Episode 017 - Transcript Leslie: This is Someone Like Me, End Slavery Tennessee's podcast, where we talk to sex trafficking survivors and experts working to fight the crime. I'm Leslie, your host, and today's episode tells the story of one of the ingenious ways members of the community have built restorative and helpful structures to help survivors in big ways. As you might imagine, those who have been victims of trafficking may not have had opportunities to build work experience, so offering ways for survivors to gain this experience is an incredibly helpful way to be involved in their healing and thriving. In this episode, Stacy and I sit down with Lauren Carpenter, the co-founder of Branded Collective, an employer of many of the survivors of End Slavery Tennessee. Branded not only sold jewelry that helped fund survivors in their healing journey but provided jobs for survivors to ready them for the workforce. If you're a business owner or are looking for creative ways to help in the rehabilitation of survivors, listen closely to this episode. It'll give you some important takeaways for developing opportunity for these women. Then stick around after our conversation with Lauren because you'll get to hear from previous employees of Branded, who have special messages from their time there. As a content warning, this conversation has references to subjects that may be triggering or difficult for some, so please use your discretion when listening. Leslie: Alright! Well, Stacy, start us off with some “Would You Rather” questions? Lauren: I can't wait. *laughter* Stacy: I can't wait to hear what you have to say. So the first “Would You Rather” question for Miss Lauren is would you rather have one wish granted today? Or 10 wishes granted 20 years from now? Lauren: This is kind of a hard one. Leslie: Ooo that’s a good question. Lauren: Am I going to be alive 20 years from now would be the first question I would ask? Stacy: Wow, she took it really deeply fast. Lauren: I hope that I am. But maybe I would take the one wish today because you just never know. Stacy: Hmm. Okay, I like that. Lauren: Do you answer this too? Episode 017 - Transcript Stacy: I'd be happy to answer this answer. Leslie: Answer it. I’m curious. Stacy: I'm gonna take it today too, because I'm quite a bit older than you. My chances are lessening all the time. So I think that was a wise choice actually. *laughter* Leslie: Yeah. Stacy: Yoda like, wisdom there. Leslie: That's only one wish. I mean, boy. It's almost easier to be like, No, I don't want any wishes right now if it’s only one. My gosh, that's very, that's a lot of pressure. I'd rather just continue with everything that's happening. And just you know, but you're right. We don't know how much time we have. Stacy: That's true. Leslie: Hmmmm Lauren: Took it real deep. Sorry. Leslie: Yeah. Wow. Stacy: That’s okay, let’s get a little lighter? Let's, let's move it to a lighter question. How about would you rather be forced to sing along or dance to every single song you hear? *laughter* Lauren: Well, first of all, probably no one would want me to sing along to every song that I hear. My husband is a professional singer. I am not. I wish I was. I believe I would probably like to dance. Although it'd be very tiring, dancing makes you very happy. Stacy: Hmm. Lauren: So I think I would want to be like, wouldn't it be fun to be a backup dancer for somebody like a pop star? Stacy: Ooo that's an interesting idea. Episode 017 - Transcript Lauren: So, if you imagine yourself as a backup dancer, and you could dance, just incredibly, I think that will be fun so I’m gonna pick dancing. Leslie: It’d be good exercise too if you're constantly having to dance. Lauren: You'd be so in shape. Leslie: That's right. That's right. Stacy: And you could create different dances. I mean so many possibilities. That's a good answer too, Lauren. All right. I'll do one more just for fun. Would you rather visit 100 years in the past? Or 100 years in the future? Lauren: Well, I know what happened in the past so I'm going to pick future. I think it would be fun to see what's ahead that I will never get to see, right? Stacy: That's so true. Leslie: Oh, yeah. Stacy: And if you can imagine what it was like for someone 100 years ago, how could you have imagined that we would even have these supercomputers in our pockets. That, that would be incalculable. Lauren: Oh, yeah. Stacy: So 100 years from now, what would be incalculable for us? Leslie: Right? Lauren: Who knows? Stacy: Wow. All right, thank you. Lauren: That was fun. Leslie: Yeah. Okay. So Lauren Carpenter, you are the Founder of Branded Collective. And you actually just announced this week that Branded Collective is shutting down, which we will talk about later on. But what we're here to do today is talk about how Branded Collective works in the lives of trafficking survivors, and the work that you did to form Branded Collective and what it is and all the things. So let's start at the beginning. What brought you to an understanding of human trafficking? And what made you want to get involved? Episode 017 - Transcript Lauren: So at the job I was working at, at the time, I think I was 24-25, a friend of mine lent me a book one day at lunchtime. And she just had a stack of books in her office, and it was called Half the Sky, which probably a lot of people that listen to this podcast may have read that book. But it was about women's rights in the developing world. And one of the sections was on trafficking. And I had never really thought about trafficking before, definitely hadn't thought about it existing around me here in Nashville or in the US. And it just kind of opened my eyes and made me think about, well, if it's happening in the developing world, it's for sure happening around me. So that caused me to kind of just do a deep dive into--Are there organizations here that support trafficking survivors? Is it happening a lot? And as soon as I started to do some research, I was just blown away. Leslie: In what way? Lauren: Just that, like I had grown up to that point, learning about all these issues about, you know, clean water, and helping orphans and like all of these really noble causes. And I had grown up in church and love Jesus and just didn't know about trafficking. And I think it broke my heart because it was other people doing terrible things to people. And for some reason, I just couldn't shake it. So I didn't really set out to learn about it. It was kind of a happenstance that I read this book that really opened my eyes, and then I couldn't stop ruminating on it. Leslie: Mmhm. Lauren: And it just broke my heart. Leslie: I totally hear what you're saying, when we're in college, there's a lot of conversation about organizations tend to focus on college students, because college students are passionate, and excited, and missions trips to help with clean water and going overseas. But it sounds like you came to an understanding of domestic human trafficking, which is not as widely discussed, and doesn't look like third world issues do. Lauren: Oh, and a lot of times with Branded when we would do events here in town, or anywhere in the US, people would say, “So where are the survivors from?” And we would say here with us, they're in Nashville. And they might be from somewhere else in the US, but they have been trafficked through Nashville. And they would say, “what?” You know, just shocked, which is the same reaction that I had. What? Leslie: Yeah. Lauren: I think once you know, it kind of just explodes your head a little bit. Leslie: So what was the path from discovering it to forming Branded Collective? Episode 017 - Transcript Lauren: Well, in the same time that I was reading this book and learning about trafficking, I met a friend at church through my small group. And her name's Emily, who's my co-founder of Branded. And we started just going on hikes and getting to know one another. We really weren't setting out to create a business. We were just learning about one another. And we found a lot in common. We both loved fashion. We both had a heart for trafficking survivors. We were both kind of bothered by the issue. And it was something that we discovered very early on. And I shared with her my idea of eventually creating a social enterprise that would help trafficking survivors. And I'm the type of person that I love the idea but I don't have the, the what is the word, the guts to start. *laughter* Lauren: Like I could do this eventually.