By Abigail Aguilar –
Criterion racks in the bucks designing layouts for hospitals and their equipment. But INSTEAD of lavishing up her lifestyle, owner Suzanne Kowarsch plows the profits into saving victims of human trafficking.
“As the sole shareholder of the company it’s easy for me to not answer to anybody but the Big Man upstairs,” Suzanne says. “I choose lower profits and to spread the money around.”
Yearly, the company sponsors trips around the world to assemble refurbished playgrounds for groups on the frontlines of rescuing children from the clutches of the evil profiteers who exploit them for some of the vilest filth on the planet.
“We don’t have kids. But we love and enjoy kids,” said computer model designer Sysouk Vongphasouk, who as an employee went to Thailand. “The opportunity was presented to help kids. It sounded interesting. Building a playground sounded intriguing.”
Criterion, based in Capistrano Beach, CA, underwrites part of the expenses of employees who go and labor. At the same time, the employees contribute vacation time; instead of lounging on a white sand beach with blue waters, they labor bolting in bars.
“The reaction of the kids is priceless. It’s hard to describe the feeling you get when you see these kids who don’t have a home, don’t have a family, and they’re trying to find some love in the world, when they are able to see a playground that’s big for them brings them great joy,” says Sysouk, who was born in California to Cambodian/Chinese parents.
“You get a little tired from building but seeing the kids so excited gives you back 10 times. When they finally get to play on it, they have just pure joy.” Sysouk and his wife Nancy went to Thailand, on the border of Myanmar, Nov. 10-20 of 20224 to build a jungle gym at a site that rescued trafficked kids.
Shockingly, Sysouk says, most of the sex trafficked are sold by their own family members. They are not kidnapped. One case was a pair of daughters whose parents died, and the uncle had no compassion and sold them.
This is the dark reality of poverty, greed and heartlessness that ravages the whole world.
One of the organizations that mounts such short-term mission trips is Kids Around the World, which acquires old playground equipment in the U.S., refurbishes it and ships it to some of the poorest countries in the world. So far, it has set up more than 1,000 playgrounds.
Kids Around the World has gotten 20,000 people involved in their projects. They have raised $45M and rescued over 1,000 trafficking victims, their website says.
Suzanne got saved when a friend invited her to church. She showed up.
“She was surprised to see me,” Suzanne remembers. “She said, ‘Wait, what?’” (So many invitations go unanswered that when somebody actually does come to church, the Christian can be caught off guard.)
Later, Suzanne went on a life-changing short-term missionary trip to Rwanda 2008 shortly after the tribal genocide.
“It rocked my world,” Suzanne says. “I felt a complete and deep sense of love and belonged to this church (in Rwanda). I couldn’t explain why except that it was implanted in me.”
Suzanne is planning a trip back to Thailand in 2026 to see the progress of the girls for whom they built the playground.
