Students Minister in Kolkata Red Light District

Student missionaries found themselves in an odd paradox over Thanksgiving."This place is beautiful and heartbreaking and friendly and cruel all at the same time", wrote Kayla Beth Moore in her blog when she visited a park as part of an assignment.

Twelve students traveled to minister to prostitutes in one of the largest red light districts in the world in Sonagacchi, Kolkata. The group was led by Dr. Geoff Pound and C-N Provost Kina Mallard. Student missionaries included Ryan Carter, Kaitlin Cook, Melissa Ford, Christina Garner, Pamela Gray, Ah-Reum Han, katie Hayes, Cara Hedges, Megan McSwain, Kayla Beth Moore, Adam Tarver and Adam Tilson.




The students were asked to go to a Kolkata park. What they found in that park was more than they expected.

"There was only one beat-up slide, but about 10 or so kids were all piled on top of each other having the time of their lives," wrote Hayes. The students played with the kids, taking pictures, sliding, and laughing. It was a simple happiness in a complicated city.

Slow traveling led them to that park. The day with those kids could have been lost forever if they were rushing through the city. Thomas Merton says "Lets us see what needs to be seen and find what needs to be found." By disregarding the need to busy the precious time they had in Kolkata, those students saw what needed to be found that day.

The joy that the students received in Kolkata was matched with the gravity of reality in their days ahead.

"The need here is overwhelming," wrote Moore.

The students traveled to many places and organizations to help where they could. One place in particular Megan McSwain wrote about was the Fre*Set Organization in Sonagchi, one of the largest red light districts in the world. Surrounded by prostitution, Fre*Set is an organization that employs 150 women to make jute bags instead of selling themselves.

The red light district has the streets filled with women waiting to make a few rubies by selling the only thing they possess, their bodies.

"My heart hurts for these women who do not share the same freedoms as I have," wrote McSwain.

The streets are overpopulated and laced with poverty.

"Whenever I walk down the street I feel I am walking in people's bedrooms and bathrooms.I am," wrote Moore.

The students struggled with the ease the citizens lived in such frightening conditions.

Hayes wrote, "I guess the irony of it all was just the normalcy. Everything looked so normal-kids playing in the street; women and men walking hand in hand; street vendors trying to sell their products. If you aren't completely oblivious though, you know it is so much more than that. You know the kids are all in the street because their moms are in the house/bedroom with their customers; you know the men and women walking hand in hand are merely business people negotiating a price."

The need for freedom and prosperity is evident. The students endured those streets. Even if it was just moments passing on the streets, the gravity of the situation is staying with them.

"I will be leaving on Sunday; these people will not," wrote Hayes.

However the work the students did and many organizations in the red light districts still do is a step towards a rightful change. It's a step to fulfill the needs of something greater. The problem may not be solved immediately but more people are slowly experiencing the taste of freedom because of their works.

Moore writes, "I know I can't save all the street people, and that my short days here won't even begin to scratch the surface. But maybe I will mean something to someone, and show someone some love. I know that that the conditions these people are living in cannot be changed by one person, or ten, or fifty over night- but change has to start somewhere, with someone- with me? With you?