Educate youth to prevent child trafficking & Abuse

We had an incredible start to 2025!

Executive Summary

In the first quarter of 2025, our efforts to educate youth and parents about online safety, awareness, and empowerment topics gained strong momentum. Through a series of in-person and virtual initiatives, we reached diverse communities with resources and training designed to equip families with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate today’s challenges of the online environment.

Key accomplishments included the launch of our Parent Education Program, which engaged over 200 parents and we educated 1,950 students across Orange County, Seminole and Osceola Counties. These efforts focused on topics such as digital safety, recognizing signs of exploitation, healthy communication, and fostering resilience.

Our continued partnerships with youth focused organizations service agencies to ensure content was both accessible and culturally relevant.

We trained a new group of private school students at Monarch Academy and trained 348 7th and 8th grade students at Galileo Gifted Campus' and had the opportunity to try out our Neurodivigent training program. It was recieved well and message was delivered.

They matter. Their voices matter. They are not alone.

Based on the feedback from last year and what we are learning from our youth, we've developed a PEER Advocacy Program PEER stands for; Prevent, Engage, Equip, Respond, and is the evolution of our prevention education program that protects youth from abuse, exploitation and trafficking that promotes physical and mental wellbeing.

Research shows kids are more likely to disclose to a friend or peer if they are experiencing any online abuse or exploitation and our program teaches youth how to be that safe space.

Our President had the opporuinty to be in Washington DC to walk the halls and meet with our Senators and State Representatives to make sure those voices were heard! Because we spend most of our time with students, we understand what they are experiencing on a daily basies on their phones, on gaming platforms and social media apps.  We brought posters with us to have their voices be seen. It was a moving experience and we pray it makes a differnce for Congress ande the Senate to pass important pieces of safety legislation like the Take it Down Act and Trafficking Survivors Relief Act.

Financial Overview

• We won three grants we appllied for last year, totaling 22,000 which

• Our monthly donations on GlobalGiving continu to grow and for that we are grateful!

• With our new grant from Orange County our goal is to educate both parents and kids over the next few years. We all know parents play an important role in keeping our kids safe and getting them attend these conversations has proven challenging and we are making some great in roads with our local Commissioners and community leaders.

• We have a new partnership with Nurses United Against Human Trafficking with our Teachers and Educators online training! It's a new source of revenue for our mission.

Outreach & Engagement

• We attended a dozen events this past quarter! Our favorite is our new Spring Poster Contest! We have hundreds of posters to choose from, once our students complete their training with us, they do a poster sharing what they learned with a hashtag and drawing that coincides with it. Our kids are incredibliy creative and insightful. You see a few below.

• Our President Jan was invited to speak to Parents at the Alliance Against Human Trafficking Conferrene in Baltimore and the Cape Cod and Islands DA's office Human Trafficking Awareness Conferece. Both were wll recieved with many rave reviews. In fact one person said “Best talk I’ve attended… I wish she could be cloned to be in all the schools.”

  This is why we do what we do—empowering communities to protect our children through awareness, education, and action.

Impact Metrics

• We trained 250 parents and 1,950 you to date. We are stating to see some interesting trends with our youth. Suicide seems to be a topic they care about. In fact Gaggle reported a strong rise in messaging about this topic. We are grateful for the youth who feel freed up to talk about it and get the resources they need immediately. While it's not a focus of our conversation, it does get woven in due to the rise in online exploitation cases. Sadly 46 children have taken their lives over the past two year. If our training opens up the conversation for kids to understand they are not alone, their life matters and they take new action.

• After one of our trainings a student came back with a hand written thank you note, thanking me for sharing authentically about the challenges we are seeing with our kids. They are grateful for the opportuniity to create a safe space for open dialogue about challenging topics for our kids.

Challenges & Lessons Learned

• Engaging with Parents has been more challenging than anticipated and we are always looking for new ways to reach out and engage. We are making progress as we have several dates this summer to educate parents at sevearl local community centers

• We are getting more requests for our trainings than we have funds for this year. Our Presdient is spending a lot of time writing grants so we can ensure not one request goes un-answered. God always makes away, along with the generosity of our community like you!

Looking Ahead

• Q2 is always an adventure for us - school is getting ready to get out, we gear up for summer camp programs and creating a plan for the fall with the schools.

• The summer is filled with many community and back to school events which we love participating in because we get to connect with our friends and neighbors along with getting the word out on ways to stay safe! Plus we all get to play Jenga!!

• While summer is filled with travel and fun, there are children who are still at risk, alone at home and vulnerable to empty promises. We look forward to empowering more youth and parents to find ways of connecting and staying safe.

We are excited to see what else this year holds in store for us!

Links:

• Digital Footprint - what your kids need to know