She Has Hope is a human trafficking response initiative operating several life-saving programs for vulnerable girls and women in Asia, Africa, and South America. Over 30 years ago, we began our work with one project in India rescuing orphaned slavery survivors to provide them with rehabilitation and education.
Today She Has Hope programs exist to prevent girls from becoming slaves, to rescue slavery victims from traffickers, and to rehabilitate survivors with the goal of restoring them to a life full of hope in India, Nepal, Uganda, Myanmar, the Philippines, Colombia, and Argentina.
Many women in our programs are equipped with craft-making and tailoring skills to give them financial stability via jobs and small businesses we help them launch. All net proceeds from the sales of our program participants’ handmade crafts directly support their programs.
Local efforts are also conducted by our Houston staff and volunteers to inform the public of the trafficking crisis in the United States, to direct individuals and businesses to be vigilant in spotting potential trafficking activity to report to the national trafficking hotline (888-373-7888), and to encourage volunteer support for local trafficking response programs.
We are a program of Peace Gospel International, a charitable organization that began its work in 1993 to serve orphans, child labor victims, and young trafficking survivors in Asia and Africa. We have achieved Platinum level status (the highest level) with Candid, the premier source for nonprofit information and transparency— you can review our profile here.
Our response to the human trafficking crisis in Asia, Africa, and South America can be summarized in five categories as follows:
Prevention
We’ve conducted numerous trafficking awareness campaigns, training thousands of vulnerable Nepali girls to recognize and reject traffickers’ false promises and deceptive offers. In Uganda and the Philippines, we undertake similar initiatives by educating at-risk girls while empowering their mothers through craft and skill development workshops. In India and Myanmar, we focus on prevention by rescuing orphans from child labor situations, ensuring their safety from traffickers. In Colombia, we provide teen abuse survivors and at-risk girls with skill training, mentoring, and education to prevent them from falling into trafficking. In Argentina, we address the root causes by offering early childhood education and developing trafficking awareness programs for at-risk communities.
Rescue
Our kiosk at a bustling Nepal-India border crossing serves as a critical outpost for spotting trafficking activity. Our trained staff vigilantly monitor for suspicious behavior, such as men traveling with teenage girls, and alert nearby border police when necessary. This diligence has enabled our team to rescue numerous girls directly from traffickers, leading to the imprisonment of several perpetrators of these heinous crimes. Rescued girls receive shelter and care at our border transition home while we determine the best path forward for them, with most being enrolled in our Nepal rehabilitation home. In India and Myanmar, we collaborate with local authorities to free girls as young as seven from labor slavery. In Colombia, we rescue teen refugee girls from precarious situations involving abandonment, abuse, and teen pregnancy.
Rehabilitation
In response to the human trafficking crisis in South Asia, we operate a rehabilitation home in Kathmandu that is home to several Nepali girls and young ladies rescued from desperate situations. At the home, they receive room & board, counseling, medical care, and English and computer classes. At our trade school next to the home, they become proficient in tailoring and seamstress skills through daily coursework offered by our full-time teachers. Our goal is to equip the girls with all of the skills they need to enter the workforce as empowered citizens, fully realizing their potential, restoring them to a life full of hope. In India, we’ve operated a rehabilitation care program for trafficking survivors since 1997. The program provides nutrition, mentorship, counseling, and scholarships for accredited education to orphan girls recovering from slavery or child labor situations. In Colombia, we sponsor a program which provides full rehabilitative care and mentorship for extremely at-risk teen refugee girls.
Restoration
We work to equip girls enrolled at the ‘She Has Hope’ rehabilitation homes with everything they need to stand on their own, healed and full of hope. Our Nepali rehabilitation home is a great success — 216 girls have graduated, and of these, 89 women have started their own businesses, while 82 graduates have been successfully employed by local businesses thanks to skills mastered at our trade school. Our other Nepal graduates have married and are supporting their new families with skills acquired at the home. In Uganda, trafficking survivors are finding restoration in serving at our orphan home and local school while they continue their training at our small-scale on-campus trade school. Through our India program, girls who were once slaves have come up through our primary and secondary education programs. Twenty-one of our graduates are now enrolled in college thanks to scholarships provided by our donors, and twelve have graduated from college programs!
Sustainability
In all of our project locations, our goal is sustainability. In Nepal, our apprenticeship program “New Hope Fashions” provides survivors with the opportunity to learn small business concepts while also producing crafts for export which creates a sustainable component for the program.
In Uganda, the women enrolled in our program learn tailoring skills, participate in maintaining a garden project and develop entrepreneurial skills via a catering company. The business further empowers them with fair wages as well as generating funding for the program. Our 15-acre Uganda farmland provides bountiful produce for our students’ meals.
In the Philippines, our trafficking response program is funded in part by a farmland project which includes banana and coconut groves, vegetable gardens, a hen house and a fishery. In India, we have a gardening project and a six-acre lentil farm project serving our programs there. In Myanmar, we have a one-acre, on-campus farmland for fresh produce and a twelve-acre rice farm, both providing key staples in our program beneficiaries' meals.
In Colombia, our Program Director runs a small craft business to multiply our funding and provide hands-on training for the girls in the program. In Argentina, our Director is multiplying your generosity by operating a university education satellite franchise which doubles as a program opportunity for the benefit of the community.
