By Joy Nguyen | TFS Intern
The Freedom Story aims to protect at-risk children both directly through our work in vulnerable communities and by partnering with others who share the same goals of protection. Our Education and Livelihood Program focuses on aiding vulnerable children in the community through scholarships and mentorship. Our Partnership Program creates connections to other organizations that also are motivated to prevent child trafficking. With the help of these partnerships, our prevention work has much greater reach.
Partnership: Enabling Work That’s Both Deep and Broad
For us, partnering with the community is crucial for impacting more vulnerable children. Vulnerability can take different forms. It can look like being an orphan or living with extended family while your parents live and work far away. Not having adequate emotional support can often lead to dropping out of school and can have serious social and emotional consequences. Being stateless is another form of vulnerability because you have limited access to education, healthcare, and jobs. Sometimes, this leads to being coerced into finding work in unhealthy, coercive conditions or being sexually abused. Poverty, this key factor of exploitation, drains access to opportunity and freedom of choice.
To combat these issues, TFS prevents and protects vulnerable children from exploitation through education, human rights, and alleviating poverty. By partnering with other organizations that have the same goal of preventing child trafficking, TFS can expand our programs and impact.
How We Identify and Engage a Fruitful Partnership
Rin is the manager of the Partnership Program and has been working at The Freedom Story for the past two and a half years. She got her degree in social work in Bangkok and was a social worker for 20 years. After finding out about TFS, she joined our team and is now a mentor to our network of organizations. In her opinion, the best part about TFS is that “ . . . everyone [our team members] has the intention to improve the life of children in the community.” She continues to bring her valuable skills to the table through the incredible work of the Partnership Program.
Rin and our Partnership Program team begin by identifying potential partner organizations from within local communities, including Thai-registered NGOs, churches, and community groups, who work with vulnerable populations and recognize the local cases of trafficking risk. For example, in the village of Wiang Mok, people have been lured to work as call center agents, and many have been deceived into labor without payment. Some have disappeared without returning to the village, and no one knows where they went. The Wiang Mok Church works with at-risk children in the village and serves as a community youth center. By collaborating with us, they can benefit from our model and can learn about human trafficking prevention, while focusing on developing at-risk children, family development, and building community prevention networks.
When Rin and our team identify potential partners, the organizations that qualify for our model are provided with financial assistance and are mentored by Rin and the staff members in the Partnership Program. We supply curriculum, activities, and training on emotional learning, financial literacy, and more. Our network of organizations is now capable of passing on the knowledge to the children in their communities, strengthening relationships, educational opportunities, families, and knowledge of basic human rights.
How Partnerships Accelerate the Impact of Prevention
By passing on our knowledge, the network of organizations can benefit from both our trials and triumphs in our experience. In the words of Lucy McCray, our CEO, “We have 15 years of our own lessons learned. . . And we want to help people speed through that process so [they] can jump to where we are.” Our experiences help others progress much more quickly, without having to reinvent the wheel.
Currently, our network consists of six organizations in the Chiang Rai and Nan provinces. “Since I work with so many organizations, I have learned that every organization has their pros and cons,” Rin said. “And everyone has something to learn.” Just as we teach and mentor other organizations, we can also learn from them. Specifically, we benefit from the local expertise of those who have a deep understanding of the problems in their area and a genuine concern for the children in their community. We learn about the specific problems, obstacles, and limitations that crop up in different contexts. This learning process facilitates the continual adaptation and improvement of our TFS model, tailoring it to local contexts to maximize its effectiveness. Not only do partnerships strengthen our work, but they also strengthen the overall work of preventing human trafficking in Northern Thailand.
“Together we can create strong relationships which can lead to a better impact for our community and children.” –Rin
Your investment in prevention makes powerful partnerships like this possible.
Yours in hope,
The Freedom Story
Links:
By Chris Morgan | Resource Mobilization Manager
By Lucy McCray | CEO
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