05 — AREA OF WORK
Child Survivor Empowerment
Survivors are more than their experiences.
WHY IT MATTERS
Empowerment is more than healing.
Healing is one step. Empowerment means helping survivors discover their strengths, return to learning, develop confidence, and create the future they choose.
Survivors are children with strengths, talents, dreams and the potential to lead. We invest in their education, confidence, independence and leadership — and support those who choose to use their voices and lived experience to help protect other children.
Education and confidence
+
Independence and leadership
=
The future they choose
HOW WE HELP
Four routes to independence.
01
Formal education
Whether it’s funding scholarships or providing school supplies — returning survivors to school can help break the cycle of poverty in their families.
02
Non-formal education
Life skills training covering everything from emotional regulation to decision-making and values formation — from justice to dignity — so children develop coping skills to overcome life’s challenges and gain confidence.
03
Vocational education and income generation
From supporting children and their families to develop work skills, to providing opportunities for sustainable employment — fostering self-reliance and reducing the risk of re-exploitation.
04
Survivor leadership
We help child survivors understand their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and — if and when they choose — use their voices and lived experience to advocate for stronger laws, policies and protections.
We support that leadership through training in children’s rights and advocacy, mentorship, networking, and meaningful opportunities to work with decision-makers, researchers, organizations and the public. In turn, we train those groups to partner with child survivor leaders ethically, safely and meaningfully.
FEATURED IMPACT
The Youth Advisory Squad.
SINCE 2021 · CANADA-WIDE
Training, platforms, mentorship, scholarships and meaningful work experience.
The YAS program is a youth-led scholarship and leadership accelerator fellowship. Participants design and lead their own community project to combat the sexual exploitation of children, and work through a curated curriculum on children’s rights, the sexual exploitation of children, and activism.
As a result, children — including child survivors — have given presentations, advocated on Parliament Hill, learned how to protect themselves and others, found a sense of belonging, gained confidence, increased their leadership skills, developed their civic identity, grown their networks and accessed employment.
Past participants include survivors of different genders, members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, ethnic minorities, and children in foster care.