No two days are alike for Kathleen and Oscar Delgado. As part of the Mexico-based nonprofit El Pozo De Vida, they may hold a late night block party in Mexico City’s biggest red light district, rush a former prostitute in labor to the hospital or surreptitiously rescue a child in forced labor.

As the head of the prevention program for El Pozo De Vida (Spanish for "Well of Life") the two have often risked their personal comfort and safety to stop the cycle of human trafficking.

“It’s bringing hope to the hopeless,” said Kathleen, a Wareham native. “It’s really cool we can even be part of this.”

Kathleen (née Gately) was a student at UMass Dartmouth when she first learned about human trafficking from a group of former Sudanese child soldiers on her dorm floor.

“It just kind of blew my mind,” said Kathleen.

She later spent several years in Mexico working with the Christian ministry, Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), where she kept encountering victims of trafficking.

“These aren’t isolated cases,” she said. “The more I started looking into human trafficking, I saw these are not statistics, these are faces, and it’s me who has been isolated.”

Oscar, a native of Mexico City, said he was vaguely aware of trafficking as a young pastor.

“I never thought it happened in my city,” he said.

The turning point for Oscar came when someone prayed he would be able to see and care for the things God sees and cares for. Soon after, he became acutely aware of how pervasive human trafficking was in his own backyard.

“Once I started to open my eyes … I felt like I had to do something,” he said.

Oscar and Kathleen married in 2014 and have spent much of their life together working with El Pozo, founded by Americans Benny and Janice Yu.

El Pozo began with a safe home that could house up to 20 young women rescued from sexual slavery or forced labor. Many of the women arrive after being rescued by the local government.

“It’s just amazing to see them growing and healing,” Kathleen said. “The staff at El Pozo walks with them in hard times.”

And there are a lot of hard times for the girls who didn’t get much of a childhood.

“These girls never learned to play,” Kathleen said.

El Pozo gives them that chance and teaches them that their past is part of their story but not their identity, Oscar said.

The girls often have little to no education and some from indigenous people groups cannot even speak Spanish. At El Pozo, they receive an education, learn life skills and are taught basic hygiene. The home also has a bakery where women can work, if they so choose, to learn work skills and earn money.

In five years, El Pozo has expanded beyond the safe house to include an outreach center where women can receive medical care and counseling, learn job skills and attend Bible studies. There is also a transition home for women 18 and older who want to leave prostitution as well as a prevention program that works to educate the schools, churches and the community so vulnerable children and women are not tricked into prostitution and forced labor.

“It’s great and it’s worth it to just go and rescue one person, but you also have to prevent kids from getting into it,” Oscar said. “The numbers are increasing exponentially. It doesn’t respect sex, gender, socio-economic status. It can happen to everyone.”

The Delgados are hoping to open the eyes of many in Mexico, just as their eyes were opened years ago. They already have El Pozo’s prevention program in 12 states, but would like to see it expand to all 32 Mexican states.

They are also continuing to build relationships in Mexico City’s seven red light districts, in part through late night block parties where they reach out to pimps, prostitutes and patrons.

“You think I will go and get into the red light district and carry the girl out like a superhero, but you have to have a lot of wisdom,” Oscar said.

The couple has not only been working to educate those in Mexico but also on the South Coast. For the past month, they have visited people in the community to speak about human trafficking and to raise support for El Pozo, which hopes to purchase a new safe house that will double its capacity.

El Pozo rarely has an empty bed.

“It breaks your heart because you don’t want to turn girls away, but when you’re at max capacity, it’s just really hard,” Kathleen said.

She and Oscar are teaming up with the El Mariachi, the Mexican restaurant on Main Street in Wareham, to raise funds for the new house on Wednesday, Sept. 9 from 5 to 9 p.m. Tickets for the buffet are $15 and are available at the door or in advance by emailing Kathleenandoscar@gmail.com. Donations can also be made directly to the cause at www.youcaring.com/el-pozo-de-vida-392123.

Kathleen and Oscar say they are trusting God to raise the $20,000 needed for the down payment on the house. So far, $6,000 has come in.

For the Delgados, every opportunity to speak about their work is an opportunity to stop the cycle of human trafficking.

“If the pimps can work together…why can’t the church work together?” Oscar said. “Each one has their own niche but we can all work together and serve together.”