Giving Tuesday

It’s Giving Tuesday and I want to share with you a handful of organizations that are making a true difference in the world.

Hope for Justice makes a REAL difference in quality after care for sexual abuse and exploitation survivors. While some organizations focus only on awareness, Hope for Justice is in the trenches, working with law enforcements, to pass regulation that protects victims, works hand in hand with governments to locate and free victims, and MOST IMPORTANTLY offers quality follow-up care with is absolutely crucial to a survivors ability to heal from trauma, and become independent. Just because a victim is rescued – does not guarantee that they won’t end up back on the streets. This is especially true when the victim’s abusers are family, which is VERY common. When abuse victims are raised in abuse, or live with an abusive spouse or boyfriend, there very often find themselves back in the circle of abuse either with their original abuser or a different one, because they have never been given the skills to provide for themself, or the education to understand when they are being taken advantage of. Hope for Justice provides the FULL healing spectrum, from awareness, to rescue, to trauma therapy and education in their aftercare Lighthouses around the world.  Donate here:  https://hopeforjustice.org/unlockfreedom/

 

#2) D Gary Young , Young Living Foundation

If you are a Young Living member, you have undoubtedly heard of the Young Living Foundation. They have built schools, malaria clinics, and anti-poverty enterprises around the world. They focus on areas where they have essential oil farms, to bring jobs and opportunities for impoverished communities. You can donate directly at https://younglivingfoundation.org or you can round up your monthly wellness box order to the nearest dollar to donate each month. During the holiday season, you can purchase Enterprise postcards in the holiday shop, whose proceeds go to fund business loans for small business and fair trade enterprises in disadvantaged areas.

 

#3) The Elizabeth Smart Foundation

The Elizabeth Smart Foundation focuses on public education to help survivors to understand how to talk about abuse, and has been launching their #WeBelieveYou campaign to help society understand that many victims don’t seek help because they at one point or another have not been believed when sharing their story. Sadly, victims are often shamed for bringing abuse upon themselves, or are not believed because their abuser is high profile, a family friend, or because they were in or with a person or in a social setting that was embarrassing. Abusesr rely heavily on victim shaming to coerce their victims into silence. Supporting and empowering victims to get help starts with believing them. Today I purchased my “We believe you” shirt from the Elizabeth Smart Foundation here. Elizabeth is a survivor herself and has created this foundation to help others. https://www.elizabethsmartfoundation.org/we-believe-you You can also donate to their Victory Club which is a community of monthly givers to help survivors find hope.

 

#4) The Coco Berthmann Scholarship Fund

The Coco Berthman Scholarship Fund is a newer but promising scholarship fund started by Coco Berthman, who escaped a trafficking ring in Germany.  This meant running away and being homeless, because her primary trafficker was her mother. She ended up in the United States, fell back into abuse, escaped again, and is now advocating for education so that escapees can have a future. One thing she focuses on, is that just because you have escaped, doesn’t mean that you are free. Having an education is key to providing for one’s self and not ending up back on the streets selling sex. While some rescued victims can be returned safely to a loving family (as was in the case with Elizabeth Smart) Coco had to figure our treatment and independence on her own. The Coco Berthman Scholarship fund gives scholarships for survivors who don’t have family support, so that they can gain an education and have true freedom. Coco also advocates for legislative action through police education, because children such as herself are groomed and trained to lie to police to keep their abuse a secret. She is currently going to school herself to become a human rights lawyer. https://www.cocoberthmannscholarship.com

 

#5) The National Center on Sexual Exploitation formerly known as Morality in Media

The NCSE started as Morality in Media, focusing on revenge porn, online exploitation, online porn blackmail, and abuse within the porn industry. Each year they create the dirty dozen list, and focus on 12 major organizations that fuel the trafficking industry through porn. Because of their efforts show a direct and undisputed link between porn (especially child pornography) and trafficking, they have been successful in removing sexual abusive titles (aka porn) from sale in hotels, television networks, on Amazon and more. They extended their name to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation to clarify that the reach a broader set of issues than porn alone, but stands that porn is almost universally a beginning point for child on child abuse, narcissistic act of sex demands among abusers, and confusion for teens and adults for what a healthy relationship looks like. They are located in Washington DC, and have worked with the White House to enforce existing anti-obscenity laws that have rarely been enforced in the last 8 years. They have accomplished VAST amounts of change that protect women online from having their images sold, bartered, or blackmailed for profit. You can donate to the NCSE here: https://endsexualexploitation.org

Let’s chat for a second about who

you should NOT donate to

The moment a crisis evolves –  fraudulent charity scams pop up like weeds on a summer’s day. Most of these Fake “charities’ play on the consumer’s good heart to help others. We were scammed by a fake refinance during the 2008 recession on a phony refinance by a scammer who was even recommended by our mortgage broker because even HE was scammed into thinking this particular company was offering true mortgage assistance.
We’ve recently seen charity scams for Covid research and for unemployment benefits skyrocket. The hottest scam to profit off of this year…. fake sexual exploitation charities.

You probably noticed that all the charities I mentioned above follow this theme. This is because the charities I mentioned above are VETTED LEGIT organizations that do real good in the world. If you want to donate to this cause – donate to one of the organizations above.  Your money will go to actual survivors.

Unfortunately, there are less legitimate so called “Operation Rescue” organizations today that are pushing for donations that have not shown clear expenditures on victims. Some make sad films about sexual exploitation, show a few stings, and ask for donations. They have a history of jumping in FB, Reddit, and conspiracy groups that spread misinformation about trafficking and ask for donations there too. But are those donations going to help survivors? One human-trafficking operation group is under criminal investigation for allegations of charity fraud.  That’s when the majority of funds don’t go to the cause, but to the CEO. Wow.

Make sure that whatever organization that you donate to, that they put the majority of their proceeds towards helping the people they claim to help. Here’s a list of the 50 WORST charities, organization that put less than 10% towards their project and pocket up to 90 % for themselves.

https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-50-worst-charities-in-america-how-to-keep-from-being-scammed

 

When in doubt – donate to the 5 organizations that I listed above. They are the real deal!

They have my donation.

 

XOXO

Lucy