as a 19-year-old, going on to spend time in Africa as well as she set about fulfilling her passion for charity work.
Kristi Davidson, fonuder Offspring Project in India. Photo : Ginger + Mint
Each time she would return home and life would go back to normal. But after being exposed to the child trafficking crisis in India, eventually the pull to help others was a force she could no longer fight.
“I loved my work as a teacher, but I came home from a trip working with an organisation (in India) that rescued girls from sex trafficking and I just thought, ‘How can I not do something about the situation?’,” Kristi says.
“It was a stirring that just wouldn’t go away. So I essentially quit my job and got on a plane to India.”
She stayed with a contact she’d never met in Mumbai while she found her feet, before returning home to Geelong to work on the finer details. The basis for her business model was to not only provide a safe place for the rescued girls to go to and be supported through their trauma, but also somewhere for them to develop skills and be educated.
That’s how the idea of having the rescued girls create products to sell came about – it provided paid work for them, and helped raise money for Offspring to continue its work.
“It took longer than I probably wanted it to, it took a year of research and then two years of setting up before we had our first rescue,” she recalls.
“I didn’t think it was going to take two years. But I look back now and hindsight is one of my favourite things because at the time it’s so easy to want something, but you look back and go, ‘That’s why it took so long’.
“We needed to find local staff and train staff, make sure they were trained in trauma-informed care so they knew what they were doing when they were working with girls who were dealing with trauma, and then we needed to get the product we make right. Having products that people want to buy was crucial because it was part of our fundraising model.
“But also that’s the whole focus of the training centre, that the girls can learn a skill. Then there’s the education, setting up a curriculum specific to them; there are girls who are 16 and 17 who have never been in a school before. What does that look like?
Kristi Davidson (middle) has expanded her Offspring team with Anna Gardiner and Elle Richards joining the team. Photo: Ginger + Mint
“It took a long time to set it up and I knew that when the first girl joined us, I didn’t want her to feel like the first girl. I wanted her to feel like we’ve been running this and it’s seamless for her. We needed to get that right.
“We’re very much quality over quantity, we’re about small numbers, rather than big numbers and saying ‘We’ve got 50 girls in here at the moment’ because 50 girls in one space at one time isn’t good anywhere ever, especially when they’ve gone through trauma. So we’ve got six girls in one training unit (there are two training units at the centre), so they feel safe with the staff and they’re being looked after. We want them to know their value and their worth as a human being.”
Kristi lived in India for the best part of seven years, admitting she has a love/hate relationship with the country.
“It’s an intense country, constantly all the time things are happening,” she says. “People are staring at you, the smells, the noise, the everything. But there’s a part of me that now finds Australia a bit boring.”
And while right now her primary focus is her role as mum to her gorgeous baby girls, Kristi’s also been expanding her Geelong-based Offspring team to ensure the organisation continues to thrive.
Elle Richards has joined the team in a media and communications role, while Anna Gardiner is head of products, having worked for the Cotton On Group for 17 years.
Both felt an urge to leave the corporate world and make a difference where it’s needed.
“I didn’t know much at all about Offspring but I watched a video of their work at an art exhibition and was so moved to the point where I looked at my husband and said ‘That’s what I want to do; that’s what I’m meant to be doing’,” Anna says.
Similarly, Elle, who was working in real estate, says she realised she wanted to use her privileged upbringing to do something more fulfilling.
“Even before I got the job, but I’d had the interview with Kristi, I realised there was so much more I could do with my life that actually made a difference,” she says.
Kristi says now that she’s back living in Geelong, she also relies heavily on her staff of seven in Kolkata, who are just as dedicated to the cause as she is.
“I’ve told my operations manager over there that she needs to give me 30 years’ notice if she ever wants to leave,” Kristi jokes. “I could not do it without her.”
Kristi looks forward to taking her daughters over to India sometime in the near future to meet the Offspring staff and see where their mum has spent so much of her time – and where a piece of her heart still remains.
Having seen the difference Offspring is making to the lives of the girls and women in Kolkata, Kristi says having her own baby girls has made the reality of her work hit home ever harder.
“I’m a Christian, so my heart for others comes through that. I just want to love people. That’s the initial drive and passion to keep me going,” Kristi says.
“I’ve been doing this longer than when I was teaching. We keep having an impact and I just want to keep doing what we’re doing and doing it well.
“I’ve got amazing donors continually supporting me, which means we can keep our focus on supporting the girls we rescue.
“It is hard to believe it’s been 10 years since we started, but I can’t imagine not doing it.”
Offspring is hosting a business breakfast on Tuesday to share a little about its work and give local businesses a chance to get involved. For any businesses interested in supporting Offspring email [email protected]. To make a purchase or donate go to offspringproject.org