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OTIP Announces the 2024 Anti-Trafficking Leadership, Innovation and Sustainability Project Participants


Collaboration in group meeting

Twelve initiatives led by survivors of human trafficking will receive up to $20,000 in federal funding, coaching and other support to strengthen community-based responses to human trafficking. Selected after a national call for innovative ideas, the Anti-Trafficking Leadership, Innovation and Sustainability (ATLIS) project builds the capacity of survivor-led organizations, collaborations and community groups.

“The invaluable expertise and unique perspectives brought by people with lived experience is a powerful way to transform community response to human trafficking,” said OTIP Director Katherine Chon. “Through ATLIS, we have the opportunity to diversify the way we invest in survivor leadership and the often under-resourced organizations working on some of the most challenging issues facing their communities.”

We’re excited to announce the 2024 ATLIS project participants:

Araminta Freedom Initiative, Baltimore, MD

Araminta Freedom Initiative’s Rise and Thrive project aims to support individuals with lived experience by providing them with opportunities to develop their digital skills and resources to enhance their economic independence and resilience. The project will support development of a comprehensive digital empowerment program to equip survivors, and those at risk, with digital skills and knowledge to protect themselves, access opportunities and rebuild their lives. Project goals include fostering a sense of agency and empowerment among participants, enabling them to navigate digital spaces safely and effectively, raising awareness about the intersection of technology and human trafficking, and providing tools and strategies to mitigate risks.

Boston HEAT (Human Exploitation and Trafficking), Boston, MA

Boston HEAT aims to provide peer and mental health support to women who have experienced or are experiencing sexual exploitation, trafficking, homelessness, addiction and/or mental health concerns. This project will focus on expanding outreach hours and behavioral health services offered to women experiencing active substance use disorder (SUD) and sex trafficking. It also includes the piloting of a support group for HEAT participants who are newly housed and in recovery from SUD and will formalize an advisory group of former/current HEAT participants to provide input on programming, ongoing needs assessment, and actions to integrate feedback into operations.

Eden’s Farm, Pittsburgh, PA

Eden’s Farm’s Survivor Apprenticeship project will develop and establish a paid apprenticeship program for survivors of human trafficking, with the goal of educating, training and consulting the community on human trafficking awareness and anti-trafficking efforts. This survivor-led and survivor-oriented apprenticeship project will offer an educational series and curriculum to equip participants with the tools and confidence to engage the community. The project will culminate in a community training delivered by survivor apprentices to various partner organizations, which may include youth, parents, caregivers and the public.

Ernestine’s Daughter, Chicago, IL

Ernestine’s Daughter aims to engage women who have experienced trafficking through outreach, offering tools for healing, support with accessing resources, and offering a safe space for individuals to visit. Ernestine’s Daughter’s project will focus on building staff nonprofit-management skills in the areas of data collection, analysis and reporting, financial policies and procedures, and effective communication. The project will work toward learning new, and strengthening existing, management skills, enhancing efforts to develop high-impact survivor-led programs, and nurturing new survivor leaders.

Meet Me at the Well Foundation, Wilmington, DE

Meet Me at the Well Foundation’s program HEAL (Health, Empowerment, Autonomy, and Leadership) is a trauma-responsive sewing workshop environment where survivors learn to form community, build creative entrepreneurship skills, and develop essential workplace skills to achieve professional and financial independence. This program acts as a bridge between the time a person exits their trafficking situation to the stages of independent living and full self-sufficiency—ultimately disrupting cycles of revictimization. The project will focus on training and technical assistance to serve more survivors, gain knowledge in developing policies and processes to support survivor leaders, improve skills in onboarding program participants, and expand abilities needed to sustain these initiatives.

North Texas Human Trafficking Survivor Council, Burleson, TX

The North Texas Human Trafficking Survivor Council’s objective is to confront systemic obstacles to culturally responsive services and advocate for sustainable, culturally responsive and survivor-centered approaches. The goals of the project are to create a training curriculum to incorporate within the Council; to support survivors to build professional skills and gain financial stability; and increase stakeholders and partners to create collaboration within the North Texas anti-human trafficking community. The project also includes the development, planning and implementation of two training events - one focused on survivors, and the second focused on the North Texas community, including anti-human trafficking organizations and task forces, to incorporate survivor voices into North Texas stakeholders’ protocols and procedures.

Project Starship, Orlando, FL

Project Starship is a survivor-led mentorship program that uses weekly webinars, workbooks and journaling to support children and youth in foster care who have experienced human trafficking or whose circumstances increase their risk for experiencing trafficking. Project Starship will work toward its first statewide cohort and enroll individuals who have experienced trafficking and are in the system of care and extended foster care. This project will increase the capacity of survivor mentorship programming throughout the state, reinforce the importance of survivor-led programming to address the commercial sexual exploitation of children, and cultivate art, poetry, education, individual planning, and recovery with survivors.

PurpLE Health Foundation, New York, NY

The PurpLE Health Foundation’s mission is to advance health equity for survivors of gender-based violence, including human trafficking, through an interconnected model of direct services, research, and education. The PurpLE Health Foundation “Learning Collaborative” project will facilitate workshops on building patient-clinician relationships by connecting medical trainees with lived experience educators. The project will focus on creating a pathway for survivors to serve as paid healthcare educators while addressing the need for pre-medical and medical trainees across the educational spectrum to learn directly from those with lived experience.

Rise Above Defeat, Corona, CA

Rise Above Defeat’s program EmpowerMinds: Survivor Mental Health Support Initiative aims to address the complex emotional and psychological needs of children and youth with lived experience through a combination of therapeutic interventions, peer-support networks and specialized counseling services. Rise Above Defeat’s project will offer a range of holistic approaches, including trauma-informed therapy, mindfulness practices, art therapy and group counseling sessions, to promote healing and resilience, to create a safe and supportive environment in which children and youth who have experienced trafficking are able to share their experience and access the support they need. This project also emphasizes the importance of community engagement and collaboration, working closely with local organizations, support groups, and mental health professionals to ensure coordinated and culturally responsive care. With a focus on long-term sustainability, the project aims to establish partnerships with funding agencies, government entities and philanthropic organizations to secure ongoing support and expand its reach to serve more survivors in need.

Rising Worldwide, Santa Cruz, CA

Rising Worldwide’s Rising in Solidarity Mutual Aid project aims to increase the social and economic well-being of survivors of human trafficking by creating a culture of solidarity within survivor communities. Rising Worldwide will create and pilot a mutual aid group for survivors of human trafficking in the United States and expand its participation in the solidarity economy movement. The Rising in Solidarity Mutual Aid Project will be implemented by a team of 12 survivors and subject matter experts of both sex and labor trafficking. The project will aim to create a framework, using the principles of solidarity economy, for implementing a mutual aid group for survivors of human trafficking that can be replicated with other survivor groups in the United States; create recommendations for supporting the development of trust among a group of survivors of trafficking; and pilot the framework.

Survivors for Trauma-Informed Ethical Standards in Human Trafficking Journalism, Seattle, WA

The Survivors for Trauma-Informed Ethical Standards in Human Trafficking Journalism’s project, Trauma-Informed Reporting on Human Trafficking Issues: A Guide and Curriculum for Journalists, Editors, and the Media At Large, aims to educate the media industry on how to incorporate survivor voices in their reporting in a way that does not cause harm and accurately depicts stories about human trafficking for the public. The group will aim to develop a guide and curriculum used to train the media on trauma-informed and nuanced reporting about human trafficking issues, with a special focus on interviewing survivors.

You Are More Than, Inc., Marlton, NJ

You Are More Than, Inc’s (YAMT) program From Wheel to Wellness aims to disrupt the cycle of re-victimization and exploitation of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer+ (LGBTQ+) trafficking survivors through survivor-centered, trauma-informed expressive art therapies. In this project, survivors will be introduced to the therapeutic aspects of healing and processing trauma through an art-based clay therapy group in collaboration with an art studio. In addition to the group, survivors will receive individual trauma-centered and survivor-centered mental health counseling sessions provided by a licensed clinician, one-on-one peer-mentorship sessions with a fellow survivor to build a sense of community and support within the survivor's life and a weekly stipend to pay transportation, childcare costs or food while in the 16-week group. This project will examine the link between art-based therapies and their impact on reducing PTSD and C-PTSD symptoms among survivors of trafficking.

ATLIS is funded by the Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families and implemented through OTIP’s National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center.