Super Nuns by Edelman

For 10 years, a network of nuns on five continents have quietly dedicated their lives to preventing, rescuing, fostering and rehabilitating human trafficking survivors. Their sisterhood has grown to more than 2,000 members in 70 countries, and in the last two years alone, the network known as Talitha Kum have helped protect more than 15,000 survivors.

Talitha Kum is an initiative of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), representing Catholic sisters worldwide. The sisters collaborate with women of different faiths and cultures; their work is labor-intensive and 24/7; and they don’t publicly announce successes — all of which makes fundraising especially complicated.

To reach a whole new set of potential supporters while protecting the privacy and dignity of survivors, Talitha Kum is launching the Super Nuns community on Patreon (Patreon.com/supernuns). They’re partnering with popular street artist ESPO, Japanese animation pioneer Leiji Matsumoto, and others, who are creating fan art inspired by the work the sisters have done since 2009. Each month SUPER NUNS will give away 10 signed prints from the artists to random members of the community. Donating is not required but supporters can choose to give as little as $2 or up to $25 a month as patrons or make larger one-time donations. All proceeds will directly help Talitha Kum expand their efforts to combat the modern evil of human trafficking, which affects about 40 million people in every country and in most cities today.

The first piece was created by Steve Powers, also known as the street artist ESPO. He did it on a wall in Brooklyn last month.

Pope Francis helped launch the campaign and posted about it on Instagram.

Edelman came up with the idea for the campaign, created the site and video for ESPO’s painting of the mural.