Jackson Free Press

If there was any doubt, Cambodia and Jackson aren't exactly close to one another. More than 9,000 miles separate the two locations. But for Clinton native Drew Mellon, the U.S. director for international nonprofit The Hard Places Community, his connection isn't a question of geography, but of compassion and calling.

Mellon's sister, Alli Mellon, is the executive director of Hard Places, which is now based in Kansas City, Mo. She founded the organization in February 2008 to meet the needs of children in other countries, whether they're dealing with natural disasters, disease or an altogether different kind of struggle—sex trafficking. Fighting Cambodia's rampant child sex trafficking has been one of Hard Places' long-term projects since the Mellon and Alli traveled to the nation in 2009.

"When we first went to Cambodia, the whole goal of us being there was really to help other organizations because we weren't the first, by any means, to say, 'There's a problem with child sex trafficking in Cambodia; we should go help them,'" Mellon says.

However, after a short time, they began to see the fatigue that wore on the volunteers and staff in various organizations. People were tired and burned out, Mellon says. It became clear that the systems in place could use help, and that was before they really started to understand the depths of the region's child sex-trafficking issues—before they saw another aspect that desperately needed attention.

"(There were) a lot of what we call 'after-care' facilities or trauma-assessment centers for girls, where if a girl has been sexually exploited or sold by her family, she actually has a place she can go and live and go through therapy and job training and really come out of it with a future," Mellon says. "But for boys, there was one place, and it's not even open anymore. They could only take six so they weren't even out looking. ... They were always full, and they weren't doing anything on the prevention side."

Due to the commonality of Cambodian families selling their own children into the sex trade, the general practice was to pull the young victims from their home. But through research, Alli and Mellon learned that a drop-in assessment and prevention center was more effective for boys, providing they had safe homes.

To raise funds for their first care center, they launched the first Walk Against Traffick, then called Traffick Jam, in April 2011. The event turned out to be an overwhelming success. They had originally planned to launch in the following year, but with the amount of money raised, they were able to open the center in about two months.

Today, Mellon helps organize Walk Against Traffick events in 32 states, and Hard Places employs 30 Cambodian nationals to assist in its two centers: the Punlok Thmey Prevention and Restoration Center for Boys and the Prook Thmey Prevention and Restoration Center for Girls. In January, the organization will launch a small day center with mobile programs in the Siem Reap province, a tourist destination that is home to the Angkor Wat temples.

"It's not one of the Seven Wonders of the World, but it's right after that somewhere," Mellon says. "It's pretty amazing, these thousands-of-years-old temples. But it's a city that also attracts a lot of what we call 'sex tourists.' You know, they're coming into the country with that specifically in mind. So there are a lot of kids at risk there, too."

But as Hard Places expands into other areas of Cambodia, the organization faces new and more frightening challenges. Recently, the group helped to protect the victims of an Australian pedophile, who was an English teacher at a high-profile boarding school in Cambodia. While he went to trial, about 40 male and female children he had sexually abused were thrown into a state-run all-girls orphanage, which served to cause more problems.

"Girls and boys are different enough as it is," Mellon says. "Traumatized young boys and girls are even more different in the way they process and deal with things. You know, boys oftentimes can get violent, or they can act out sexually themselves on those around them. There are just a lot of unique things that you really need special training for."

To make sure that this situation wouldn't happen again, Mellon and Alli began brainstorming on a sister event to Walk Against Traffick that would raise money specifically for a trauma center outside of the city that would give children a safe place to live, learn, heal through therapy and have people who care about them. That planning resulted in Dine Against Darkness, a formal dinner event that takes inspiration from the international eating sensation Dining in the Dark.

The event, which takes place on Tuesday, Nov. 3, at Duling Hall, will feature an in-the-dark first-course to match its theme of bringing light to dark places. Jacksonians will also have the chance to meet the dinner's special guest, Panha Yin, who began working with Hard Places as a translator while he was still a teenager. He continues to help the organization investigate child-trafficking cases and aid in rescue, restoration and prevention efforts.

If the event proves to be successful, Mellon plans to organize Dine Against Darkness activities in other locations, as well. It certainly seems to be on track—ticket sales were stopped early because the event already doubled Hard Places' initial sign-up goal.

The end of ticket sales doesn't mean the end of the organization's financial needs, though. Mellon says it's important for everyone interested in donating to know that their money goes further than they may realize. The $120,000 needed to build the new trauma center may sound like a lot, but compared to building costs in the U.S., it's a relatively small sum. And while American volunteers are required to raise their own support, Hard Places can't get far without a staff in Cambodia. Luckily, even a $150 donation is enough to pay a staff member for a full month.

"We could probably get started on stuff as early as the beginning of 2016," Mellon says of the new project. "We've already made a lot of inquiries. The government knows what we want to do, and that's a big step. We already kind of have their blessing and approval. There's a thing called a memorandum of understanding, which is kind of like your permission to work in the country. You have to renew it every three years, and anything you want to do within that three years has to be on it. So even though we weren't ready to launch the Siem Reap project or the trauma center yet, we had to put that on our three-year plan. So we're ready."

For more information on The Hard Places Community and Dine Against Darkness, visit hardplacescommunity.org.