March 30, 2025 • 15 mins
Original Air Date: March 30, 2025
Kelly Mallon Young is the COO of Sister Rising Worldwide. That’s sisters as in nuns doing tremendous work all over the world!
Kelly Mallon Young is the COO of Sister Rising Worldwide. That’s sisters as in nuns doing tremendous work all over the world!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Gracie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
As we get closer to Easter, I have the privilege
of introducing you to the cooo of an organization that
does so much good around the world, Sisters Rising Worldwide.
And by sisters we mean as in nuns. The cooo
(00:30):
of Sisters Rising Worldwide is Kelly Mallan Young. Welcome and
tell us what is Sisters Rising Worldwide all about? And
how to do form and what's the whole story you're
going to be talking for the next fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
First, thanks for having me on the show. It's really
a great honor to be able to share our mission
with the people on in your audience.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
So we always kind of joke around like, well, there.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Are three nuns in a bar, and but really there
is a vision of one sister, sister Irene, and unfortunately
she has laryngitis so it is unable to join us.
But she had this vision of how great it would
be to connect the sisters around the world, no matter
what congregation they're from or what language they spoke, Because
(01:18):
sisters are the ones that move into the areas that
are struggling the most, where the most poverty, extreme poverty
lives and they go in there and they try to
find out exactly what is causing that poverty, because poverty
is caused by many different things. It can be war,
it can be gender inequality, it could be domestic violence,
it could be lack of education, job skills, train so
there's all these things that can cause poverty.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
So when people look.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
From the outside, they're like, oh, this country, you know,
they need shoes or they need you know.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Books and stuff like that. But sometimes that's not what
they need.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
That's not what's causing the poverty, so they're not helping them,
you know, rise out of poverty. So the sisters like
we you know, sister I means like we understand, you know, sisters,
understand what that is. And if we could connect them
and share with the world what is happening in these
communities and how to truly change those communities, we could
change the trajectory of the world. And she's like, we
(02:10):
just need this technology piece that we could gather all
this information and start sharing it with donors and sharing
it with other people around the world. So it was
really Sister Irene's vision, you know, one day that you had.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
This how long ago it started about two thousand, that
concept probably twenty sixteen, and we started working on it
in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
So yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So some of the things that you're actually conquering is
human trafficking, sex trafficking.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Right, So about eighty percent of what the Sisters do
really focus on preventing people from being trafficked. But once again,
it can be caused by different things. So it could
be you know, the lack of education, job skills training.
So these people that live in extreme poverty are the
most vulnerable for trafficking.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
And if you can go ahead and.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Prevent somebody from being trafficked, it is a lot easier
than going ahead and trying to heal and help somebody after.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
You know they're survivor of human trafficking.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So to kind of give you some stats right now too,
when I first started with Sisters Rising worldwide, it was
like one hundred and fifty billion dollar industry human trafficking.
It's now up to two hundred and thirty six dollars
or a billion around the world globally. I mean, it's
just a huge industry, and it's happening. You know, people
you know always asking me like, does it really happening
(03:36):
in the United States.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I'm like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Every zip code in the United States has cases of trafficking,
so it's everybody's affected by this.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Let's get closer to home in New York and tell us,
for example, what are you doing about sex trafficking in
New York and what are you finding? Well?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
First of all, in New York, York is the ranked
four in the number of cases of human trafficking in
the United States, so it's a very prevalent thing and
a lot to do with this population.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Of New York. And there is about.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
One hundred calls per month in New York in the
Human Trafficking Hotline. In addition to that, there's about of
those hundred, and about thirty three of them are from
victims and survivors of human trafficking. So I do think
about it every day. There is somebody that calls in.
One of the programs we currently have posted right now
(04:32):
is in the Bronx. So the sisters had this convent,
and as the number of sisters had declined, they didn't
need as much space, so they have part of the
house half of the house for survivors of human trafficking.
So they do a lot of therapy, they do a
lot of job skills training and really help these people
get back on their feet because it's a long process
(04:53):
for them.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
So there's this year program. But currently right.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Now the home needs the electricity upgrade, they need a
new roof, they need just some maintenance on it, and
so they've had a close until they can raise the
money to go ahead and get that done.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
And that's in the Bronx.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So what sort of impact can you tell us that
you have made in sex trafficking around the world or
in New York City. I mean, you talk about this home,
but I know that you know you haven't been it's
not like a long standing organization, you're relatively new. But
just what sort of impact.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Well, I would tell you, like, although the organization is new,
what the Sisters have been doing is for over four
hundred years, right, You've been in the front line of
preventing people from being trafficked. And that's really a lot
of what we try to focus on is the prevention.
So we're in these countries around the globe that have
the most vulnerable.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
People that are most subject to be trafficed.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So what we're what we do is we will like
during COVID, a lot of girls were you know, stuck
at home, and some.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Of them got pregnant and let's say they got they.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Had babies, and now all of a sudden, these women
are desperate, right, they have no money and they have
this child. So sometimes you know, in these and to
say but like sometimes they have to sell their child
or they this somebody come up them and say, hey,
you know, we'll go ahead and give you this job.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
We'll go ahead and support you.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
And then it's all a scam and they get stuck
into either sex trafficking or labor trafficking. So it's just
it's the poor that are really the most vulnerable and
that get tricked into trafficking.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And also those who are drug addicted correct.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
There was a lady that she was addicted to drugs
and somebody came out to me and was like, oh,
it looks like you know, you could just use a
hot meal and a shower. You know, I'm willing to
help you, like if you need anything. And the lady's like, well, yeah,
that would be great, right, Just I just need one
meal and a shower and I'll be better.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
And they went.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
To that person's house and then was locked into basement
and was traffiicate for about five years. So and then
what happens a lot of times when people don't understand
is there was a story of a lady in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
I can't remember exactly where, but she was traffickate underneath
her own roof of her house that she was living
(07:22):
with her parents. But they're so scared to tell anybody
because they threatened that traffickers will threaten The traffickers will
tell you that I will kill your brother, or I
will kill your parents, or I'll tell your dad, who
may be a pastor that you know, I have all
these videos of you having sex because they drug them up.
They have sex with somebody and then they take pictures
(07:44):
and now they're trafficate.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I am speaking with the CEOO of Sisters Rising Worldwide,
Kelly Mallan Young. Tell us what other sort of work
you're doing in the New York City area.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well, like I said, we just we have one sister
or one lady that works with us as country with
the United Nations. You in and she goes ahead and
promotes the different work that we're doing, and she partners
with different sisters from around the world that go ahead
and addressings. So they're learning about how to empower women
(08:20):
in the New York area and how to protect them,
how to share stories, how to because it's all about awareness, right,
So it's trying to share our story so people are
more aware of what is happening, so people know what
to look for. And that's kind of what we're doing
around the United States too, is to get the word out.
But there's another organization that does a lot of that
too in the human trafficking where we are kind of
(08:41):
really more focused on, you know, the prevention around the world.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And tell us about some of the other programs around
the world. I mean, I saw that one is teaching
job skills to girls, because you know, that's at the
heart of economic independence is to be able to work
and make money.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, we did a program that was great in Uganda,
and we helped them raise the money to go ahead
and off of this program where they would teach sewing,
they would teach you know, soap making.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
They and what I loved about this program too, they
also had.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
We're teaching the women how to fix mopeds because mopeds
is how everybody you know.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Traveled in that country.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So there's always gonna be job security because there's always
gonna be you need to fix mopeds. So they actually
talked to the women how to do that so they'd
have some security. But I mean, just last night alone,
I was talking to a nun in Kenya about she
worked at a hospital and she just she had broughte
a program in that they needed a new ambulance because
they couldn't, you know, transport people or get people to
(09:44):
the hospital or what. And she told me last night
she was she retouched to me, She's like, it just
reminded me of the program that I, you know, we
were raising money for because the ambulance the woman a
woman came into the hospital and she delivered a baby,
but she had complications during the pregnancy, and so they
needed transporter to a bigger hospital because these are just
like rural hospitals, and because they didn't have an ambulance
(10:05):
to take her to this new, you know, bigger hospital,
they had to wait for a taxi service, which in
these royal areas isn't very you know, big it's not
very popular. So they had to wait for the transportation
and it took a long time, and by the time
or as they were transporting to the hospital, she passed away.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
So now there's this newborn baby just you know, just
this week.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And is now does not have a mom because you know,
she's just looking for a van.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
So there's things like that.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
There's some communities that the government, I mean, there's no
school for twelve miles and.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
These sisters, you know, need vans.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
To transport these kids because what happens is the girls
will go to school, they walk the twelve miles and
maybe on the way back home they'll get trafficked or
they'll get sexually assaulted, and then what happens to them,
Then they don't want to go to school anymore, right
because they're scared of the walk home. So but if
we're able to provide a van for them, then this kid,
the girls especially will stay in school.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Right water catchmen, there's no water, what do they do.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
They don't send the boys out of the school, They
send the girls out of the school, and then the
girls are vulnerable on this walk to go get water
for them, and they get trafficked. So We do water
catchment systems in a lot of different places too, to
go ahead and protect the girls.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
In that area. So I mean, there's just so many
different things that we touch on.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Solar panels, there's a lot of hospitals that lose power
during surgery, so they need solar panels to keep the
power running. So yeah, things like that is what And
like I said, looking from the outside, you may not
know what that is until you're there.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
How many nuns worldwide are involved with Sisters Rising Worldwide?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Oh, that's a great question. I love saying this.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
When somebody asked me what I do, I'm like, Oh,
I work with the six hundred and fifty thousand Sisters
around the world.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
And they're like what, I'm like, there are six hundred
and fifty thousand women that and they're really the largest
network of women for good the world has ever known.
But six hundred five two thousand, day in and day,
our twenty four to seven is working to help the
most vulnerable people around the world.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So where do you get your funding?
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Well, that's great.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
We have a lot of donors in the New York era,
no New York around the United States that really have
stepped forward because they understand like ninety percent of what
we raise goes directly to the Sisters on the ground.
So I have actually volunteered. I'm going on my seventh
year of volunteering with the organization, and I really run
(12:35):
all the different aspects of it. But people understand that.
You know, the Sisters are the most selfless people. They
can make a dollar stretch longer than anybody else. So
a lot of the donors love our mission. It's really
about getting our mission out to get more donors in it.
But just recently the beginning of this year, we had
a donor that donated a million dollars and he says,
(12:56):
anybody that donates this year, we're ten thousand dollars, he
will match that. So sorry, so I'll match it up
to the million dollars. So if we can get another
million dollars in donations from other people.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
He will match that. So yeah, we got some great,
great followers.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Kelly, how did you get involved? And you say you
volunteer so you're not paid at all?
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Well, it's hard to take a salary after hearing what
the Sisters do, right, Like, I mean, they're the ones
that are doing this incredible work I can't take a salary,
and I'm like, I retired actually fairly early, and I'm
married to a workaholics, So you know, I played pick
a ball and I worked for Sisters Rising Worldwide.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
That's how I spend my time now.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
But I have a cousin that is a nun and
she asked one of my blood sisters and I to
go to Saint Paul just for a weekend to help
Sister Irene really with the concept of this, how this
technology platform would work. And so I went there and
my sister, she's brilliant. She went ahead and designed how
(14:02):
this platform would work, what it would look like, and
I was to take all that in understand it, help
put like the marketing pieces together because I needed to
present it for Sister Iren a month later. Well, in
that month of working with the sisters, I found out,
I mean just how fun and how incredible they were.
I mean, I grew up in the church and I
had no idea what the sisters did and a lot
(14:23):
of people don't. So that's like you know, sharing their sorry,
and I just I got very passionate about the cost.
So yeah, going on seven years of volunteering just to
support them, but.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It's Andy retired from doing what I was in sales.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
So I worked in the physical security department or division,
and yeah, I had some great customers and helped me
be tired a little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Thank you so much for your good work. If people
want to donate to Sisters Rising Worldwide, how would they
do that?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Simple?
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Our website's very easy. It's SRW, So Sister's Rising Worldwide.
Just SRW dot or and there's a donate page.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
And I will leave you one thing.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Like Sister Irene, although she could be there, she wanted
me to say one thing. She just says, we need
sister Champions to step up and help with the heavy
lift of eradicating extreme poverty that holds us back from
knowing the beauty of our world and the.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Lives how incredibly diverse we are.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
So she just wanted to send ushas, Yeah, we just
need sister Champions to help support our mission.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Well, thank you so much, and of early happy Easter
to you.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
You've been listening to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
three
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Gracie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
As we get closer to Easter, I have the privilege
of introducing you to the cooo of an organization that
does so much good around the world, Sisters Rising Worldwide.
And by sisters we mean as in nuns. The cooo
(00:30):
of Sisters Rising Worldwide is Kelly Mallan Young. Welcome and
tell us what is Sisters Rising Worldwide all about? And
how to do form and what's the whole story you're
going to be talking for the next fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
First, thanks for having me on the show. It's really
a great honor to be able to share our mission
with the people on in your audience.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
So we always kind of joke around like, well, there.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Are three nuns in a bar, and but really there
is a vision of one sister, sister Irene, and unfortunately
she has laryngitis so it is unable to join us.
But she had this vision of how great it would
be to connect the sisters around the world, no matter
what congregation they're from or what language they spoke, Because
(01:18):
sisters are the ones that move into the areas that
are struggling the most, where the most poverty, extreme poverty
lives and they go in there and they try to
find out exactly what is causing that poverty, because poverty
is caused by many different things. It can be war,
it can be gender inequality, it could be domestic violence,
it could be lack of education, job skills, train so
there's all these things that can cause poverty.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
So when people look.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
From the outside, they're like, oh, this country, you know,
they need shoes or they need you know.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Books and stuff like that. But sometimes that's not what
they need.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
That's not what's causing the poverty, so they're not helping them,
you know, rise out of poverty. So the sisters like
we you know, sister I means like we understand, you know, sisters,
understand what that is. And if we could connect them
and share with the world what is happening in these
communities and how to truly change those communities, we could
change the trajectory of the world. And she's like, we
(02:10):
just need this technology piece that we could gather all
this information and start sharing it with donors and sharing
it with other people around the world. So it was
really Sister Irene's vision, you know, one day that you had.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
This how long ago it started about two thousand, that
concept probably twenty sixteen, and we started working on it
in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
So yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So some of the things that you're actually conquering is
human trafficking, sex trafficking.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Right, So about eighty percent of what the Sisters do
really focus on preventing people from being trafficked. But once again,
it can be caused by different things. So it could
be you know, the lack of education, job skills training.
So these people that live in extreme poverty are the
most vulnerable for trafficking.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
And if you can go ahead and.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Prevent somebody from being trafficked, it is a lot easier
than going ahead and trying to heal and help somebody after.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
You know they're survivor of human trafficking.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So to kind of give you some stats right now too,
when I first started with Sisters Rising worldwide, it was
like one hundred and fifty billion dollar industry human trafficking.
It's now up to two hundred and thirty six dollars
or a billion around the world globally. I mean, it's
just a huge industry, and it's happening. You know, people
you know always asking me like, does it really happening
(03:36):
in the United States.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I'm like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Every zip code in the United States has cases of trafficking,
so it's everybody's affected by this.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Let's get closer to home in New York and tell us,
for example, what are you doing about sex trafficking in
New York and what are you finding? Well?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
First of all, in New York, York is the ranked
four in the number of cases of human trafficking in
the United States, so it's a very prevalent thing and
a lot to do with this population.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Of New York. And there is about.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
One hundred calls per month in New York in the
Human Trafficking Hotline. In addition to that, there's about of
those hundred, and about thirty three of them are from
victims and survivors of human trafficking. So I do think
about it every day. There is somebody that calls in.
One of the programs we currently have posted right now
(04:32):
is in the Bronx. So the sisters had this convent,
and as the number of sisters had declined, they didn't
need as much space, so they have part of the
house half of the house for survivors of human trafficking.
So they do a lot of therapy, they do a
lot of job skills training and really help these people
get back on their feet because it's a long process
(04:53):
for them.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
So there's this year program. But currently right.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Now the home needs the electricity upgrade, they need a
new roof, they need just some maintenance on it, and
so they've had a close until they can raise the
money to go ahead and get that done.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
And that's in the Bronx.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So what sort of impact can you tell us that
you have made in sex trafficking around the world or
in New York City. I mean, you talk about this home,
but I know that you know you haven't been it's
not like a long standing organization, you're relatively new. But
just what sort of impact.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Well, I would tell you, like, although the organization is new,
what the Sisters have been doing is for over four
hundred years, right, You've been in the front line of
preventing people from being trafficked. And that's really a lot
of what we try to focus on is the prevention.
So we're in these countries around the globe that have
the most vulnerable.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
People that are most subject to be trafficed.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So what we're what we do is we will like
during COVID, a lot of girls were you know, stuck
at home, and some.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Of them got pregnant and let's say they got they.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Had babies, and now all of a sudden, these women
are desperate, right, they have no money and they have
this child. So sometimes you know, in these and to
say but like sometimes they have to sell their child
or they this somebody come up them and say, hey,
you know, we'll go ahead and give you this job.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
We'll go ahead and support you.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
And then it's all a scam and they get stuck
into either sex trafficking or labor trafficking. So it's just
it's the poor that are really the most vulnerable and
that get tricked into trafficking.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And also those who are drug addicted correct.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
There was a lady that she was addicted to drugs
and somebody came out to me and was like, oh,
it looks like you know, you could just use a
hot meal and a shower. You know, I'm willing to
help you, like if you need anything. And the lady's like, well, yeah,
that would be great, right, Just I just need one
meal and a shower and I'll be better.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
And they went.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
To that person's house and then was locked into basement
and was traffiicate for about five years. So and then
what happens a lot of times when people don't understand
is there was a story of a lady in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
I can't remember exactly where, but she was traffickate underneath
her own roof of her house that she was living
(07:22):
with her parents. But they're so scared to tell anybody
because they threatened that traffickers will threaten The traffickers will
tell you that I will kill your brother, or I
will kill your parents, or I'll tell your dad, who
may be a pastor that you know, I have all
these videos of you having sex because they drug them up.
They have sex with somebody and then they take pictures
(07:44):
and now they're trafficate.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I am speaking with the CEOO of Sisters Rising Worldwide,
Kelly Mallan Young. Tell us what other sort of work
you're doing in the New York City area.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well, like I said, we just we have one sister
or one lady that works with us as country with
the United Nations. You in and she goes ahead and
promotes the different work that we're doing, and she partners
with different sisters from around the world that go ahead
and addressings. So they're learning about how to empower women
(08:20):
in the New York area and how to protect them,
how to share stories, how to because it's all about awareness, right,
So it's trying to share our story so people are
more aware of what is happening, so people know what
to look for. And that's kind of what we're doing
around the United States too, is to get the word out.
But there's another organization that does a lot of that
too in the human trafficking where we are kind of
(08:41):
really more focused on, you know, the prevention around the world.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And tell us about some of the other programs around
the world. I mean, I saw that one is teaching
job skills to girls, because you know, that's at the
heart of economic independence is to be able to work
and make money.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, we did a program that was great in Uganda,
and we helped them raise the money to go ahead
and off of this program where they would teach sewing,
they would teach you know, soap making.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
They and what I loved about this program too, they
also had.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
We're teaching the women how to fix mopeds because mopeds
is how everybody you know.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Traveled in that country.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So there's always gonna be job security because there's always
gonna be you need to fix mopeds. So they actually
talked to the women how to do that so they'd
have some security. But I mean, just last night alone,
I was talking to a nun in Kenya about she
worked at a hospital and she just she had broughte
a program in that they needed a new ambulance because
they couldn't, you know, transport people or get people to
(09:44):
the hospital or what. And she told me last night
she was she retouched to me, She's like, it just
reminded me of the program that I, you know, we
were raising money for because the ambulance the woman a
woman came into the hospital and she delivered a baby,
but she had complications during the pregnancy, and so they
needed transporter to a bigger hospital because these are just
like rural hospitals, and because they didn't have an ambulance
(10:05):
to take her to this new, you know, bigger hospital,
they had to wait for a taxi service, which in
these royal areas isn't very you know, big it's not
very popular. So they had to wait for the transportation
and it took a long time, and by the time
or as they were transporting to the hospital, she passed away.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
So now there's this newborn baby just you know, just
this week.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And is now does not have a mom because you know,
she's just looking for a van.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
So there's things like that.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
There's some communities that the government, I mean, there's no
school for twelve miles and.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
These sisters, you know, need vans.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
To transport these kids because what happens is the girls
will go to school, they walk the twelve miles and
maybe on the way back home they'll get trafficked or
they'll get sexually assaulted, and then what happens to them,
Then they don't want to go to school anymore, right
because they're scared of the walk home. So but if
we're able to provide a van for them, then this kid,
the girls especially will stay in school.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Right water catchmen, there's no water, what do they do.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
They don't send the boys out of the school, They
send the girls out of the school, and then the
girls are vulnerable on this walk to go get water
for them, and they get trafficked. So We do water
catchment systems in a lot of different places too, to
go ahead and protect the girls.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
In that area. So I mean, there's just so many
different things that we touch on.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Solar panels, there's a lot of hospitals that lose power
during surgery, so they need solar panels to keep the
power running. So yeah, things like that is what And
like I said, looking from the outside, you may not
know what that is until you're there.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
How many nuns worldwide are involved with Sisters Rising Worldwide?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Oh, that's a great question. I love saying this.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
When somebody asked me what I do, I'm like, Oh,
I work with the six hundred and fifty thousand Sisters
around the world.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
And they're like what, I'm like, there are six hundred
and fifty thousand women that and they're really the largest
network of women for good the world has ever known.
But six hundred five two thousand, day in and day,
our twenty four to seven is working to help the
most vulnerable people around the world.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So where do you get your funding?
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Well, that's great.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
We have a lot of donors in the New York era,
no New York around the United States that really have
stepped forward because they understand like ninety percent of what
we raise goes directly to the Sisters on the ground.
So I have actually volunteered. I'm going on my seventh
year of volunteering with the organization, and I really run
(12:35):
all the different aspects of it. But people understand that.
You know, the Sisters are the most selfless people. They
can make a dollar stretch longer than anybody else. So
a lot of the donors love our mission. It's really
about getting our mission out to get more donors in it.
But just recently the beginning of this year, we had
a donor that donated a million dollars and he says,
(12:56):
anybody that donates this year, we're ten thousand dollars, he
will match that. So sorry, so I'll match it up
to the million dollars. So if we can get another
million dollars in donations from other people.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
He will match that. So yeah, we got some great,
great followers.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Kelly, how did you get involved? And you say you
volunteer so you're not paid at all?
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Well, it's hard to take a salary after hearing what
the Sisters do, right, Like, I mean, they're the ones
that are doing this incredible work I can't take a salary,
and I'm like, I retired actually fairly early, and I'm
married to a workaholics, So you know, I played pick
a ball and I worked for Sisters Rising Worldwide.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
That's how I spend my time now.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
But I have a cousin that is a nun and
she asked one of my blood sisters and I to
go to Saint Paul just for a weekend to help
Sister Irene really with the concept of this, how this
technology platform would work. And so I went there and
my sister, she's brilliant. She went ahead and designed how
(14:02):
this platform would work, what it would look like, and
I was to take all that in understand it, help
put like the marketing pieces together because I needed to
present it for Sister Iren a month later. Well, in
that month of working with the sisters, I found out,
I mean just how fun and how incredible they were.
I mean, I grew up in the church and I
had no idea what the sisters did and a lot
(14:23):
of people don't. So that's like you know, sharing their sorry,
and I just I got very passionate about the cost.
So yeah, going on seven years of volunteering just to
support them, but.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It's Andy retired from doing what I was in sales.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
So I worked in the physical security department or division,
and yeah, I had some great customers and helped me
be tired a little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Thank you so much for your good work. If people
want to donate to Sisters Rising Worldwide, how would they
do that?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Simple?
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Our website's very easy. It's SRW, So Sister's Rising Worldwide.
Just SRW dot or and there's a donate page.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
And I will leave you one thing.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Like Sister Irene, although she could be there, she wanted
me to say one thing. She just says, we need
sister Champions to step up and help with the heavy
lift of eradicating extreme poverty that holds us back from
knowing the beauty of our world and the.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Lives how incredibly diverse we are.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
So she just wanted to send ushas, Yeah, we just
need sister Champions to help support our mission.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Well, thank you so much, and of early happy Easter
to you.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
You've been listening to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
three
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