The Rotary Club of Space Center has asked Houston area Rotary clubs to partner with them on a $126,333 Rotary Foundation Global Grant for a Recovery Center for Girls Rescued from Sex-Trafficking in Houston and from other Texas cities. Rotary club partners are also from Korea, and South America.
What is the project? Helping teenage girls rescued from sex-trafficking at one of the few facilities of its kind in Texas!
Outside a small Texas town (about halfway between Houston and Dallas), a group of dedicated Child Advocates and Counselors have acquired a fully secured, well designed, 20+ bed facility to be used as a recovery center to house rescued sex-trafficked teenage girls during their first 9-12 months of rehabilitation. This facility and its staff have been vetted and assessed by the local and state government officials in charge of medical, psychological, and educational support for traumatized and abused victims of this horrific crime.
Due to the cautious and controlled process for testing the initial operations of the facility and its partnering with multiple Child Protective Services across Texas, the facility is in need of between $150,000 to $200,000 to open their doors and reach a full, sustaining patient population (in about 9 months), before state agency reimbursements can kick in.
The Rotary Club of Space Center has agreed to be the Host Sponsor for the Rotary Foundation Global Grant and Kingwood Rotary Club has accepted their offer to be a Contributing Partner of the project. Since the resultant outcome of this Global Grant and subsequent project completion will benefit the entire Houston area, Space Center Rotary Club is hopeful that more clubs will want to be a part of this path finding effort in the Anti-Human Sex Trafficking Effort.
As most of you all are aware Human Sex Trafficking in the Houston region has become a paramount problem that is having civic, moral, and economic impact on our communities. The subject has been elevated and addressed at the last several Rotary International Conventions and more recently at our Rotary Zone Institute held in Houston with Rotary clubs from Texas, and 14 other states.