Personal Reflection…

Who can believe that we are just about half way through the year? This year has been full of challenges and amazing opportunities to share the love of Christ. Throughout the last 5 months, I have experienced the love of God, as well as thefrustrationof livingin anenvironment that has its daily challenges - challenges of boats not going where and when they should, daily power outages for up to 6 hours a day which means no water, no fans and slow internet. However, one of the highlights of this year was travelling to Moscom & Fouele for Easter. This was an enriching time of being able to share the most important time of the year with our churches in these two villages. We were treated with such love and respect, as well as just being able to share with the villages’ in the everyday rhythms of life and experiencing the local way of travellingfromonevillagetothenext.

The other highlight was being able to really get my teeth into the role of being the Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking (MSHT) National Contact Person for The Salvation Army in The Solomon Islands. This role is something that I have been interested in for a long time and I am pleased that I now am able to meet with other agencies in the Solomon Islands to look at how we can reduce MSHT, as well as being able to validate research that has beentakingplace overthelast couple of years through IOM, RSIPF, HOPE Trust and the Ministry of Women, Youth, Children & Family Affairs (MWYCFA). With this role being a highlight, it is also a challenge trying to educate on what MSHT is and trying to change the very naïve views that are held by many within the community. Many don’t see that MSHT is happening here in the Solomons or turn a blind eye due to ignorance. The Salvation Army’s role in this area is still being looked at and finding the gap of where we can fit. As this month comes to a close and we enter the next half of the year, I am excited to be heading to

Thailand to take part in The Salvation Army SPEA Zone MSHT Community of Practice Conference. This conference will be a great time of networking with others within the SPEA Zone as well as finding out what other centres are doing and how they are supporting survivors of MSHT.