Michigan woman aids women in Thailand

After graduating from Big Bay de Noc High School in 2005, Fox stuck around long enough to attend one semester at Bay de Noc Community College before embarking on various humanitarian missions throughout the world. The first portion of her mission brought her to Africa, Uganda, and Egypt to provide various forms of assistance to those in need, such as AIDS orphans.

The next round of volunteer work took Fox to Asia, where she spent six months volunteering and simultaneously discovering her partiality toward Thailand.

"That was my first time going to Thailand and I loved it," said Fox. "I went to Thailand to help prostitutes my first time, and when I sat down with them and heard their stories and heard about how they live and their backgrounds ... small town girls, who grew up in poverty and had no other choice. They don't have any government help, they don't have anyone who will look out for them or do anything and so they sacrifice their body for their children so their children could eat."

Her next trips included Afghanistan and India, especially in the conflict-torn Kashmir.

"I did all kinds of justice related work with refugees and orphans," Fox explained. "That is really when I got a heart for the type of work that I'm doing now. Just seeing these things that were happening to people all over the world, blew me away."

Traveling from the Upper Peninsula to these remote regions of the globe, Fox discovered that she had much to learn from people who had life experiences completely differing from her own.

"You know, growing up in a small town and kind of being isolated and kind of sheltered, I had no idea what was going on," added Fox. "It was not until I sat down at a refugee camp and I heard a woman telling me how her family was slaughtered ... stories of people's houses being burned down ... just seeing how people live their lives and the hurt and the pain that they go through - just made me realize how insignificant the things that I am concerned about in my life really are."


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