The Dr. Annise Mabry Foundation is Georgia's only nonprofit high school diploma program for homeless LGBTQ youth, sex trafficking survivors, and high school dropouts. The Box Breakers Project will give 40 high school dropouts an opportunity to become a high school graduate. We will partner with nonprofit organizations that serve homeless LGBTQ youth and sex trafficking survivors as well as local police departments to identify potential program participants.
There are currently 866,000 people in Georgia without a high school diploma. In some Georgia counties, this number is as high as 42% of the working-age population. Almost a third of LGBT students drop out of high school-more than triple the national rate. These dropouts often don't have any work experience, so they turn to survival sex, which places at greater risk of becoming a victim of sex trafficking. FBI statistics rank Georgia in the top 20 states for sex trafficking.
No single project will solve the problem, but the goal of The Box Breakers is to disrupt the pipeline of potential employees for sex traffickers by providing an opportunity for high school dropouts to obtain a high school diploma. Something happens when you put a high school diploma in the hands of a high school dropout. They begin to see their life with a future, and they begin to plan for that future.
The long-term impact of The Box Breakers will be a decrease in the number of Georgians without a high school diploma, and an increase in the number of Georgians who can apply for safe, fulfilling employment as a high school graduate.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
