A Pathway to Freedom for Women: From Victims to Empowered Entrepreneurs

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH RACHEL KINLEY  FOUNDER OF MERIDIAN LEE 

Rachel Kinley said “I had a friend who just ask me to... if I would do a volunteer project development job for nonprofit,” got her into the concept of bringing joy in the day-to-day and deep satisfaction in the livelihoods of people who aren't granted enough privilege, freedom, and pride of providing for their families themselves. Rachel has worked tirelessly since then to help those in need. 

 In this episode, we'll hear from Rachel Kinley about what motivated her to get involved in economic and charitable actions that helped people, especially women, see hope, human dignity, and power to fight poverty and slavery through Fashion Design Industry. 

Victims to Women Entrepreneurs 

Human trafficking, or slavery, is undoubtedly one of the world's most serious issues, especially for women. Aside from that, women are stereotyped; they are regarded as house-people, whose sole purpose is to serve their families. But what the world didn’t know about, is that most of these women are actually the reason behind fashion products that we own or buy at the malls but were paid subsistence wages and suffer poverty. Rachel, who grew up appreciating the importance of not just the products but also the people who make them, traveled the globe with the purpose of helping them. Rachel gave those people better access to the Fashion Industry Market. She showed them a path to equality and integrity using their own Skills and Voices that will prove to the world that women are capable of creating an economic shift where women will no longer need western organizations to give them clean water, food, and medicine as they earn unjustly, they will be able to choose what they want to and will be able to lift themselves up with confidence and pride.  

Rachel Kinley & Meridian Lee 

Rachel, a Product Designer/Developer, has worked in the fashion industry for over 20 years. Working in the fashion industry piqued her interest in who created the fashion designs that we have today; she discovered that the majority of those who made those, were women who suffered from slavery and human trafficking. She then pursued her "calling "of changing the world for women and began running Meridian Lee for 6 years. 

Meridian Lee exists to work alongside people on the path to freedom from modern-day slavery. Right now, there are more slaves than at any other time in the history of the world. But there is hope as the world becomes smaller and more connected.