Educate youth to prevent child trafficking & Abuse

We've had an amazing past few months, in spite of the current environmment. 

In January our CEO had the opportunity to travel to Arizona to speak to VAST - Valley Against SexTrafficking, a group that falls under the Mesa Arizona Chamber of Commerce. We presented our Parent Tech Talk information to dozens of several business owners and NGO's. 

That lead to severall other opportunties to speak with hundreds of church youth to educate them and their parents about human trafifcking and they paid us to train. That was very rewarding!

We've also educated close over 300 7th and 8th graders at Title 1 middle School, a private school and charter school - it was great to be back in the classroom! We gathered enough data to be doing a research project with a PhD fellow at Yale to develop a White Paper and create public policy around the power of educating our youth.

Our Online Parent Tech Talks continue to grow in viewership since we've changed platforms.

April 17^th – En Espanol – 400 views

May 6^th – Youth MA’s 250 views

June 10^th – Survivor/Warriors will be speaking and we aniticpate a big audience.

We super busy speaking and educating familes around the country. We went to:

Robson Ranch Denton, TX to speak to the Kiwanis, one of our Mission Ambassadors spoke to the UCF Criminal Justice APS Group, our Presdient is the Outreach Co-chair for the SCHTTF and we particpanted in the Red Sand Project. Then we traveled to Arizona again to educate and speak with youth at LifeLink Church and City Pasters, plus a local business held a fundraiser for us and we raised $400!

Our Presdient spoke at a local church and chamber event along with being asked to particpate on panel for the Valencial College Justice and Peace Institute and an International Pastors conference in June.

We will be hosting our first faclitiators training in June as well as we anticipate a VERY busy fall educating and training students around the nation.

Expanding collaboration and partnerships is one way we can expand our messaging we are in conversations with NAFFA (Native American Father and Family Assoc) who works with 250 tribes across the country. MMIW is one of our nations deepest tragdies and through education, we can help disrupt that cycle. Working with VAST in Mesa and other local NGO's we continue our growth into making the impact you help us to end exploitation.

Happily we've grown our Mission Ambassadors to 55 across the nation, including 6 youth mission ambassaors (1 Middle, 2 High school and 3 college students) that are ready to get back into the classroom and out in the community to raise awareness and educate our youth. We have 5 interns this summer from UCF, Barry Law College and Seminole State College.

We are very excited to be working on is prevetion education effectiveness white paper with a PhD fellow at Yale and one of our UCF (Univ of Central Fla) interns to help guide public policy for education legislation. We look for that paper to be complete before the fall and will share it in our next update.

One of the most rewarding things we get to do is not only educate students and parents, but also to have students be creative in processing what they learn. This last round of education was no exception. We will share some of the powerful messaging the 7th and 8th graders at a Charter school created through visual art. That is the best way for us to know we got our job done in the classroom.

We love what we do and know the difference we make - and we couldn't do that with out your support.

So thank you - thank you for believing in us, thank you for making a difference with students, parents, grandparents and educators around the country.

This fall will be busier than ever before and now is a great time for you to consider supporting us and sharing our mission in your circle of friends. Online enticement rose from 2019 to 2020 by 98% according to NCMEC.  Our children are at risk, in their own homes, from online grooming and recruitment. We can disrupt the cycle with your help.

July Bonus day is coming  - July 14th - all contributions to fight this fight over $100 are matched until the matching money runs out. So you'll want to mark your calendars for 9am EST July 14th to join in the excitment.

We have a big goal of $5,000, with some of coming from matching funds. Please consider joining us that day as we stand together to educate families and keep kids safe.

Thank you again for your conintued support and we look forward to sharing all we've accomplished in fulfiling our mission with your partnership.

Sincerely,

Jan

Links:

• Article written for BioMetrica
• Education in Espanol

We had an incredibly busy 4th quarter raising awareness, fund and educating the community.

October started out Preparing for our Micro-project Lights on For Children which was held November 20th and the launch of our first of many Parent Tech Talk.

We've educated over 150 parents during the 4th quarter about the current online enviroment and how to powerfull speak to kids about online prediators, using our Parent Tool Kit that was developed in Q3 as a foundation, we empowered parents to have the tough conversations with their kids to keep them safe. We have rav reviews including from DCF supporter Foster Families.  Dept of Children and Family services continues to ask to be informed of our programs to share with families in their service. The State Attorney's office has also asked to be in the loop when we present so they can share with their parents that may have children in truancy. Our CEO spoke at an event in Longwood Florida, educating the community at an outdoor event and rounded out the month at the food drive/education event in Bithlo, Fl with Orange County Sheriff Mina raising awareness and feeding people to reduce situational exploitation. 

As Novemeber approached we prepared for Lights on For Children by partnering with another organization in the Bahamas, expanding our reach outside the US! Our Sanctuary was our partner for this event and we had lots of press in the Bahamas and did a Parent Tech Talk via zoom with 60 parents, pastors and educators.  We also were mentioned in a college text book, International Human Trafficking of Women and Children, used at St. Leo University as the inspiration for Professor Karin May's work in the anti-trafficking space. Our President was on several podcast and other interviews to raise awareness about children trafficking including I am Perspective, Ms. Texas and A servers Journey. Our month closed out with Lights on For Children at downtown Orlando, with the Fountain at Lake Eola turning blue in honor of Universal Childrens Day and Paving the Way Raising Awareness about human trafficking. We had blues lights on from Ghana, Africa all the way to Idaho, from Miami to Vancover, Canada. We had 24 warriors present to watch the fountain turn blue, including local law enforcement, local task force members and mission ambassadors and raised over $1,200.  Rounding out November was a photo shoot for our President to be featured in i4 Business Magazine for the work she does in disruputing child trafficking. That piece was launched in Decemeber.

We kicked December off on Giving Tuesday, raising over $800 during Giving Tuesday. We learned alot so we can plan for this coming year's Giving Tuesday. Preparation is key and we did some prep, however, we need to start earilier this year. Our favorite part of this month was we got to go in and educate kids in a foster home. Being with the youth is the most rewarding thing we do. They totally got it and the film made an impact. It was our first time this year to be with youth, live, in person and masked up. Two Mission Ambassadors joined our President getting back in the training saddle again.  Our last event of the year was with two young people who have lost both their parents. Orange County Sheriff and other organizations, including Paving the Way Foundation, joined together to have them feel like Princesses. The year cluminated with the press generated from our CEO being in the i4 Business Magazine and Parents Magazine we saw as spike in contributions from Universal Studios and NBC. It was a great holiday time  gearing up for 2021.

Our Mission Ambassadors are an extraoridnary group of people committed to educating and empowering the community and our children to disrupt the cycle of child trafficking. We did Mission Ambassador Mondays to raise awareness and promote our Parent Tech Talks. We have now 4 trained and ready to deliver the Parent Tech Talk both in english and spanish, pluse we are launching our Youth Mission Ambassador Program in Q1 as we have 8 middle and high school students that want to train their peers and younger siblings.

It was an extraoridinary year and great way to close out a most tumultuous time in history. We raised $9,580 on the GlobalGiving platform, between indivdiual donations, matcing funds and prizes. It was our best year yet thanks to you!

Thank you for your support and contributions to keep the conversation going - educating and empowering youth and their parents to prevent them from being exploited. It's partners and friends like you that keep us going!

Grateful for you!

Links:

• Lights on For Children Promo video
• Lights on For Children Press in the Bahamas
• i4 Business Magazine Feature of President Jan Edwards