DOI SAKET, Thailand — The orphanage that Madonna Badger chose to visit was founded in 2004 by Colorado missionaries Bill and Mary Lee Moritz, who tragically lost their own youngest daughter, Breanna Joy, in a car accident at the age of 12.
Breanna’s House of Joy is located in the small farming district of Doi Saket, in the foothills of the mountains of northern Thailand.
Badger said that a friend of hers volunteered there last year and recommended it to her.
The 44 orphan girls there, who range from ages 6 to 20, are from the region’s impoverished hill tribes, and are ethnic minorities who have experienced discrimination because of their cultural differences from ethnic Thais.
Many of the young girls from the region end up in Thailand’s notorious sex trade, according to the orphanage’s Web site.
Some of the girls at Breanna’s House of Joy have lost their parents to prison or disease. Others were rescued from abuse or abandonment.
“All have tasted the harsh realities of poverty and hopelessness,” the site says.