The women sheltered at El Pozo de Vida, a Mexico City nonprofit that works with victims of human trafficking, have been sold into slavery, forced into prostitution and had their lives threatened.

In May, a group from Wareham's Elite Fitness visited El Pozo de Vida, "Well of Life" in Spanish, to give the women a healthy foundation in fitness, food and especially friendship. The Elite travelers included owner Annmarie Churchill, two gym members and four staff, including Marion resident Suzanne Gokavi.

"It was like an experience of opposites. We saw things that were so ugly and so beautiful, so exhausting and so exhilarating. Our experience with these women and girls turned out to be everything that we hoped it would be and more," said Gokavi.

The idea for the trip began when Churchill read an article in Wareham Week about Kathleen Gately Delgado, a Wareham native, and her husband Oscar, who work with El Pozo.

Delgado walked into the gym one day while home for a visit, met Churchill. The two began planning a trip soon thereafter.

For months, the gym raised money for through community fundraisers, events and the members themselves. The group raised more than $15,000 and was able to donate $10,000 to the shelter and to pay for day trips with the women of El Pozo.

During the eight-day trip, the group spent 12 to 14 hours a day traveling to visit and spend time with the women. The Elite Fitness members taught the women at the shelter how to cook healthy foods, exercised with them, and took them on hikes up mountains, paddle boating and walks.

For the women and girls who are being protected from their traffickers, such exploration of the world is a rarity, and Gokavi said she was particularly struck by the hike.

Gokavi hung at the back of the group with women in their 40s to late 50s.

"It was miles uphill," she said. "The fact that they made it and the look on their faces of doing it...That was an amazing experience. I think about that day every day."

Years of forced slavery and prostitution have robbed the women, some of them still children, of their childhoods and normal life experiences – such as learning how to cook, attending school or even going beyond the borders of the city.

Gym member Amy O'Brien of Wareham learned of a girl who was chained to a wall her whole life before being rescued. Others she met can't return home because their families sold them into slavery.

"We try to reconnect them with their families when it is safe, but sometimes that is not an option either because their family was involved or family would be in danger," said Delgado.

El Pozo keeps many of the women hidden and protected from their traffickers while their court cases are open. The younger girls are only allowed out of their homes one day a week for church. During the six other days, the girls are in a secure location where they eat, sleep and get an education.

“It may be hard on us [to hear about that], but it's not hard on them because their life is so much better there,” Churchill said of the shelter.

El Pozo has seven programs, including two restoration homes: one for people aged 10 to 18 who were domestic servants and victims of labor and sex trafficking, and another that's a transition home for girls aged 18 to 23.

El Pozo also started a jewelry employment program for women ages 23 to 53 who were trafficked as teens and young women. The jewelry the women make is for sale at Elite Fitness, and 100 percent of the proceeds go to the affected women.

Due to the work of El Pozo, O'Brien said, “I can see they're going to come out in the other side."

Though not everyone from the Elite Fitness group speaks Spanish, the attachment the women felt with the girls was one created through a common language.

“It turned out to be everything that we hoped it would be and more. We didn’t have any doubts that we accomplished what we wanted, and that the women and the girls connected with us and we connected with them," said Gokavi.

The two groups still keep in touch through letters, pictures and on Facebook. Gokavi said she plans to get involved in the effort to stop human trafficking locally and will continue brushing up on her Spanish, so she can communicate more fluidly with the women when she visits again.

“I have every intention of going back to El Pozo next year. That was not a one time thing for me.”