At its annual human rights celebration on March 9, Mary Lee Hendricks of Church Women United in Blacksburg presented Steve Darr, Executive Director of the Blacksburg-based Peacework, with a certificate of appreciation for his many decades of work in human rights. Peacework organizes international projects involving partnerships between institutions of higher education and local community leaders according to locally-determined development needs and objectives. Twenty five thousand U.S. students from 120 U.S. colleges and universities have served in Peacework programs in 27 countries in all of the inhabited continents. In a 2017 pilot project, students from Virginia Tech partnered with students at a university in Thailand to develop and implement a curriculum to teach life skills and information about the risks of trafficking to girls aging out of a Thai orphanage. Continuing support from their Thai mentors and increased ability to earn a living should make them less vulnerable to becoming victims of trafficking. The program will serve an additional orphanage this year.
