IGF042 In Good Faith with Sister Joan Dawber, founder of LifeWay Network

Sister Maxine  
This is In Good Faith, a conversation about the experience of living faith in everyday life. I'm Sister Maxine, and my guest is Sister Joan Dawber. She's the founder of LifeWay Network, which, since 2007, has provided safe housing in the New York City area for women who are survivors of human trafficking. Today, LifeWay operates homes where over 100 women from 37 countries have found safe shelter and the resources needed to reclaim their lives and independence. Sister Joan was LifeWay's Executive Director for many years and remains very active in the ministry. Before LifeWay, she served as a pastoral associate in the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens for 20 years. Sister Joan was born and raised in Manchester, England. She joins me today from her home in New York. Welcome, Sister Joan. Thank you for being here.

Sister Joan  
Thank you so much, Maxine. It's my pleasure.

Sister Maxine  
Joan, your background is in pastoral ministry. And I'd like to start there and talk about your journey from a ministry that you had for 20 years into a very different type of ministry with anti-trafficking. You worked in parish settings in the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens. What did that involve?

Sister Joan  
Oh, yes, it was, Maxine, it was a wonderful ministry. I worked with the communion ministers and the lectors, training them and bringing them into the situation of being able to be ministers. I also did outreach. We've put together a food pantry, and so we did outreach. And I ran the RCIA. So it was quite a diverse pastoral ministry, and wonderful.

Sister Maxine  
John, how would you describe what it was like to feel called to a new ministry, and to an unexpected direction? What was that process like for you?

Sister Joan  
It goes back to 2001, when the Union of General Superiors met in Rome that year. The general superior in our congregation had gone to that meeting. And I think it was the African women who brought to the table the experience of human trafficking in their own countries. All the general superiors and all the people who are meeting at that time really took that seriously, and made a commitment to meet together or to work together around the issue of human trafficking. Now, I got to know about it through our own general superior, who came back from that meeting, and sent out a letter inviting all of us to pray about the issue of human trafficking, and also to learn about it, to read about it. At that time, when I read that, I actually was really put off by it. I thought it was ugly. And I didn't really want to know too much about it. So at that time, I started to say, "Well, what can I do?" And so I said, "Well, I'll just pray about it." And I understand now about the strength of prayer in a different way.

Sister Maxine  
Did you find that you sensed a call, through your prayer, to this ministry that you could not maybe imagine yourself in?

Sister Joan  
Yeah, it was, it was like a call, although I was being changed by my prayer. And I didn't really know that. So I was being changed by the prayer, and wanting to know more about human trafficking. So indeed, it was a call. But it was very different in many ways. It's just--articles started to come to me rather than me go looking for them. And I remember reading this one article from the New York Times that really had a significant impact on me. It was about women who were in Mexico. And they were being actually sold in an open-air market. And then they were put to work in these caves in the side of the hills. And the perpetrators could be with them for about 15 minutes or so. And an egg timer would go off. It just was so awful. And then I realized, as I read the article more, that these women were being sent to be trafficked in New York, and it was not far from where I lived.

Sister Maxine  
That started an awakening in yourself and awareness in yourself. Was there a particular moment where you thought, "This is where I need to be, I need to be helping these women."

Sister Joan  
Absolutely. Right. And when I read that article, it was real eye-opener, a real awakening. And knowing that what could I do, I had to do something at that time. Actually, the author of the article was giving a conference in Baltimore, whenever I was trying to find out about human trafficking or find out about--it was all so hidden. It was also even the people who worked on it. There were very few people who worked on doing anything about it at that time. It was very hidden. I remember thinking, "I want to go to this." And it was being run by sisters, of course. I did. One of the sisters in my house came with me to Baltimore. And I was able to hear him give his talk. And that was another thing that really impressed me at that moment: that I was with other people who were talking about human trafficking and willing to talk about it. Whereas it had just been going around in my own head, until that time.

Sister Maxine  
As you began to go into a community that discussed this, and you began to learn more about all the different aspects of human trafficking, while you were still a pastoral associate, did that cause you to look at your work? And to look at the people you served in the parish a little bit differently? Were there any things that as you looked back on that you were like, "You know, I wonder about this."

Sister Joan  
My eyes were now open. And I couldn't not see around me and wonder if even-- Where I was working was in an area of Flushing, New York. And I do believe many, many, many women were trafficked in that area. And I kept seeing that--not that they were actually trafficked, but kept seeing women and wondering. And I tried to go to a meeting that I knew was being held by people in New York, that was being run by social service agencies. And for the life of me, I couldn't find out where this meeting was being held. It was so obscure, actually. And finally, I discovered it was being held in an agency down the street from where I worked.

Sister Maxine  
When you have those kinds of--some people might say--coincidences, I always think of them as invitations.

Sister Joan  
Yes.

Sister Maxine  
God nudging you forward a little bit at a time.

Sister Joan  
I really believe that. I don't think you necessarily think that at the beginning. I think, in retrospect, you know, clearly that it is God's work. And I've said that right from the very beginning. This is not something I do. This is God's work. And trusting in that is the only way for me.

Sister Maxine  
Did it help you deal with your own feelings? Because you had mentioned it just seemed like such a different thing to you to go into this ministry to deal with your own feelings of that and the enormity of the issue of human trafficking.

Sister Joan  
Yes. And I laugh a lot at that because I know with God's work, God's Grace, God being with me in this or moving me to this, I was changed. I was changed. I moved from being a frightened person who looked at this one way and it frightened me, to being a different person who looked at this and, with God, knowing that I could do this. So actually, I did both ministries for quite some time.

Sister Maxine  
What was the first step in establishing LifeWay Network in 2007? How did that come about?

Sister Joan  
Well, you know, there was also another meeting at one point in time, in 2005. You know, I was working in this, trying to see or learn. And in 2005, I heard of a meeting that was being held again in Baltimore by the SSNDs, I think it was, or it was an SSND Sister who was the leader of this program. They had gotten some funding from the federal government. And so ran a three-day program on human trafficking for all sisters in the United States who were interested in this. I think you had to have created a particular focus around human trafficking. Well, my congregation didn't, but I insisted that they go to this. And at that particular meeting, for those three days, I met two or three other sisters from the New York area. And so we decided to get together when we came back to New York. And so in the September of that year, we got together. And we then started to create a coalition. And we called it the New York Coalition of Religious Congregations to Stop Trafficking in Persons. Big mouthful! But we did that. And that was the very beginning of working collaboratively and working together. And at that time, I felt that I had to kind of give myself completely to the trafficking ministry. And I was able to do that, with the permission of my congregation--and actually with, with some financial help. I wrote for a grant and got some financial help for us. So that was the beginning of LifeWay Network. Or it was the ground being prepared for LifeWay Network.

Sister Maxine  
Why did you choose that name for the organization?

Sister Joan  
I've no idea! But really, I do know. I had to have a name in order to incorporate! One day, I just sat down and started to put names on a piece of paper--you know, such things as freedom, way forward, life renewing. I just put words down. And then I knew that the word "life" for me was very important. That word speaks to me of God, of the person of Jesus Christ. It has a significant meaning to me. And then I thought of the word "way," as in, you know, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." And so those two things came. So Life was a capital L and Way was a capital W. So it was LifeWay. And then of course, the work we were doing was collaborative with other women religious, so that network was really important. So really, that's the etymology of LifeWay Network.

Sister Maxine  
The organization has grown over time. Let's talk about some of the main work that you and others at LifeWay Network do. Safe housing and education, both big areas of need--why those two things together? Why safe housing as the first thing?

Sister Joan  
When I began to think of the women that I had read about being in New York, and being on the streets in New York, for me, there was a deep sense of wanting to bring them home, of being able to bring them into a safe space. So safe housing was right at the forefront of my mind. And that's when I put forward to the coalition that safe housing should be something we talk about. The coalition itself had three main topics to work on. And so that's what we decided: safe housing was one, education was another, and advocacy was another. In 2007 we had worked very hard on the on the advocacy piece and got to a law passed in New York. There was no law on human trafficking. And the house itself. I just started to say, "We need the house. What can we do?" And so we offered rooms in the houses that we had. I had said to the sisters, "Do you not have a spare room in your house? Does anybody have a spare room in the house?" As you know, we do have spare rooms in our houses! But we could only do that for a very short period of time, like a day or two days or a weekend. It wasn't something that could be offered on a longer term. And we discovered that the short period of time was just nowhere near enough.

Sister Maxine  
As you learned, and as you worked with women, what were some of the needs that made you say, "We need to look at a longer-term residence?"

Sister Joan  
It was the real need of safety and protection, and having a place to breathe, and recover. So two nights here, two nights there, two nights here. That didn't work. That wasn't what was needed. We knew that in order for the women who had been victims and who are now trying to move towards being survivors, not having a stable place to live did not afford them the opportunities to really do anything. They were just moving from house to house. That was the thing: they were just putting a roof over their head for a couple of days. So it was--you know, like any of us, that would be awful. So we decided that that really wasn't working. One of those houses, incidentally, though, still is working with us and works with LifeWay as the emergency safe house. And they've been wonderful--since 2009. There are sisters in this particular house who have worked as the emergency safe house and so they take people for six months. And it can be extended out after six months. And then we move people from there to the longer-term house. That worked, with their longer term. Yeah.

Sister Maxine  
How many of those longer-term safe houses does LifeWay operate?

Sister Joan  
Right now, two longer term ones. One that offers five beds, one that offers seven beds.

Sister Maxine  
As you think about the women you have worked with in the past, but also currently, what kinds of trafficking have they experienced? Tell me about the people that you live and work with.

Sister Joan  
We decided that we would open the houses to women over the age of 18. Anybody younger, they will be considered minors. We knew of other places that were working with minor children off the street, etc. The women come from 37 different countries. At the very beginning, we had Chinese, we've had women from Mexico, we've had women from Africa, American-born women. Each one is unique in her own experience. So LifeWay Network decided right from the get-go to take in women who are sex trafficked, and women who are labor trafficked. Most agencies just took the sex trafficking, they were not specific to human trafficking survivors. They would take them as domestic violence, as if they were domestic violence shelters. So LifeWay was one of the only places in New York specifically for survivors of human trafficking.

Sister Maxine  
And in the houses, it's more than just a place where they reside, and be safe, although certainly that's a main feature. But they have an experience of community life.

Sister Joan  
Yes. That was one of our first things about how do we work with the women once they're in the houses, and we knew that we could not really meet all the needs that were crying out. So at the very beginning, in order to have somebody come to the safe house, they had to come through a social service agency, who would screen them, and then provide them with a case manager. So when they came to the house, the majority of our work was to make sure that they were safe and felt safe. And then we did things within the house itself, we offered programming within the house itself. But the case manager was the person who would be doing all the referrals outside the house. The most important thing, I think, for us was to provide that atmosphere of welcome and home. And we did that by working with the coalition. And speaking about having a host community live in the house. So after quite some discernment, three sisters came forward and decided that they would form an intentional community to live in the house. The idea was for them to live in the house and be with the women, but also to go out to work for themselves to their own ministries during the day. And they would come home in the evening and live with the women in the house. So in order for us to do that, we then hired a house manager who would be present in the house during the day. And a social worker who would then you know, collaborate with the case manager on behalf of the women. But the host community was really the major piece of that. It just gave them a sense of community. We talk about community. It's so hard for people to understand community and to try and live it.

Sister Maxine  
The sense of belonging is crucial for a person to feel safe.

Sister Joan  
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think one of the hardest things for the women to understand, and they really found it hard, was that people cared about them, and didn't want anything from them. You know, "Why are you doing this for me?" They couldn't understand it, because their lives have been so manipulative. And when they finally did, it was such a breakthrough and such a relief to them.

Sister Maxine  
To understand that people would care about them, that people could be trusted.

Sister Joan  
And the trust level, of course, when we're talking about survivors of human trafficking, their trust has been demolished, broken, many times broken. And so for them to even begin to think of trusting--just very difficult.

Sister Maxine  
We're going to pause for just a brief break. This is In Good Faith, a program of A Nun's Life Ministry. We want to thank our sponsors and individual donors like you who support makes the In Good Faith program possible. Please visit anunslife.org to make a donation or to become a sponsor of this ministry. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. You are listening to Sister Maxine of A Nun's Life Ministry and my guest, Sister Joan Dawber, founder of LifeWay Network, which provides safe housing for survivors of human trafficking in the New York City area. Joan, you mentioned before the break that for many of the women who've been trafficked, their trust in people has been broken. Is that because their traffickers have done that to manipulate them and controlled them?

Sister Joan  
Absolutely. And it would be some, maybe somebody they knew if they were perhaps in a different country. You know, one of our women came from Africa. And she came thinking she was going to be educated and be able to earn some money, change her life around, and provide for her family and Africa. And the person that she had connected with was somebody who she knew, and who would bring her to the United States. And then she was handed over to be a domestic--it was labor trafficking. So she was given to this family. And you would think, "Well, that's fine, it's a house, she's got a roof over her head, etc." When she prepared the dinner and everything, the family ate at the table, and she had to sit in a corner to eat. So it just breaks you, you know. You expect to be able to do certain things, and you can't. And the people that you've trusted have betrayed you. We were able to get her out of that situation through one of the social service agencies. She wasn't allowed out. She was in that house over four years, and wasn't allowed out.

Sister Maxine  
And it seems like the traffickers, people who stand to gain financially in some way or other--I mean, it would seem that once that person is out of that situation, that the trafficker would probably want to find, so to say, their investment, and that that could pose a grave danger, if they did, in fact, find the house where she lived. How do you mitigate against that kind of danger? How do you keep a safe house safe?

Sister Joan  
For us, it was the confidentiality initially. So safe houses were not spoken of, not referred to. Nobody knew where they were. Not even the board of directors of LifeWay Network have been to the safe houses. So that's the first thing, was that kind of safety. The second thing was that we did put around the house cameras. So that who you let in and how you did that--none of the women could buzz anybody in. It was the staff who did that. So that kept them safe in that way. The women were told, as part of being in the house, that they had to keep the house confidential. And if they broke that, there would be really difficult ramifications for everybody. And I have to say that the women kept the house safe. The women and the staff kept the house safe.

Sister Maxine  
For the women, what kinds of things do they do on a day-to-day basis?

Sister Joan  
It depends. Again, it's unique to every woman. But it would be medical attention to some medical conditions. So that would be one of the things that they would have to do upfront. So it would be going to a doctor's appointment and coming back. And that wouldn't happen right away. First of all, they would have to feel very comfortable in the house. So at first, a person who comes spends some time just being in the house and being with other people, and being able to just rest and move from where she was emotionally to a different place. But it takes time. That's the first thing. The second thing then is their health. And then it would be, depending if they had a job or wanted to get a job and how to do that. So it's to help them to move to self-sufficiency. They will also be talking with their case manager, and working with the case manager as well on different aspects, maybe to train to do something.

Sister Maxine  
In the process of dealing with the trauma that they have undergone, that would seem to be something that would absorb a great deal of time because it just takes time to work through.

Sister Joan  
Yes, and that's absolutely the first thing at the forefront is you know: how to deal with that. And how to be able to live with others while you're dealing with it. It's just so convoluted. Of course we would always encourage the women to seek mental health counseling. Some wanted to, others didn't. That made it quite difficult for them. But the trust level had gone. And so how do you do that? Only with time.

Sister Maxine  
It sounds like in what you were just saying, that part of that trust is also established when they get to make some choices. Even if it might be choices not to have mental health care. The fact is, they can make a choice.

Sister Joan  
You're absolutely correct. That's the big thing. And how to make a choice. You know, to make a choice is one thing. But how do you make a choice? Sometimes it's like you have to be helped in how to do that. The choice is very, very important, very important in moving towards self-autonomy.

Sister Maxine  
With these women in this journey of healing, you've mentioned a couple of stories, but are there others who you particularly remember as having incredible strength and courage? I'm sure they all do. But any individuals in particular?

Sister Joan  
Yes, certainly. In my last year at LifeWay, before I retired from there, I worked with three particular women, and all three of them we invited to be part of a committee working on a program of mentorship. All three of them have left LifeWay. One, I went to her wedding, and she is now a mother of two children with the third on the way.  

Sister Maxine  
That is wonderful!

Sister Joan  
It is indeed, and a very delightful woman, and very clear about wanting to help other women who have been trafficked. Wonderful. There's another woman who-- Well the first one was trafficked from 14 years of age. She was kidnapped and moved into sex trafficking from 14. That was her background. And it was hard for her when she first came to LifeWay. In fact, she came and looked at the house and decided she wasn't coming, because she didn't want to be with the nuns. And then she came back. And that was her saving grace. She does love being with the nuns! The other woman--well, the other two--one has now just finished her bachelor's degree, and is looking at her master's degree in business administration. And has just started that actually. And she is working full time, as well as going to school. So she had this drive when she was in the safe house, she had such a drive to move beyond what had been her life. She worked and she worked, and she's still working very well indeed. She's a wonderful woman, and has great ideas about human trafficking, and is willing to share those and to see how to keep moving forward to help others. And then there's a third one who now has created her own not-for-profit. And she is working on helping women who have been trafficked to speak English, because that, she felt, was one of the major things that is necessary for anybody to actually move on from where they are. So it's English and any other kinds of needs about learning: learning how to write a resume, learning all of those kinds of things--other women who are not in programs, but she's developed these programs where everything is happening online. Everything is happening online. So she has these meetings online, which is absolutely marvelous. She came from an awful situation as well.

Sister Maxine  
The women who come there and they can stay for a year in the long-term housing, are there some who at some point decide not to keep going in that year? Are there some who, for whatever reason, leave and come back at a later point?

Sister Joan  
Yes, and yes. There are some people who choose not to go on because they feel that they have reached a certain point where they want to move ahead on their own without having the restrictions of a curfew and some of those other restrictions that are part of a safe housing program. So yes, that that can take place. Sometimes there are individuals who find it so, so difficult to leave behind what has been imprinted in them. And so can't possibly see a way of living in this community way, where we try to take responsibility and care for one another. It's very hard, because her main focus is herself, which is wonderful. But at the same time, it can be very hard in living in that way.

Sister Maxine  
For those who may leave--and you mentioned, some do, in fact, at a later point desire to come back--what is that like for the individual and for the people who live there?

Sister Joan  
Yeah. For the individual, I think there's really a sense of coming home. They see things differently. They understand things differently, and they take advantage of what is there for them to be able to take advantage of. And for the staff and for the sisters, it's really, "Wow, this is great." And it's wonderful that an individual should choose to return.

Sister Maxine  
Is there an expectation when they come in that everything will go perfectly start to finish? I would imagine that's probably not a big expectation because of recognizing humanity.

Sister Joan  
Right. It's not an expectation. But it sometimes can be around the edges. But I think from the women's standpoint, having been in the house already, they understand what they're going back to. And so it works because they want it to work.

Sister Maxine  
As you reflect back on these experiences, what do you think you personally have learned from the examples of these women, from the way they live from the challenge they're ready to take up? Personally for you, what insights have you gained from them?

Sister Joan  
Oh, gosh, I've learned so much. I've learned so much. I've learned not to take things for granted. Because things change so rapidly and so much. I've learned to listen a whole lot more. And let myself be taught by the women. Because with all the good intentions in the world, I have never been trafficked, and I don't know what that's like from the inside. So it's really important to listen and to pay attention to what is shared. And I've grown from that. And you know, I've learned about resiliency--and watching the women struggle, just struggle and come out the other side. Such resiliency. You know, the human person is so resilient. And these women in particular, I'm a better person for having worked with the women survivors. You know, I had an opportunity, just recently in the summer, to volunteer in one of the houses and to do a respite, overnight volunteering. And so I was with the women in the evening and overnight and then the next day and at breakfast. And it was so wonderful for me to be able to do that. Because in my role as executive director, I never had that kind of opportunity. I would go and have dinner with the different houses each month but not have that opportunity to be with them. I said from the very beginning, I always wanted to be the house manager. But it was lovely to be able to do that in August, and just listen, listen and talk to the women.

Sister Maxine  
We're going to pause for a break. This is In Good Faith, a program of A Nun's Life Ministry. We want to thank our sponsors and individual donors like you, whose support makes the In Good Faith program possible. We'll be right back.

We talked before the break, Joan, about the safe housing aspect of LifeWay for women who've been trafficked. But LifeWay also provides lots of education to organizations in the community. Why is education such an important part of LifeWay's work?

Sister Joan  
The position of the education person, that was initially designed because we felt it was one thing to house women, but the other thing was to make sure that the general public understood and were educated about the issue of human trafficking. Because the more people who are educated and know about it, the more opportunity we have to stop human trafficking. I think the experience of the women is really so important when you're educating other people to have them know what the women have gone through, what has happened, what they look like, how they react, what the red flags are. So in order to identify somebody who has been trafficked, it's important for the general public to know, if you're seeing somebody who is not talking for herself, somebody else is talking for her--for instance, in a hospital setting--that's a red flag. It might be that they're saying they're the interpreter, that this person has uncle, this is a member of the family. But for hospital people, that would be a red flag to make sure you can get the woman alone, and work with her. So that would be one thing. And other things would be when individuals don't have access to their own paperwork. They have no ID, or they have no funding, or they don't look you in the eye. There are many ways in which we can educate people around knowing and how to identify persons who have been trafficked.

Sister Maxine  
As we come to the end of our time together, Joan, I also want to ask about what's next for you as the founder of the organization and for LifeWay Network, recognizing that that you were recently elected to leadership in your congregation, Sisters of Charity Halifax. Will that bring some change to the way you've been involved with the Ministry and the women?

Sister Joan  
I'm hoping not too much. But clearly, over the last year--since I retired from being the executive director--that has changed substantially for me. I've been able to, as I said, spend some time with the women. I'm hoping to be able to continue to do that at different points because I think that will be helpful for me and helpful for LifeWay. So I also act as a consultant to LifeWay and to the staff there so that they can call me and talk with me. So that's a helpful thing. I'm also in the process of just completing a grant for LifeWay. I have some connections from the time I was working for all those years, so that's valuable--I think very valuable. Yesterday I got a lovely phone call from one of our dear, dear sponsors who has been wonderful. She had received a big bouquet of flowers and she was just delighted. Just delighted. And she called me at home here. So, you know, that is a way of being able to connect and stay connected with some of the major donors who would be working and helping us to continue to do this work.

Sister Maxine  
For people who are listening to this podcast, if they are interested in getting involved in their local area, what might be the first step they take?

Sister Joan  
I think it's really important for people to become educated about the issue of human trafficking. You can indeed learn from lifewaynetwork.org--there's education materials there on LifeWay's website. There's also education materials on the US Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking, that's sistersagainsttrafficking.org. I'm on their board. They have a wonderful selection of materials for education. I think education is a really important thing. The next thing is, not to do this alone, but to do it with others, to form a group. Some of the things that you will hear as you become educated--it's a hard ministry. It's a very difficult work, but an absolutely rewarding one. You know, LifeWay as I said, is always open to receiving donations. And right now in particular, they're working on things for covering some shifts during the evening at the safe houses and need to have access to funding for that. Volunteering at LifeWay as well, if people are interested in doing that. The COVID virus has made that very difficult. Now, at this point in time, that's on hold in a way. But we always have counted on having volunteers who work in the safe houses.

Sister Maxine  
The resources that you mentioned the links to I'll be sure to put those in the notes on the podcast so that people can find it here.

Sister Joan  
That would be great.

Sister Maxine  
I want to say a huge thank you, Joan, for joining me here today.

Sister Joan  
Oh, you're most welcome. Thank you indeed for this conversation. It's been really wonderful to talk to you.

Sister Maxine  
I also want to thank you, our listeners, for joining us today. And just to remind you again, you'll be able to find the links to topics and organizations that we talked about in the show today--you'll find those in the on the podcast page on our website. In Good Faith is a production of A Nun's Life Ministry, helping people discover and grow in their vocation by engaging questions about God, faith and religious life. This program is made possible through the grace of God, the support of the sponsors of A Nun's Life Ministry, and you, our listeners. We are very grateful for your prayers, encouragement and support. Visit us at anunslife.org. God bless.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.