Restoration House Project

July 16, 2017

Restoration Housing Project Update

Dear Supporter,

Thank you for your continued support towards our Housing Project on GlobalGiving.  Although we are still far from our goal, but we are grateful that you decided to partner with us and we do appreciate your continued support which will help us realize our goal which is to bring survivors of sex trafficking to an unimpaired state. Here’s an update of where we stand with regards to raising funds for this project.

Since our last report, we have raised an additional $120.00. This brings the total raised for this project to $1,730.00. This is far below the initial $18,000 we would need for this project to take off. With $18,000, we would rent a space (with a buy option) that would accommodate 3 girls and provide them services. This will save them from being trafficked, abused and re-victimization. We would help restore their dignity, give them hope for a brighter tomorrow, and equip them with skills to fight trafficking.

Our goal is to change the trajectory of jail for survivors. When rescued (arrested) by law enforcement agents, survivors are put in jail for safety and to prevent their captors/pimps from continued abuse and trafficking. However, they are brought before a judge (or released into the waiting arms of their trafficker) within 24hrs of arrest. In the absence of a safe place, survivors wound up with their traffickers. Even the mandatory treatment program from the courts does not prevent the trafficking. The truth is most of these survivors attend these non-residential treatment programs from accommodations provided by their traffickers. Which means they are still under the control of the traffickers. This defeats the purposes of rescue and makes restoration challenging.

RPI, in partnership with law enforcement and other agencies, is fighting to reduce the trajectory of jail, and also provide a safe place for the survivors to receive empowerment for sustainable restoration. This process is challenging for survivors, let alone when they are unduly exposed and unprotected from their traffickers. We would like to give survivors reasons to shun their traffickers. We want them to be able to join forces with RPI and other agencies to fight trafficking and protect at-risk girls from traffickers. 

Thank you for believing in our vision and helping us achieve our goal. The vicious cycle of jail is troubling to us. It breaks my heart to see survivors return to their traffickers who abuse and treat them like “animals” because they don’t have anywhere else to go. We cannot ask them to leave the sex trade without first providing a safe place for them to sleep, eat, bathe, cloth themselves and have their own space where they can feel safe and free. A space where they are not afraid that someone would come after them, where they are not forced to sell their bodies for sex, where they are not molested, beaten, raped, and violently treated because they are not doing the bidding of one man – their trafficker! Do you know that as we provide shelter/transitional housing for survivors, we are helping them transition to healthy communal life and thus reducing the number of trafficked victims? Restored survivors will help prevent trafficking and protect at risk girls!  This transition to a healthy life-style can only happen if we come together as a community to protect these girls.

Would you please help us spread the word among your friends and family; share our Project information with your social media contacts.  We would like this project to take off by the first half of the 2018. Your support will bring joy to the hearts of our survivors; we know this for a fact because who would not like to enjoy peace and a world without violence (being abused) in their own safe space!  Can you imagine the relief a safe space would bring, as opposed to being thrown in jail after a trafficker has abused and a “john” has raped a girl severally!  Please help us save these girls!

We cannot do this work without people like you. Your support is very crucial to survivors at this time. The more we delay, the more victims we would be seeing.  The more support, the less you have to contribute. Help us spread the work!

Please invite your family, friends and colleagues to support our Restoration Housing Project.  Share our page at: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/restoration-house-project

THANK YOU again for your partnership and continued support. Feel free to contact me at eookupa@restorationpi.org.