You have been amazing, and we thank you so much for helping us reach (and exceed) our fundraising goal for our project!
When we started out we had a vision to help youth at highest risk of human trafficking! Our pilot program has proven that micro credit and scholarships are key to keeping youth out of reach of traffickers. These, and other youth often fall prey due to extreme poverty, lack of educational opportunities and an ingrained obligation - particularly of the first born - to support their families. Job skills and business training are key to preventing the vicious cycle.
This program will provide job skills and business training to 100 Thai youth at highest risk of trafficking, thus breaking the vicious cycle of exploitation for hundreds of families whose youth are too often tricked into trafficking by offers of "jobs and big money" in cities in Thailand. Providing solid business acumen, training and money to seed their businesses is a proven, practical solution to actually preventing human trafficking before it ruins the lives of a new generation.
Thanks to your generosity, we have been able to establish an entrepreneurs fund, to provide seed funding & monthly trainings to at risk and trafficked youth to launch their own businesses and eventually become financially independent. They are interested in a wide variety of things such as learning about animal husbandry, fixing motorcycles, running a noodle shop, launching an internet cafe', making and selling handicrafts, and baked goods. One shelter staff will work exclusively on job training and career development opportunities within the local business community where they will find apprenticeships and work.
We couldn't have done it without you! THANK YOU on behalf of all the youth you have helped by your generous contributions! We just found out that there is still $1,500 in matching funds available for all projects on Global Giving, so if you are inclined to share this project with your friends, family and coworkers and double donations know that the funds will be well used. Feel free to direct people to this link: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/train-100-thai-youth-at-risk-of-human-trafficking/
You have changed so many lives for the better. Thank you again for being such a wonderful human being!
Cheers,
Christina Arnold and the team at Prevent Human Trafficking
Links:
I’m excited to be writing you from Thailand where our annual anti-trafficking summer program takes place! We will be visiting the youth that are part of this project in just a matter of days, and are sure that we will have exciting news to share about the incremental implementation of this project, and specifics about what the youth have been doing since our last report. There have been some staff changes that have slowed communication, but we are getting everything back on track now!
The project has progressed more slowly than we had hoped due to the lack of full funding. But we have decided to act as if we already have all the funds we need and tailor the project for the youth with what we have raised so far. We will be able to train some but not all of our target population. Expect inspiring things in our next report from the field!
As always, thank you so much for the support you have given to this project. Because we advocate for these youth in desperate need of training, we encourage you to spread the word to your family, friends and colleagues. Every dollar counts toward helping us reach our fundraising goal! You have helped generously and we have already raised $13,399 of a total of $15,000 we set as our goal. We're so close now... just $1,601 to go! We can and will do this and be fully operational soon, we hope! More news to come from the field!
With deep appreciation from everyone on our team,
Christina Arnold
Hello, everyone!
I hope you and your families and friends are all doing well.
As we've all no doubt experienced, our best laid plans can sometimes be disrupted by outside forces. The agricultural youth project took root and was doing well, until a flood suddenly engulfed the whole area where the youth live and washed away what they had worked so hard for. We've included the before and after pictures, so you can see it for yourself.
Being the amazing, resillient, hardworking youth that they are, their temporary set back did not deter them from continuning to grow and learning this skill, which several of them chose from the options in the youth entrepreneurship fund. They have gotten back to work regrowing their garden with all sorts of vegetables, herbs and spices! We look forward to showing you their produce and happy, smiling faces - determined to succeed in their new venture.
Thank you so much for your continued support of our projects training these at risk youth to become self sustaining, productive members of society.
Until next time,
The team at Prevent Human Trafficking
Hello again!
With Thanksgiving around the corner, we wanted to take the time to thank you for your support of this project and to send you an update (we are required by Global Giving to do this every few months, just in case you were wondering why you keep getting emails from us) on its progress.
As we mentioned in our last report, we had a wonderful visit with the youth who are involved in this project, and wanted to share with you the surprising results of the survey that we did, asking what they want to be/do when they grow up.
These include becoming:
Artists
Teachers
Doctors
Police officers (this was the most common)
Noodle shop owners
Pilots
... and surprisingly, several of them wanted to work at 7-Eleven stores! They said they liked the idea of interacting with customers and working in air conditioning, which makes sense in hot and humid Thailand. :)
All our conversations with these youth made clear the importance of job shadowing, continued scholarships for education past high school (in most cases), and relevant job skills training in computers, English, money management, etc. So, these are things that we are going to set up for them over time.
As always, it is inspiring to interact with such resilient, motivated and wonderful youth to help them figure out what they want to be when they grow up and the steps they need to take to get there.
We are hoping to raise the rest of the funds necessary to complete this project by the end of the year, and invite you to pitch in any amount you can - and spread the word about this promising, life changing project! Thank you so much for your support so far!
With gratitude,
the youth participants and our team at Prevent Human Trafficking
P.S. our Blue Elephant Campaign is still going strong and we invite you to check it out here and let us give you and your friends, family and colleagues something special in return for your support of the Campaign, which goes toward the Entrepreneurship Fund!
Links:
Hello from Thailand!
We are here with most of our team and have been having a wonderful time visiting with the children and youth at the anti-trafficking center run by our partner organization who are implementing our entrepreneurship and training project.
It's been great to see the enthusiasm for the project first hand. The latest development has been a collaboration with several young women (one of whom you can see in an orange shirt to the left of one of our pictures with younger children sitting nearby playing games) and a woman who is an expert at handmade flower making.
The project is so inventive and beautiful. They have been so successful that they have opened up a small shop at the center, where people can make orders or buy ready made products from large flowers that fit in vases to small broaches and ornaments. The pictures don't do their entrepreneurial venture justice, but are just examples of this exciting new entreprenurial venture, which is acually a viable way for these young women to earn a decent living - working together to ensure they can keep up with orders and help each other out as new business women.
One of the pictures shows the small booth where they display thier products, and a picture of one of our students who bought a beautiful boquet to take home.
We thank you for your support that is making these entrepreneurial ventures possible - providing seed funding and teaching these youth ways that they can be economically stable once they are ready to strike out on their own.
As always, please feel free to contribute what you can and share this project with your friends and anyone you know who might be interested in supporting this exciting endeavor that is changing lives by providing practical skills with which these youth can build a happy and successful life - free from the clutches of traffickers who promise them "good jobs in the big cities".
From all of us at Prevent Human Trafficking we wish you a wonderful week and thank you for your support!
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