Hello my name is Valérie Pelletier (also know as Valerie Tender).

I am doing this fundraiser to help my friend Caroline Pugh-Roberts and I with the expenses (food, public transportation, etc.) that we will incur while in the UK from Oct 7th - 13th for 2 different speaking engagements we were invited to.

Firstly, we will be speaking in Edimburgh, Scotland on Oct 8th, as survivors of prostitution/human trafficking experts advising on the importance of adopting the Nordic Model in Scotland, at the invite of MSP Ash Regan who is currently championing a Nordic Model Bill that ''creates a new offence of paying for sexual acts and also repeals the existing offence of soliciting or importuning by prostitutes''. This Bill is at Stage 1 of the process to decide if it should become an Act. We are invited to respond to the Justice Committee's questions during an evidence session, (witnesses are chosen to give oral evidence based on strong written submissions, which we have). We will also participate in a more informal event later that same evening where parlementarians are invited to meet with us and asks us their questions.

After speaking in Edimburgh, we are heading to the Filia Conference in Brighton, England from Oct 10-12th. Valérie is a speaker on a panel adressing the harms of pornography and is tasked with highlighting the continuum with prostitution. Caroline is accompanying her and getting to further network with other international abolitionist champions with a Solidarity Pass, generously offered to her by the Filia team who recognizes Caroline's relentless efforts in single handedly administering the Canadian Facebook page Human Trafficking Awareness - No Traffick Zone for the last 8 years.

Several NGOs came together to make our trip possible :

✈️ Our airfares are covered by Filia for Valérie, while Canadian abolitionist NGO Defend Dignity is covering Caroline's

️️ Our accomodations in Edimburgh are being covered by the office of Ash Regan

Valérie's train from Edimburgh's to London is being covered by a private Scottish supporter of the Nordic Model while Caroline's is being covered by the American abolitionist NGO Exodus Cry.

Our trains London/Brighton are covered by Filia, as well as our accomodations ️️ in Brighton during the 3 day conference.

We could not have succeeded in any of this without the amazing non profits supporting us, who believe in the impact we can have. They all understand the importance of striving for A WORLD WITHOUT PROSTITUTION ! For a social paradigm change and for laws restricting male's access to prostitution to be uniform across borders.

All of you are ensuring that our voices as survivors, our cumulated years of experience in accompanying and counseling women who want to leave the sex trade from a trauma-informed perspective, as well as our expertise on the Nordic Model can be heard where important decisions are currently being made !

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You !!!

Our financial situation :

Caroline is on Ontario disability and I (Valérie) am curently unemployed and in the arduous process of seeking victim's compensation. Therefore, even if we were able to secure all of this help, we still need support for our day to day expenses while over there. Everything (food, etc) is very expensive in the UK where it takes 1,80$CAD to equate 1£. Valérie is also losing 1 week of unemployment benefits due to being out of the country. We think we can be ok and make sure we eat properly and get around safely with 450$ Canadian each for the week.

This fundraiser aims to get us that last margin of safety we need for our militant adventure so that we can head out with confidence and focus on our pedagogical and networking mission !

These speaking invitations are in and of themselves huge recognition of the activism that we do all year around !

I think I can safely say, for both Caroline and I, that our primary identity is that of feminist campainers ! ✊

Thank you so much for believing in the impact we can have over there !

Love and gratitude,

Caroline and Valérie