Submitted photo Kim Payne with the nonprofit organization Remember Nhu addressed the Rotary Club of Elkins, giving the group insight into the organization’s efforts. Additionally, she shared the book ‘The Power of Prevention’ by Carl Ralston with the group. The book contains amazing photography and an in-depth story of the founding of Remember Nhu.

ELKINS — Kim Payne of the nonprofit organization Remember Nhu addressed the Rotary Club of Elkins, giving the group insight into the organization’s efforts to end child sex slavery through prevention.

Remember Nhu was founded in 2004 by Carl Ralston after hearing that a 12-year-old Cambodian child named Nhu was sold by her grandmother to pay the interest on money borrowed for groceries. Since that time, the organization has established programs in twenty counties to fight for the rights of vulnerable, orphaned and abandoned children.

“The vision for it [Remember Nhu] has been aligned and determined because there’s a big need for help in many areas, whether it’s rescue, healing afterwards, restoration and the way they’ve gone with prevention,” said Payne.

Payne has a couple of personal connections with Remember Nhu. Her father is personal friends with founder Carl Ralston, both being from the Canton/Akron area of Ohio. Additionally, Payne’s husband worked with former Elkins resident Mark Epperson, another personal friend of Ralston.

Remember Nhu works to address the need of children who are in a precarious situation. Families that lack resources to take care of their children often take the step of “selling” a child to provide for the remainder of the family.

“It’s a heart-wrenching idea if it’s a choice between watching them all starve or not have what they need. But once a child goes, then the whole community is at risk because that family suddenly has money,” said Payne.

“Once a child has been sold, that child’s life is completely different even if they come back. A lot of time they’re ostracized because everybody knows their purity is compromised. Once that happens, they may even feel like they can’t even attend school.”

After learning the realities behind the sale of children, particularly in southeast Asia, Ralston decided to focus his efforts on preventing the exploitation of children in these situations. Ralston found that prevention has proven to be 90% effective in preventing exploitation as opposed to rescuing children after they are sold.

Ralston and his wife were able to find Nhu on one of their trips to Cambodia and they adopted her. Nhu was the first employee of Remember Nhu as an organization and she helped set up the first girls home in Cambodia.

A key component of Remember Nhu is the group home that is run by members of the local community. These homes are not orphanages because most of the children have some family but their family is unable to care for them properly. “At risk tribes or towns are found and they [representatives of Remember Nhu] would go and propose educating the children, housing and feeding the children, providing clothes for the children as well as their school supplies. The family may also receive a monthly stipend for having the children in the program,” said Payne.

“There are donors who give generally to start these homes. There are monthly donors. You can be a parent donor of a child in one of these preventative homes for $60 a month. You can be an uncle or an aunt donor which is $40 a month or you can be a sibling donor for $20 a month. That allows the students to have all of their needs met.”

To date, more than 17,000 children have been prevented from entering the sex trade through Remember Nhu. There is also training in the schools to help protect themselves and how to understand if someone is a threat to them and their safety.

The first boys’ home that was started in Thailand is the Elkins Boys Home. Every boy who started at this school was fully sponsored by a family from the Elkins community.

“This city has already done a ton for that,” commented Payne.

Remember Nhu is starting an educational program in foreign countries that is similar to programs that will be offered in U.S. schools that are geared towards helping students understand how to know something is a threat or an unsafe situation.

There are currently 1,531 children in homes sponsored by Remember Nhu. The goal is to fully educate all of these children through college if possible.

“There are 38 college students being supported now,” concluded Payne. “They want those kids protected and they want to change the culture. The boys in these homes will never buy a person, they will never be a person who visits a brothel, they want to break the cycle.”

To learn Nhu’s full story, to make a gift to support Remember Nhu or for more information about the group’s efforts, visit www.RememberNhu.org.

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