March Impact Report:
We, like you, had a month full of surprise transitions. We are learning, unlearning, and learning again to navigate our world safely and compassionately.
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Freely in Hope provided food for all of our scholar’s families as inflation, lack of jobs, and food insecurity increased due to COVID-19. While our scholars are home due to school closures across the globe, our hope is that lack of food will not force them to work in ways that increase their vulnerabilities to sexual violence. Our team is monitoring their safety through weekly check-in’s on the phone with both our scholars and their guardians.
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After learning about sexual violence through Eneza, our sexual violence prevention curriculum, one student recalled a story where she had been at a school camp where female students were raped by male counselors. She shared, “Now that I know how to report, I VOW to speak out on cases where I notice red flags. I can support survivors by helping them seek justice and get counseling.”
scholar highlight of the month
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all the schools closed. As a leader in Eneza, the sexual violence prevention curriculum, we did not complete the whole curriculum but I hope that our students are healthy and safe. This has not only affected the schools but also the economy—loss of jobs have left so many families without food.
To support our families, Freely in Hope provided food baskets for all scholars which has helped our families greatly as food insecurity has been high.
Despite the pandemic, I thank God for my family and my role as a daughter, sister, and also an aunt to a lovely niece. She pushes me to work hard everyday, to be a role model, and to do my best to make sure that she doesn’t go through what my siblings and I had to go through.
Under Freely in Hope’s Fellowship Program, I am working on designing an online platform that will be accessible and safe for survivors to be connected to helpful resources. I am really excited about creating this project with support from other staff and scholars in the community!
Freely in Hope Fellow
Pursuing BA in Social Work
Class of 2020
staff reflection
Earlier this month, I was able to speak at an event with two of our alumni in New York City! Freely in Hope partnered with The Salvation Army International Social Justice Commission, Move, and Others to host an event sharing inspiring stories of girls and women around the world. This was the first time two of our alumni, from Kenya and Zambia, shared a platform to speak in an international space. There were UN representatives, community workers, faith leaders, and survivors present to hear their stories and engage in meaningful ways.
Collaborating with them to inspire the vision for this event was a longtime dream of ours.
Now, they are achieving their dreams of working with the UN, pursuing higher education, and sharing their solutions for a violence-free world. I couldn’t be more proud of how far they’ve come.
Nikole Lim
International Director
member spotlight
member since 2019
Genay, New York
“The restoring work Freely in Hope achieves is beautiful and necessary in a world that is broken. We are privileged to be a part of their mission to end sexual violence.”
our gratitude
As we celebrate the success of our scholars together, we also recognize the immense pain, loss, and grief many of us are feeling in this season of distancing. Perhaps, this pause is causing us to transform how we think and live—how we extend compassion for the janitors, how we choose connection with the cashier, how we choose to stay home in solidarity with health professionals who are risking their lives to protect our world. Perhaps, we can use this moment to show how much we value relationships—recognizing all the ways in which we are interconnected. Thank you for being connected with us in this meaningful way. Now more than ever, your support is helping our scholars as they navigate the complexities of COVID-19 with you.
The Team @ Freely in Hope
