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The “School for Justice” project: Educate to lead, a passport to the future!

Eight Soroptimist Clubs, supported by the Union of the Netherlands, Suriname and Curacao, partnered with Free a Girl Foundation to support a unique project to educate girls who were rescued from forced prostitution. The “School for Justice” project was initiated by Clubs Waterland and Alphen aan den Rijn.

 

The Free a Girl Foundation dedicates its efforts to freeing girls from forced prostitution. Over the past eight years, they contributed to rescuing 3,802 girls in Asia, by working together with other organisations in various countries. The foundation also provides care and education for these girls and works on getting the perpetrators convicted.

 

The “School for Justice” project aims to take a number of these girls through one of the best university of India, in Mumbai. The girls were freed from prostitution several years ago and have gone through a process of trauma counselling, empowerment and education, and are now in their final year of secondary school.  Soroptimists don’t want their education to stop here, and neither do they. They also want justice and to make a personal contribution towards the battle against the impunity of perpetrators of trafficking and sexual exploitation of girls.

 

The project intends to set up an institute to train child prostitution victims to become lawyers and prosecutors. The first 20 girls have already been selected. In addition, the project carries out an awareness campaign to draw attention to the problems of child prostitution, while at the same time seeking to work together with other organisations, universities and Soroptimist clubs in India. To watch one of the projects’ videos, click here.

 

On the 1st of March, Free a Girl won the “AFAS Challenge”, and was awarded a prize of EUR 50,000 by the AFAS Foundation. This money will cover the costs of the first year of education, and has given the twenty selected girls the opportunity to start their education on the 6th of April!

 

However, the financing of the project’ next steps requires assistance, and this where Soroptimist clubs come in. From 2018, the Dutch clubs aim to finance the education of at least 20 girls, and they want to take care of the costs of education for 2019 as well.

 

Would you like to support this incredible project? Your club can contribute by raising funds through organising attractive and creative activities. You can also support the work of the steering committee or participate in the Lock Me Up campaign, led by Free a Girl.  Or you can also simply donate money to the Foundation.

 

Get in touch with the steering group and the Free a Girl Foundation at schoolforjustice@gmail.com

To find out more about the special “chocolate heart” campaign, please write to hartenverkoop@gmail.com

You can also determine what your money will be spent on, if you would like for example to set up a similar project in Nepal, or another educational project in one of the Free a Girl project countries.