Restoring Lives

How Hope for Justice Australia supports outreach, rescue and world-class aftercare for victims of human trafficking

Hope for Justice Australia supports our life-changing projects in Cambodia, Uganda and Ethiopia, keeping children safe from modern slavery and helping those who do fall prey to human traffickers.

Much of this work depends on the generosity and dedication of ordinary Australians and other people around the world who donate and fundraise towards these projects.

Our Country Director for Australia, Lynnette Kay, spent nearly eight years running our programmes in Ethiopia and has extensive firsthand experience of the issue of vulnerability to human trafficking, the risk factors for family breakdown and why children end up living alone on the streets. She also knows the value of the projects we have developed to help.

By supporting and empowering this work, you are truly helping to change lives and to end slavery.

RESCUE IS A PROCESS,
NOT AN EVENT.

 

Aftercare – Our Key Programmes

Restoring lives

Outreach

In Uganda and Ethiopia,  our specialist teams engage with children and help keep them safe. We help children out of dangerous and vulnerable circumstances, such as living alone on the streets, and encourage them to join our Lighthouse centres, starting a journey of restoring the life of a child through safe shelter, counselling, educational opportunities, and fun activities. Our goal is to reintegrate children to their families, or to another safe family or community setting, and to work with them via continued support to bring about positive and long-term change in their lives.

Lighthouse

Our Lighthouses in Cambodia, Uganda and Ethiopia are short-term assessment and transition centres for victims of sex trafficking, forced labour or forced marriage in the days and weeks immediately after rescue, or for vulnerable children who have been living on the streets. Our intensive model provides crisis support, family and community assessments, professional interventions and collaborative planning with government agencies to prepare survivors for reintegration into their communities or entry into a longer-term aftercare project, such as our Stepping Stone initiative in Cambodia.

Family reintegration

We return children home to a safe family environment and support families to prevent children separating from them again. We have built an international reputation through our work on family reintegration, developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), a training curriculum and toolkit. When returning a child to their own family is not safe or not possible, we seek to help through foster care or, if appropriate, by giving them the skills and tool to live independently.

Stepping Stone

In Cambodia, for survivors who have regained physical and emotional health at the Lighthouse but cannot or do not want to be reintegrated to the community where they grew up, the Stepping Stone program is an alternative that empowers them to embrace their freedom and live happy, fulfilled and independent lives. We give them the skills they need to look after themselves, live independently and work, while still benefitting from the guidance of a mentor and being part of a survivor support group. Our links with local businesses mean survivors can often join training programmes and do apprenticeships, leading to safe, stable work.

A child should not have to
carry the wounds
of their past

The goal of restorative care is not simply to address the trauma sustained but to help each individual move far beyond it. Each child deserves the support needed to treat their trauma. Our holistic approach, with a comprehensive focus on individual needs, is the only effective response. Every child in our program is empowered to live a whole, healthy life, free from the burden of their past vulnerability or exploitation.

Giving a child choices
and a dream
restores their future

Each child in our programs benefits from a nourishing environment that encourages and respects their personal choices. Our programs create bridges to opportunities that give children control over their lives and provide the tools to realise their dreams. Each child plays a prominent role in shaping and taking responsibility for their own future, so that they have a restored sense of dignity. With these practical and sustainable career and life skills we profoundly reduce the risk of re-trafficking.

“Our response is a strategic one – focus on excellence, professionalism and outcomes to help the children we care for find healing, hope and justice.”

 

Maggie Crewes
Cambodia Director, Hope for Justice

Love

“I have experienced for the first time what love really looks like and I have learned what it means to love others”

Sopheak*

Hope for Justice is registered with Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission ABN #: 28 639 382782
Registered office: Level 8 50 Carrington Street Sydney NSW 2000

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Hope for Justice Australia acknowledges the Wangal clan of the Darug Aboriginal people as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet in Sydney. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.