Lets celebrate, grieve and learn from 2023 at the SHE Rescue Home!

Welcome to 2024. We have some exciting new plans for the year including re-opening more of our programs in Cambodia and welcoming more new girls into the home!

But first lets celebrate, grieve and learn from 2023 at the SHE Rescue Home!

Over the past 16+ years we have welcomed 128 girls into the SHE Rescue Home. This is 128 girls who have been rescued from sexual exploitation and human trafficking and have been given a chance to heal and thrive. There are 120 girls who have been reintegrated home with access to further education and support from social worker and counsellors for a minimum of 3 years. This time is vital to ensure they can continue healing, growing and thriving at home and into the future. To date we have closed 110 cases of girls who had built a safe and stable life for themselves.

The girls of the SHE Rescue Home had a life before being trafficked - a life with a family who usually did their best to try and protect them. It is very rare that the family trafficked their daughters; usually they were preyed upon with promised opportunities for work or education, given desperately need food and housing or trusted relationships being betrayed. We work with families to help build a strong and stable environment for girls to go home to when it is safe and they feel ready.

We thought we would be celebrating the successful conviction of 2 more court cases this year. However, the first perpetrator has been prosecuted and convicted but we have been waiting for months for the sentencing. The other court case was finished but the perpetrator has successful filed a complaint with the court of appeals, so we are going back to court. The girl is devastated that the process isn’t over and she might have to testify and re-live her trauma again. We are surrounding her with all of the support, love and professional help she needs.

Literacy and numeracy make it easier to change your circumstance. Education helps open doors that otherwise are not available to people. 17 girls are receiving school education or vocational training to help them achieve their dreams. (The other girl in our program is working full time). We are so proud of Leng* graduating from her law degree, the three girls who graduated from sewing or fashion courses and the final girl who has finished her bakery/ wedding cake decorating course.

Davy* came to the SHE Rescue Home when she was just 14-years-old after being rescued from human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Over the past 5 years she has shown great leadership skills and is a great support to the other girls in the SHE Rescue Home. Davy* is a very focussed student and wants to be a graphic designer. She has been accepted into a Software Engineering degree that she would use to work with clients in graphic and web design fields. We have secured the funds for her first year of study and will start raising for next years soon.

It has been a hard year for the girls and staff of the SHE Rescue Home. It has been a year with a lot of health concerns including the grief of infant mortality, cancer scares, broken and poorly healed bones being fixed, surgeries, dental emergencies and general sickness. Without the donations to our medical fund we would not have been able to support so many people with hospital, dentist and doctor visits.

We cooked more than 19,000 meals this year! Having food regularly available is often a novelty that takes time for girls to get used and for them to trust that they won’t be hungry again. It is amazing how much of a difference 3 meals a day, snacks and an open kitchen if they are still hungry makes in healing the physical trauma they have experienced.

This is our 12th house build for the families in the SHE Rescue Home. Providing these safe homes with solid walls, bathrooms and lockable doors has made it possible for 12 girls to go home to their parents. We are so glad to have 5 teams visit this year to see the incredible work we are doing on the ground in Cambodia.

It has taken a long time and a lot of hard work from our incredible staff to renew our agreement to operate in Cambodia. Every three years we go through the process of renewal and it never gets easier - it is a lot of checks and balances, applications, forms and site visits but we have finally finished the process once again.

We have been able to employ families for approximately 8000 hours from the stock we had sold this year - this is the equivalent of 6 people employed part time for the year of 2023. Before the pandemic closures we were employing 18 families - some full time, some part time, some casually. Not all of our selling avenues have been reopened and we are looking for new options.

Look out for our next updates where we will share about the opening of our new Transition Home, the grant matching opportunity we have for $63,400USD and the 2 new girls we welcomed into the SHE Rescue Home!