Monday, April 13, 2009

A New Partnership

Last week our Awareness Director, Caleb Lange hopped on a plane to Portland OR to have some meetings with Transitions Global. Transitions Global is an organization based out of Portland that has been working in sex trafficking prevention for the past five years. They have one of the most successful programs for aftercare in the world. Their Transitional Living Center (TLC) program has been incredibly effective and is only getting better as they continue to improve the program. Transitions Global has an aftercare facility in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and is in the process of starting a facility in Portland OR as the need is great here in the U.S. as well. The FBI estimates that 300,000 American children are trafficked within the U.S. every year. Transitions Global has been doing a great job in raising awareness and in actively making a difference in individual girls lives so I was extremely excited to meet with James and Athena Pond, the two founders of Transitions.

Our meetings consisted of some new and exciting things for Sixty1. We first of all solidified our partnership with Transitions Global. This will hopefully be a partnership that both of our organizations and far more importantly the girls we are striving to help will benefit from. Our first step with Transitions Global is to start a new project called the STAR House (Secondary Transitional Apartment Residence) The STAR House will be a home that the girls who finish the TLC program will have the option of moving into. This apartment will be funded by Sixty1, while living in the STAR House the girls will begin to get jobs and learn how to function as a normal part of society. They will continue to have follow up with their mentors, counselors, and social workers while living at STAR and will begin to learn how to budget and eventually will start to help pay rent until they are fully transitioned back into society. Programs like STAR House are very much needed as too many girls end up back in vulnerable situations after they finish aftercare programs. In fact two years ago 70% of girls that went through an aftercare program ended up back in the same situation that they started in. STAR House is one way of doing our job of walking the girls into full healing. We wish to start STAR House as quickly as possible so your contributions would be greatly appreciated.

Our long-term goal with Transitions Global is to start a new aftercare facility in Siam Reap, Cambodia. The need is great for more good aftercare facilities. We could rescue girls out of this terrible situation all day long but until they have a good place to go and find healing and job training the odds are far too high that they will end up in the exact same terrible situation they started in. In order to get to this point it will take a lot of partnership from donors as running a center is not cheap but the cost is so worth it. We are extremely blessed and thankful for this new partnership and are excited to see many girls set free through this partnership.