Education Thailand Project #6718

Prevent Child Trafficking Through Education

by The Freedom Story (Formerly The SOLD Project)

Prevent Child Trafficking Through Education

Project Report | Nov 27, 2023
15 Years of Milestones & Achievements

By Jade Keller | Research Writer & Executive Editor

When one of our founders, Rachel Sparks, first met a young girl at risk named Cat and felt compelled to offer a scholarship to help keep her in school, it was hardly imaginable that her heartfelt impulse would ignite something as large as The Freedom Story has become. We are fortunate and forever grateful to have received so much support from so many hundreds of similarly inspired people and have been committed to stewarding that trust and translating it into tangible results for vulnerable children, their families, and their communities – building a world safer from traffickers and exploiters from the ground up, and from the inside out. Looking back over the past 15 years, we have grown tremendously and are proud to say that the seeds planted so many years ago have born fruit.

Here are some of the milestones and achievements from the past 15 years that stand out most:

In 2008, we created a scholarship program targeting children at-risk of sex trafficking and launched an organization to support it
A year later, we were able to build a resource center to support the scholarship students. Since then, we’ve also:
Expanded to include a second building with a computer lab
Achieved air conditioning! (This is essential to functioning brains come 2 pm in the hot season…)
Secured internet access – no mean feat in the middle of a rice field
Acquired vehicles to aid the transportation of kids who didn’t have access to transportation
Expanded our scholarship program – one scholarship student grew to include 20, then 100, to now almost 450 scholarships provided (most students are supported for multiple years of education)
Developed a human rights awareness raising program reaching more than 25,000 people
Provided 14,500+ hours of mentorship and 16,000+ hours of resources
Expanded our outreach to migrant worker communities with support from two grants from USAID
Constructed a third building to support our capacity to host community events
Expanded our services to Nan Province, when one of our staff members saw the prevention work we were doing in Chiang Rai and wanted to bring it to his home village, where people were even more vulnerable. We conducted research to assess the need and the fit of our services, opened operations there, and now have staff running our prevention programs in this second province. It’s a major expansion of our reach and impact.
Hosted nine Activist Vision trips
Built our Sustainability Program’s Eco Agricultural Learning Center
Launched Ethical Storytelling, a movement to tell more dignifying stories about beneficiaries in non-profit communications
Rebranded to The Freedom Story, to better reflect our focus on freedom
Developed a robust monitoring and evaluation program to set tangible goals, metrics to measure our impact, and track our results
Identified more than 1,300 stateless and hill tribe students in 49 schools, and determined 850 were eligible for registration. We’ve since aided hundreds of stateless children in receiving legal documentation or upgrading their legal status.
Provided COVID relief packages to vulnerable communities, a project which also aiding government agencies in their objectives, thus creating stronger relationships to move forward with anti-trafficking initiatives
Trained migrant worker volunteer leaders to conduct human and legal rights outreach in their communities
Supported 1,300+ family members in developing alternative sources of income
Provided counseling to 822 people (not including individual counseling)
Helped promote prevention as a critical component of anti-trafficking policy in the region
Launched a coalition of CSOs working collaboratively to combat trafficking in Thailand
Actively participated in local, national, and regional conferences and trainings to support anti-trafficking responses at all levels. We’ve been participating in national meetings and conferences, and have been working with the Ministry of Justice of Thailand and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on issues pertaining to human rights, child rights, and anti-human trafficking.
Partnered with NGO coalitions, the government, and business partners on Child Safe and Friendly Tourism, targeting trafficking in the tourism industry. It became a national campaign involving the Ministry of Tourism, the Royal Thai police, immigration police, and UN organizations.
Became a core member spearheading the ARAT (Asia Region Anti-Trafficking) annual conferences, gathering about 200 organizations in Asia Pacific and beyond, including organizations from the EU.
Began working with ASEAN, in the governmental commissions on human rights, and the ASEAN commissions on women and children, collaborating with them to bring the issues of the prevention of human trafficking and child trafficking into those regional policy discussions.
Our perspective has been sought and included in the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report
Received an Excellence in Human Rights Award from Thailand’s Ministry of Justice 4 years in a row
Passed the baton of leadership from Rachel Goble to Lucy McCray
Trained 832 village health care volunteers in screening for children at-risk and advising families on preventing or responding to child trafficking and exploitation
Began working with a local school district granting us access to 105 schools, reaching over 19,000 students to teach them about protecting themselves from child trafficking and exploitation

While we track tangible results, sometimes our greatest impact has been in the intangible results. In a region where nearly half of the children drop out of school by the equivalent of middle school, 89% of our students are graduating and many are even going on to higher education. Parents who didn’t believe in education are starting to understand how crucial it is and see its tangible impact on the lives of their children. Prevention is on policymakers’ agendas in a way that it wasn’t fifteen years ago. Other organizations (churches, orphanages, children’s foundations, etc.) in the region who work closely with children are looking to our model of prevention and are excited to learn how to incorporate it into their own work. And, of course, there are the individual lives changed – the students whose lives were characterized by risk and uncertainty, that now have developed resilience and have begun to thrive. We can only imagine how different their children’s lives will be from their own, from the experience of the support they received from their mentors and donors at The Freedom Story, and others who believed in their value and believed in their education.

Thank you for taking part in our journey. We couldn’t do this without you!

In Hope,

The Freedom Story

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Nov 14, 2023
Yindee's Story

By Jade Keller | Research Writer & Executive Editor

Yindee* loves to sing, it makes her feel relaxed and happy. Having that outlet is important for a teen girl who shoulders as many responsibilities as she does.

Yindee, 15, lives with her grandparents because her parents have migrated elsewhere for work. Her grandparents care about her well-being, but with such a huge age gap, and in a culture that tends not to voice emotions, they often struggle to communicate it in a positive way. Yindee is an active student, a member of the student council, and often comes home late, where she is expected to do housework. Her grandparents complain harshly about her long hours away from home and are generally unsupportive of her pursuing education, leading to friction between them.

There is also pressure because they’re subsisting on very little money – just the government stipends for the elderly her grandparents get plus a disability stipend for her grandmother. Yindee’s parents are unable to send her much money at all.

Meanwhile, Yindee’s bedroom area is dilapidated and exposed and there is an area nearby where youths like to mingle – a context that our staff felt was not properly secure or safe. Staff feared that she might be exposed to sexual abuse by the youths who hang out and drink in the area, or be negatively influenced by it.

Yindee is from an area where youths generally have few options or opportunities. Drug and alcohol addictions in this area are common. As one teacher put it, they have two choices: sell sex or sell drugs. Yindee has so much potential, but she knows that there’s nothing for her in this environment. If her grandparents convinced her to drop out of school to help bring in income, her choices would be constrained even further – minors have very few legitimate job options, very few could even earn the minimum wage, while selling sex often earns double or more. It would be a hard path to avoid.

Supporting Yindee
Since becoming one of our scholarship students, Yindee has thrived in our programs, where she has had more room to grow and test her strengths. She has grown in her capacity as a leader, demonstrating her assertiveness.

Because she developed a close, trusting relationship with her staff mentors, she found people she could turn to for advice and guidance. She says, “[their] mentoring makes me feel that I have a refuge when I have a problem, because I will always consult the staff, whether it is about studying, family, and my own personal matters.”

Through activities such as our Family Camp, our staff were also able to support her and her grandparents’ ability to communicate with each other and understand each other better, leading her grandparents to be more supportive of her decisions, including the pursuit of education.

Yindee also benefited from our afterschool activities, such as the training on online safety and the “Girl Rising” projects, which she says improved her self-motivation and attitude. She loves the music club because of her affinity for singing, and she also feels she has gained valuable information from her human rights awareness training.

The biggest change for her comes this month, when she will graduate from our prevention program and move to Bangkok to reunite with her mother. Her plan is to live with her mother while pursuing education at a cooking school, where she will have internships that also bring in some income.

Though she is nervous about leaving the village where she’s lived her whole life and trepidatious about moving to such a big city as Bangkok, she’s put a lot of thought and consideration into this choice and knows it’s the best chance for growing beyond her current environment.

Her staff mentors feel very confident in her ability to thrive. They say she is a lovely, friendly, expressive, capable person and a proven leader who is great at helping others solve problems. She’s demonstrated great character, and they believe she is immune to the lures of risky offers, and that she can handle making good decisions. Our staff will continue to stand by her in this big move, talking to her regularly and helping her navigate this new path as needed.

It is truly inspiring to witness her transformation from a child at risk, constrained, and conflicted to a young woman forging her way toward greater opportunity. Our staff are eager to see where her path leads, and will continue to support her every step of the way.

Thank you for partnering with The Freedom Story in preventing child trafficking in Northern Thailand. There are many vulnerable children like Yindee that we work with, and together, we are working to reduce their risk of trafficking and exploitation.

In Hope,

The Freedom Story

*Name changed to protect her privacy.

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Nov 9, 2023
Meet Somying

By Jade Keller | Research Writer & Executive Editor

When Somying’s father was incarcerated for a drug-related crime, the duty to help her family manage daily life fell upon Somying. Her mother suffered from a heart condition, which meant that, from the age of 5 or 6, Somying helped her mother cook, take care of the home, and watch after her wayward younger sister.

Somying believes her father was a scapegoat in that situation and she is unafraid to tell their story. Still, the practical impact of his incarceration was that he was absent for almost 20 years of her life. Though she was a mere child, the circumstances required her to assume a leadership role in the family. She didn’t have many of the usual childhood experiences. She didn’t have time to play or enjoy life. She lived in a dormitory for eight years to attend school, but on holidays, she couldn’t spend time with friends because she had to help her mother work and feed the family. Even when her sister misbehaved, Somying felt accountable.

While living in a dormitory might seem like a break from family responsibility, it also means estrangement from the family anchor for young children. Having to leave home for school at such a young age is common for many poorer, rural, and ethnic minority children in the region. What often isn’t discussed is the emotional and psychological impact on young children separated from their families and the sacrifices they all make to ensure an education.

Somying’s mentor, Ning, knew her before beginning work at The Freedom Story. Her impression of the young girl at the time had been that she was an impressively committed, dedicated, and hard-working student. Only after Ning began working at The Freedom Story and became Somying’s mentor did she realize the toll such a burden took. Somying showed a brave and strong face to the world, but in the safety of their close mentor-mentee relationship, she revealed how these hardships affected her. In private, she would often cry, wondering why such things happened to her and her family. When confronted with problems, she hastened to find the quickest way out, just wanting her troubles to end. She felt lost. Financial constraints made it impossible to dream about her future. She had no idea where to go next.

The Freedom Story’s scholarships helped cover the costs of her education, helping to relieve that burden. Through the mentorship Ning and other Freedom Story mentors provided, Somying gradually became able to identify dreams. She wanted to go to China to study for her bachelor’s degree and gain experience living abroad. Her mother had been afraid to let her go, especially as a young, single woman. She also worried about the financial costs of life in a foreign country. Somying herself had been afraid of leaving her mother alone to cope with running the house and her very stubborn younger sister.

By the time Somying reached university, however, she was much more mature and emotionally stable, and her mentors believed in her ability to take on the challenge of life abroad. The Freedom Story’s scholarships provided her with a monthly stipend and covered the costs of her student visa. Discussions with her mother helped convince her that her daughter was capable and that the benefits of this opportunity would set Somying up well financially in the future.

The leap of faith they took paid off.

Somying’s life in China was indeed a challenge. In Thailand, she could rely on others, such as her mentors, family, and friends. In China, she was truly alone and had to rely on herself. Most importantly, she learned that she could. She gained much cultural understanding and met people from other countries for a truly enriching experience.

Somying also made a commitment to herself to come back to her community after completing her education and do community service for two years, as a way of giving back. Two years became three. Her service work is tapering off now, as she is working as an interpreter for a shipping business between Thailand and China. Meanwhile, she and her boyfriend plan to marry, and together, they’ve opened a small family business selling a popular Thai snack of fried dough and warm soy milk for dipping.

Ning believes Somying exemplifies how a young, at-risk girl can grow into a capable and successful young woman. She hopes our donor community will feel proud of the little girl they had supported and what she has accomplished due to their help, and that their service in her life has been fruitful.

Somying often says that getting The Freedom Story’s scholarships has been like a vaccination for her life, protecting her from the outside world and helping her learn to engage in the world and with other people more effectively.

Thank you for taking part in the movement to end child sex trafficking!

In Hope,

The Freedom Story

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