Katrell Christie
The owner of an Atlanta tea shop took a trip to India’s Darjeeling tea plantations and came back a changed woman who has now devoted herself to rescuing young girls from the sex trafficking industry in India.
Fox News is reporting on the inspirational story of Katrell Christie, owner of Dr. Bombay’s Underwater Tea Party in Atlanta, whose life took a drastic turn when she traveled to India in 2009 to visit the famous tea plantations in India from which Darjeeling tea originates. The region is known for its beautiful tea gardens, but it’s also the region’s hub for forced labor and sex exploitation, child trafficking and child labor.
During her trip, Christie visited an orphanage where she met a group of girls who were approaching their 16th birthday – the year in which they typically leave the orphanage. However, because they don’t have a good education, their chances of moving on to a better life are slim at best. Instead, they are frequently sold into prostitution or sex trafficking.
Christie was deeply moved by what she saw in India, which seemed even more tragic because it only costs roughly $800 a year to give an Indian girl a university education – which includes room, board, food and clothing expenses.
When she returned home, she shared the story of the girls’ plight amongst the clientele of her tea shop and before long, had received enough donations to send three young women to school.
“I think it reached out to so many different kinds of people, women’s issues, people who are in the food and tea industry, small business owners, people who grew up and used education to get out of a life of poverty,” she said about the generous response of her customers.
But that was just the beginning. Helping Indian girls escape the sex trade has become Christie’s mission in life and led her to create The Learning Tea which sells Darjeeling tea online and donates the proceeds to helping the young orphaned women of India. The program has expanded to providing 11 more women with a university education, all of them housed in a dorm-like community in the town of Darjeeling and funded by the charity.
Christie’s mission leaped beyond the confines of Atlanta when she appeared on Fox News. From there, her story went viral.
“I think I received around 600 emails within the first hour that the Fox piece aired,” Christie said. “We sold more tea in the first four days than we sold in four years.”
“She’s not just writing a check,” said Meherwan Irani, owner of Chai Pani restaurant in nearby Decatur, Georgia who is originally from India. “She’s actually reaching out and pulling somebody across that divide, especially those who are the least empowered and the least fortunate.”
His wife Molly adds: “It speaks to how much of a difference one person can truly make.”
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