Andrew Kooman

[9] Kooman continued to work in Malaysia with YWAM for two years, towards the end of which time he visited Singapore,[6] where he attended an international conference on human trafficking, there learning details on the issue that shocked him.

[11] Eventually, he also started writing the play that became She Has a Name to bring attention to the issue of human trafficking, specifically in its connections to sexual exploitation.

[11] After starting to write this play, Kooman read about the Ranong human-trafficking incident in a Canadian newspaper[21] and also heard about it through a friend of his who was working at an aftercare centre in Bangkok, Thailand to restore the dignity of former sex workers.

[10] Knowing that many of the impoverished girls who are smuggled in this manner become enslaved in brothels as child prostitutes, Kooman used the incident in the backstory of the play.

[24] The PACE Award ceremony is biennial, and took place on June 13 in Edmonton at the AACTI Board of Governors Conference.

[2] Before writing She Has a Name, Kooman had written other pieces of literature that had been published, such as the young adult novel Ten Silver Coins: The Drylings of Acchora, but this was his first full-length play.