About Global Family
Global Family aims to preserve the family and protect at-risk children with the assistance of local community organizations, volunteer caregivers, and donors. We use a three-pronged approach to solving the issue of child abuse and exploitation and human trafficking, improving child protection, and providing alternative care to children who have lost biological familial support. This approach consists of prevention (community-based youth clubs (including girl’s empowerment programs), women’s clubs, vigilance groups, and awareness activities), intervention (risk factor identification and targeting, partnering with law enforcement and other NGOs, and short-term residential therapeutic programs for victims of human trafficking), and aftercare (alternative family care programs). Global Family seeks to research and implement a best practice model for protecting children and preserving families, and to share effective approaches with other organizations and agencies.
Global Family's ultimate goal is to develop innovative best practice models that protect children and preserve families. Our program approaches include (1) locally imagined and managed solutions that bring awareness, empower girls, as well as strengthen families and communities; (2) shelters that preserve dignity, provide quality care, and prioritize restoration with families and returning victims to the highest level of independence possible; and (3) after-care programs that are family-based and volunteer caregiver dependent.
Prevention aims to protect children from being at-risk of trafficking and commercial exploitation, and targets both the supply and demand of trafficking. The best measures of protection and defense are locally driven efforts beginning in homes, villages, schools, and communities by those most affected. These efforts have taken the form of Daughter Project clubs that mobilize citizens and equip them to protect, intercept and restore girls at risk.
The model for club development was established in response to the environmental and individual risk factors of child trafficking and abuse. Clubs are founded and run by community volunteers, who may be youth or mentors from the surrounding area. Clubs follow a curriculum and often meet on a weekly or bi-weekly basis in local community centers, public spaces, schools, or alongside partner organizations. Club activities include children advocating for their peers, girls’ clubs that build self-work, women cooperating to keep girls in school, and community leaders upholding children’s rights. Other clubs aim to intercept girls being trafficked or trapped in abuse and restore them back to their families or guide them to a restoration shelter.
The Empower curriculum is an adaptation of Bhitri Sundarta (meaning ‘inner beauty’ in Nepali), a collection of lessons created to teach girls in Nepal between the ages of eight and fifteen about the dangers of child trafficking and sexual abuse. This version of the curriculum has been modified to reach girls in the United States.
Our Founding Club
We founded the first Bhitri Sundarta club in Kathmandu in June 2010. The girls of this first club inspired many of the games and activities included here, and chose pink, burgundy and green as their colors. In the process of leading these girls through the meetings and assessing how they learned and responded to the concepts, we were able to create lessons and meeting plans that are fun, adaptable and meaningful for young girls.
Project Highlight
Girls Choice Foundation
KATHMANDU, NEPAL
The Thali Miniland School club in Kathmandu, Nepal is a student led club that formed just after the 2015 earthquake. Their mission is to promote girl child rights and support and protect each other from trafficking and abuse in Kathmandu, Nepal. The girl students (and few boys who are invited to join) took action when faced with harassment at school. They meet weekly to discuss matters and listen to one another, work though the "Bhitri Sundarta" (Inner Beauty) curriculum, and raise funds for needy children in their community. These girls have gained confidence and support one another with the encouragement of their parents and school principal. Now, they are training girls from a nearby school to start their own club! The club spreads awareness of trafficking and abuse, and now these children are teaching their peers about their rights and encouraging each other to stay in school… It seems the Girls’ Choice Foundation can do just about anything!
Goals:
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Develop child-friendly messaging on issues such as trafficking, child rights, and abuse
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Strengthen our club to become more sustainable and reach the community with awareness education
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Empower one another and teach our friends about their rights
