For Immediate Release
April 21, 2007
Contact: Karrie Delaney
Director of Communications
Tel: 703.351.8062
Karrie@sharedhope.org
Shared Hope International
Launches Official
Partnership with Covenant House Georgia Crisis Center in Atlanta
Washington D.C. (April 21, 2007) – Shared
Hope International, an anti-sex trafficking organization, announced
today that it will begin a partnership with Covenant House Georgia
Crisis Center an Atlanta-based outreach organization that provides
support to the area’s homeless youth that are at traffic
victims or at risk of trafficking.
Shared
Hope International awarded
Covenant House Georgia
a $24,750 subgrant with
funding from the U.S. State
Department, Office to Monitor
and Combat Trafficking
in Persons. The funding
will provide a space for
five months in the Covenant
House Georgia Crisis Center
for a youth who has been
trafficked or is at risk
of being trafficked for
sexual exploitation.
In addition to meeting
basic needs and providing
case management, the shelter
provides a wide array of
services which include:
medical referrals, transportation,
mental health support or
referrals, securing documents
such as ID’s and
support to pursue self-sufficiency
when it is time to leave
the shelter.
The
Covenant House Georgia
Crisis Center provides
homeless youth with a safe
place to rest as well as
educational and vocational
resources to help improve
their chances of progressing
into an independent, productive
adult.
The partnership is a significant
step toward responding
to a key finding revealed
in the U.S. Mid-Term
Review on Commercial Sexual
Exploitation
of Children in America, a nation-wide report spearheaded
by Shared Hope International,
in coordination with The
Protection Project of Johns
Hopkins University School
for Advanced International
Studies (SAIS) and ECPAT-USA.
The report found that current
resources for commercially
sexually exploited children
in the U.S. are insufficient.
*********************************************
About Shared Hope International:
A global activist in
a worldwide effort to prevent and eradicate the marketplaces of
sexual exploitation through a three pronged approach of prevention,
intervention and restoration. Founded in 1998 by former Congresswoman
Linda Smith, Shared Hope International operates six homes of hope,
providing long term shelter and restorative care to those who are
survivors of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation.
In addition, SHI has partnered with nongovernmental organizations
worldwide in 14 countries, including the United States, in order
to strengthen laws that prosecute the perpetrator and provide services
to victims of sex trafficking.
About
Covenant House Georgia:
Covenant House began in
1969, by a Franciscan Catholic
Priest, as a temporary
shelter in an East Village
tenement in New York City.
Incorporated in 1972, Covenant
House has grown to become
America’s largest
childcare provider for
homeless and at –risk
youth. It is in 21 cities.
Covenant House was called
to Georgia when the Leadership
of Peachtree Presbyterian
Church became troubled
by the problem of youth
homelessness in the metropolitan
Atlanta area. Through the
years, its mission has
remained constant – to
give our kids the unconditional
love and respect they may
have never felt, and to
help them reach their potential.
< Back to Press Room
