by Morgan Feddes, '11
 When Erin McNamara graduated from Whitworth in 2005 with a B.A. in theology, she never imagined that within four years she would be serving on the board of Transitions Global, an Oregon-based nonprofit organization that assists young girls in Cambodia, India and the U.S. who have been sexually trafficked. Transitions Global assists these victims with the process of healing and moving forward with their adult lives.
For a little more than a year, McNamara has worked as a production manager and coordinator at Big Shot Productions, a film and video production company in Portland, Ore. The Big Shot director encouraged McNamara to pursue her own videoproduction projects. She became interested in Transitions Global when her mother saw a special on Dateline NBC about James and Athena Pond, who sold everything they owned and moved with their three children to Cambodia to open the Transitional Living Center. The center provides a safe, homelike environment for Cambodian and Vietnamese survivors of sex trafficking, exploitation, and abuse.
McNamara conducted filmed interviews with James Pond, the founder and executive director of Transitions Global, Jaya Sry, the director of Transitions Global in Cambodia, and trauma specialist Wendy Freed. McNamara combined her footage with clips from the Dateline NBC special to produce a 10-minute video that explains how Transitions Global helps trafficking victims adjust to life outside of the sex trade.
In the wake of McNamara's video project, she was asked to become a board member of Transitions Global. The board is currently raising funds to help the organization survive, McNamara says. The group hosted a fund-raising banquet in January that featured speakers such as Wayne Havrelly, a news anchor at Portland's largest network, KGW, and Judge Nan Waller, the chief family-law judge of Multnomah County, Ore., who serves on several committees that address juvenile crime.
McNamara says the organization's survival - and her own involvement - are in God's hands. "I hope I can help more in the future," she says. "But God is in control of that."
For more information on Transitions Global, visit www.transitionsglobal.org.
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