Love146

Results: OUR HOLISTIC CARE In The Philippines: Our Round Home in the Philippines is uniquely built and designed to facilitate the restoration and holistic health of every girl entering its doors. A tree house is regularly the venue for therapy sessions. A volleyball court is available to play on. There’s even a punching bag for children to work out their aggression. The physical structure of the Round Home is intended to promote reflectiveness, a sense of peace, freedom, dignity, and self-esteem, as well as playfulness so that children can simply be children again. After years of providing direct care to dozens of girls, the Love146 White Home opened in 2014, caring for exploited boys, providing them with holistic care, including medical attention, nutrition, therapy, formal and informal education, and vocational training, all to help them walk toward recovery and prevent future exploitation. In the United States Over the years, we have heard stories about exploitation and trafficking of children in the United States. Before launching our US Survivor Care program, we talked with survivors of child sex trafficking in the US, asking them what sort of care they would have liked to have. We listened to government officials, asking them what was actually needed. After much research, we realized that while many services for children exist in the US, service providers are generally not familiar with human trafficking, and few survivors have a trauma-informed advocate who understands human trafficking and can help them gain access to the services they need. Youth who have been trafficked are at higher risk for further exploitation; thus, one of the first things we tell a youth is, “We go where you go. If you move placements, or foster homes, or run away and come back, we will always be there.” By journeying with the youth, Love146 helps ensure that youth receive victim-centered services and the support they need to become self-sufficient and flourishing adults, which includes freedom from revictimization. Our Prevention Education in the United States We are driven by the belief that child trafficking and exploitation is not inevitable, and working to reach youth before traffickers do. Our child trafficking and exploitation prevention education curriculum, Not a #Number, is designed to teach at-risk youth how to recognize recruitment tactics, understand vulnerabilities, and develop skills to safely navigate potential and existing exploitative situations. Youth identify healthy support systems and learn how to access community resources when situations occur that increase their vulnerability or if exploitation is already underway. We also provide resources to educate parents, caregivers, and professionals about the issue and actions they can take to help safeguard children. Not a #Number has been embraced by schools, child welfare and juvenile justice agencies, and other youth-serving organizations.

Target demographics: Children who have experienced being trafficked or exploited.

Direct beneficiaries per year: 3,428 children were reached by Survivor Care, 62,240 children reached by Prevention and Community Education, 14,728 professionals, caregivers, and community members reached

Geographic areas served: United States, The Philippines

Programs: We serve children from our offices in Asia and the United States. Love146 is working to end child trafficking and exploitation through survivor care and prevention. We began in 2002, building and expanding safe homes in Asia and training grassroots aftercare workers with knowledge in best practices and equipping them with practical tools to be even more effective. In 2008, we opened our Round Home for girls in the Philippines, and since then have added three more additional survivor care locations, serving both boys and girls in the Philippines, the U.S. and the U.K. However, we could only provide survivor care for so long before asking ourselves, “What can we do to actually prevent exploitation from occurring in the first place?” Our Prevention Education program has been developed to better answer just that question. Prevention Education reaches children before traffickers do. We’ve reached thousands of U.S. children in classroom and community settings, equipping them to recognize vulnerabilities and protect themselves and their peers from exploitation. In 2015, we completed & began implementing a youth curriculum, called “Not A #Number,” which incorporates what we’ve learned about effective prevention. The trafficking and exploitation of children is one of the darkest stories and most severe human rights abuses imaginable. But for us, the hope of ending it is a reality. Love146 is helping grow the movement to end child trafficking while providing effective, thoughtful solutions. We believe in the power of love and its ability to effect sustainable change. Love is the foundation of our motivation.