“Imagine you are an orphan in Moldova,” says Melody Cameron. “You grown up within four walls, you have never passed the gate you’re entire life and when you turn sixteen, you are sent away with twenty dollars in your hand. You have no idea where to go, how to earn money to eat, or where to sleep that night. So you’re sitting at a bus stop and someone in an expensive car and nice clothes comes by. He tells you that he has a job for you. Imagine the relief. Work means money, food and everything is going to be all right.”

But the truth is far from that. In fact the orphan will be trafficked, ending up in forced labour. “These guys take advantage of the fact that these kids don’t have many social skills,” says Cameron. For the past six years she’s been trying to prevent young girls ending up in the sex industry. How? To provide orphans with a place to stay, after they are forced to leave their shelter at the age of sixteen.

Stella’s House

That place to stay is a big bright yellow house in a small town 15 kilometers out of Chisinau, the capital of Moldova. “Welcome to Stella’s House,” Cameron says. She takes a seat in one of the comfortable leather sofas. In the corner of the room stands a laptop, on the other side a brand new music centre. “We try to give these teenagers a good life,” she says.

Not much later two of the in total of 19 girls living at Stella’s House, enter the room. “Oh, my legs hurt,” says Liuda, who is one of them. “And my belly too.” She drops on the couch like only teenagers can do. “You’ve been working out?,” asks Melody Cameron. “No, I was just playing football.”

On the other side of the couch sits Melody’s father, Philip Cameron. He is a minister from the US who’s been working with orphans in Moldova since the fall of Communism twenty years ago. When he found out that kids were sent away when they turned 16, he decided to build a place for them; Stella’s House. Since that time he has travelled several times a year between the US, where he does the fundraising, and Moldova where the actual help takes place.

Preventing trafficking

The original idea of Stella’s House was to keep the girls out of the hands of human traffickers. “Those people will ruin their whole life,” says Philip Cameron. “And you know, these people who do this, they hardly get any punishment.” He gets visibly irritated by that. “Oh no, if I could decide…” He’s quite and thinks for a while. “Well, let me say it this way. I would put my Christian beliefs aside for few minutes.”

The dangers of being trafficked is something that worries Philip Cameron a lot. “I keep telling these girls to be careful, that there are guys out there that don’t mean well.” This is also why the house has strict rules. Every girl needs to go to school. Alcohol and cigarettes are not allowed and neither are boys.

“If they get involved with men, they might get in trouble,” according to Philip Cameron. “They can get be sold and end up in terrible situations.” According to statistics most people were trafficked by people they knew before, like lovers and acquaintances.

Family life

But the girls at Stella’s House are much more then just orphans who are being saved from traffickers. “They are my kids,” says Philip Cameron. “I have invested my life in them. We try to be a family for the kids.” He points to the piano where a picture of him and his wife stands. “Life here is not like in an orphanage. They learn the dynamics of being in a family. Now they have a mom, dad, and older sisters.”

Liuda just loves her new life in Stella’s House. “It’s a great thing, you don’t feel like an orphan here because we live like a real family and we help each other.” That is something new for the orphans, they never had any responsibilities. “Everything was done for them,” says Melody Cameron. “But now they have chores. Cooking, cleaning, and so on.”

And like most teenagers, Liuda thinks that isn’t always fun. “Sometimes we don’t obey the rules,” she says. But then the whole house will make sure you do the job. “They will all just keep on telling that you must do it,” she laughs. “Then you don’t have much choice.”

The best possible life

The girls’ lives are changed by the foundation. “They come here with no self-esteem, poor education and some in even in poor health.” But in the house they receive the best possible life and opportunities they could wish for.

The twenty year old Galina has been in the house now for almost a year. “This house is the best possible conditions to live if in for a Moldovan person.” She looks around the modern, western-style house, with all its equipment. These are living conditions not many people in Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, can afford.

Liuda loves being in the house as much as Galina. “It is just great being here.” She enjoys the luxury of the house, but even more the atmosphere. “Finally I don’t feel like an orphan anymore.” But the best things are the opportunity she has had since she came to the house. In the future Liuda wants to become a lawyer. “That’s something I’ve always been dreaming of.”

The greatest achievement of the house is that the girls believe in their own future, agree both Philip and Melody Cameron. “If you told Liuda when she was in orphanage that she could do whatever she wanted,” says Melody Cameron. “She would have said: Yeah right, I am just an orphan, with no money for school, nor nice clothes to wear to work. Here we remove all the excuses to not succeed in life.”