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FREE TO SHINE envisions a world where every girl is free from the horrors and tortures of sex slavery, a world instead where every girl attends school, receiving the opportunity and her human right to be free to shine. http://www.free-to-shine.org/
EMPOWER THROUGH EDUCATION TO END SEX SLAVERY
1. Provide scholarships to girls identified as at risk of being trafficked.
2. Provide further education opportunites (including university scholarships) to survivors to become teachers, social workers, health care professionals, counsellors and lawyers, thus preventing and responding to trafficking and bringing about change in their communities and ultimately country.
Trafficked children are subject to rape, torture, forced abortions, starvation and threats to their family members. It is a complete violation of their right to protection, and a childhood where they can grow up in a family environment and have access to education.
The root causes of children being trafficked for sex are complex. Factors include poverty and gender inequality. When girls are rescued from the brothels the traffickers simply go out into the villages and take a new young girl. We want these girls to be protected. We strongly believe that if these young girls were in school they would not be trafficked.
An estimated 945,000 children globally are currently being sold for sex.
Free To Shine provide scholarships to girls identified as high risk of being trafficked into the commercial sex industry.
The International Labour Organisation states that getting girls into school and keeping them there is vital in reducing their vulnerability to trafficking.
Free To Shine now have 73 girls enrolled in their scholarship program.
The villages these girls live in are among some of the poorest, with very small amounts of the tourist dollar reaching these rural communities. Most of Free To Shine's girls and their families live in small houses made of woven palm leaves, raised a little off the ground. Some of the girls families own a plot of land on which they grow rice or vegetables. Others do not own any land and have nowhere they can grow crops. Mains electricity has not yet reached these communities, and some still pump water from wells, while others collect water from the dirty river. Sometimes they boil this before drinking, sometimes they don’t. A few have water filters which ensure safe drinking water, but most do not. Most families do not have toilets. Some of our girl's Mums have a unique form of basket weaving which they do from home while raising the children.
Several of the 73 girls on Free To Shine's scholarship program have either one or both parents who have died or have left them, are abusive, alcoholic, have HIV/AIDs or have been or still are sex workers. Several of these girls have suffered physical abuse, ranging from being bitten, having food withheld as a punishment, being hit and beaten, to being put in a sack and thrown in a pond. And several of the girls have been raped. Those living in highly neglectful and incredibly abusive environments are now living in the safety of a child protection centre.
Free To Shine's scholarship program supports and reintegrates students back into the public education system by alleviating the financial burden associated with schooling. They fund the students enrolment fees, necessary photocopies and handouts, her exam fees and provide her with a school uniform, shoes and bag, books and other educational resources as well as a bicycle so that she can reach school from her village.
To further protect each girl, so that she is not trafficked and so that she is supported by her parents to attend school, each girl has a case worker who visits the family regularly to provide ongoing support and education. During each home visit the case worker stresses to the parents the importance of education, to ensure the parents support their children to continue studying until completing high school, and teach that a university education is possible. They also teach essential areas such as health and hygiene and budgeting.
WHAT YOUR INCREDIBLE DONATIONS CAN PROVIDE:
$25 = education for a month.
$35 = a vegetable garden to provide vegetables and herbs a family can sell.
$40 = repairs the holes in the walls and roof of a family’s house to keep them dry during the rain.
$50 = provides a water filter to provide safe drinking water to a family for approximately 10 years.
$60 = provides a bicycle, bike helmet, school uniform, shoes, bag, books and pencils.
$300 = provides education for a girl for a year, including a case worker who works with the family to help keep her safe.
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