The Exodus Road received $60,000 for its aftercare home in Thailand as one of 10 non-governmental organizations selected from nearly 400 applications worldwide.

COLORADO SPIRNGS, COLORADO, UNITED STATES, December 16, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) selected The Exodus Road, an anti-trafficking nonprofit based in Colorado, as one of 10 recipients out of nearly 400 applicants to receive a grant for directly providing “tangible support to victims of human trafficking,” according to the UN’s website. The Exodus Road received the $60,000 grant to support their Freedom Home project in Thailand.

Freedom Home offers immediate shelter and care for adult women (along with any dependents) who are survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. In addition to serving as a temporary safe house, the home also offers a one-year mentorship program that includes: trauma-informed therapy, life-skills classes, counseling, medical care, community internships, entrepreneur classes and job-skills training.

“Freedom Home provides women in crisis with a place to begin their healing journeys,” said Laura Parker, the CEO and co-founder of The Exodus Road. “Survivors are strong and resilient, and we want to come alongside them as they walk into new futures.”

When survivors of human trafficking have little or no access to safety, healing resources, and economic opportunity after being liberated, they can end up back in vulnerable situations and eventually find themselves trafficked or exploited again. The Exodus Road’s Freedom Home aims to provide a haven for women to heal and develop life and job skills to help build secure, independent futures, Parker said.

Freedom Home opened in November 2021 and welcomed its first survivors in December. Freedom Home welcomes survivors referred from other NGOs and survivors who were liberated (and their traffickers arrested) because of evidence-gathering work that The Exodus Road’s undercover operatives do in partnership with local, Thai police.

From its conception, more than ten years ago, The Exodus Road has invested in a variety of aftercare services and programs - partnering with other NGOs, employing social workers, funding survivor education and meeting individual survivor needs. In preparation for the opening of Freedom Home, The Exodus Road spent more than a year planning and developing the comprehensive curriculum.

“Caring for trafficking survivors requires a trauma-responsive approach,” Sola Long, the Regional Aftercare Coordinator and director of Freedom Home, said. Long is from Cambodia and has worked in survivor care for more than a decade.

“Our staff and program provide support with the understanding that trauma impacts the rest of a person’s life; re-victimization must be avoided; and, it's the survivors’ personal resilience that empowers healing. Our goal is to truly equip these women to thrive as they move toward independent living,” Long said.

Along with aftercare services, The Exodus Road also equips communities to protect the vulnerable through training and other resources; and, the organization partners with law enforcement agencies around the world to fight human-trafficking crime. In September, The Exodus Road launched their free online training platform, TraffickWatch Academy: U.S. It features two multimedia modules that break down what human trafficking looks like in the U.S. and how to personally combat it.

The UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking (UNVTF), managed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), awards grants to NGOs that provide “direct assistance to vulnerable victims of trafficking in persons in or fleeing from imperative crisis scenarios ….”

About The Exodus Road
The Exodus Road is a global nonprofit disrupting the darkness of modern-day slavery by partnering with law enforcement to fight human-trafficking crime, equipping communities to protect the vulnerable and empowering survivors as they walk into freedom. Working side-by-side with local staff, NGO partners and law enforcement around the world, The Exodus Road fights to liberate trafficked individuals, arrest traffickers and provide restorative care for survivors. Since its founding in 2012, the organization has assisted police in the rescue of more than 1560 survivors and the arrests of 870 offenders; numbers that grow almost daily. The Exodus Road’s approach to freedom incorporates prevention and training efforts (TraffickWatch Academy), intervention (Search + Rescue) and aftercare (Beyond Rescue).

In September 2021, The Exodus Road launched TraffickWatch Academy: U.S., a free, online, multimedia training module that unpacks the complexities of human trafficking and educates viewers with methods for identifying signs of trafficking and how to intervene. The organization is also launching a similar training throughout Brazil designed specifically for law enforcement partners. In November, the nonprofit opened Freedom Home in Thailand to house survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The Exodus Road combats human trafficking in the U.S., Thailand, Brazil, the Philippines, India and in another Latin American country, undisclosed for security reasons.

For additional information or to make a donation to help stop trafficking, please visit The Exodus Road’s website at https://theexodusroad.com/, and check them out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

###

Mackenzie Spillane
The Exodus Road
mackenzie@theexodusroad.com
Visit us on social media:
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Other