JULY 2014 Vol 2, Number 16

Dear HTAP Friend,

This seems to be the summer of ARTREACH and conferences. I just spent 6 days at the Zonta International Convention held in Orlando this year. It was a fabulous opportunity to meet with women from around the world, dedicated to advancing the status of women and saying NO to violence against women. I had an opportunity to speak to the youth contingent about human trafficking and how they can impact it.
This week, I'll be speaking at the Trafficking in America Conference held in West Palm Beach where I will also be speaking about ARTREACH and prevention.
Read more about the fabulous paintings and work done locally by girls and boys. We are trying 3 different formats of including boys in the program as we recognize that boys are also victims of trafficking and like girls can be also be part of the problem. We want to prevent both things by increasing their awareness.

Sincerely,

Nola Theiss

Executive Director

Wells Fargo supports HTAP again!

Wells Fargo awarded HTAP a $5000. grant in support of its Point of Contact, Point of Rescue Program. This is the third year in a row that Wells Fargo has honored HTAP with funding for its projects. Thank you, Wells Fargo!

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Introducing the new

ARTREACH Community Wheel

After 4 years of conducting ARTREACH programs, we stopped to take a look at our growth and our successes. We decided that we were thrilled at how far we've come in reaching students, especially girls and many of the at-risk kids in our community and in our Train the Trainer program which has led to the spread of ARTREACH to other communities in the country, but there was more work to do.

Based on the research we have been doing, we saw there was a need to reach more boys. Here is our logic:

If 70% of trafficking victims are female and 30% of the traffickers are female.

and

30% of the trafficking victims are male and 70% of the traffickers are male, then...

we had to work with both boys and girls, with supply and demand, if we were going to make a real impact on the problem and if we were going to protect all the children we could reach.

So we thought about who we need to reach in our community and we made a picture to make it easier for us to see.

That means the hub of our wheel has to reflect both boys and girls (pink and blue). We decided to use this summer and its 7 ARTREACH programs to try out different

approaches: girls and boys in separate but equal programs, girls only, girls and boys mixed. We're about halfway through the process and we'll let you know our conclusions in the next newsletter.

The spokes of the wheel designate the groups in our area that we need to reach. We have actually had students from all these groups in ARTREACH programs in the past, but now we are focusing on the needs of each of these groups to be sure we are meeting their needs and are speaking to them in the best way possible way.

This has been facilitated by our staff who reflect some of these cultures themselves. It will soon be further facilitated by the addition of our new Program Coordinator.

This is an exciting time for HTAP and ARTREACH!

Trafficking in America Conference

I met Yvonne Williams, the Executive Director of Trafficking in America, in New York in March at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women where she spoke on educating youth, girls and boys.
Our ARTREACH program is now included in their recommended youth curriculum list and I will be speaking about it in 2 different presentations, one aimed at young participants and the other as part of an educational panel.

I feel privileged to be lined up with their fabulous speakers.

West Palm Beach, FL

July 16-18, 2014

Click on the link below for more information:

Trafficking in America

LIFE CHURCH COMMUNITY EVENT

Patrick Hayhurst speaking at Life Church

On June 19th, the SWFL Regional Human Trafficking Coalition in partnership with the Life Church in Ft. Myers held a training for professionals and the community. Over 130 people attended. It featured Patrick Hayhurst, Yaro Garcia and Nola Theiss of the Coalition board and 2 authors with very different experiences in law enforcement and outside the law in fighting it. It also featured a victim who is now a survivor and is willing to tell her story with a little assistance from Yaro Garcia.

The Coalition feels that community trainings and events are part of its mission in service to the community. Our next Big Event will be the 2nd Annual Slave Free Southwest Florida Event. More details next time.

Nola Theiss Speaks at Golden Z Convention in Orlando

Some of the Z Club girls with the incoming and outcoming ZI Presidents.

The Golden Z Clubs are Clubs for young women who believe in the mission of Zonta and who want to begin early to work on local and global projects to advance the status of women. At this biennial conference, members of Golden Z Clubs attended for the first time.

Nola was invited to talk to them about ARTREACH and how to become involved in the fight against human trafficking. It was a real honor and the girls were great. Kudos to Zontians Lori Robinson and Angela Romano who organized the girls.

Point of Contact, Point of Rescue Presentation in SW Florida

At the Hendry County S.T.A.R.T. meeting, Nola Theiss was invited to speak to the members of the Sexual Trauma Action Response Team of Service Providers, Law Enforcement, Prosecutors and Health Providers. She and Yaro Garcia presented the Point of Contact, Point of Rescue program and made some excellent contacts for work in Hendry-Glades county using this program, including Train the Train programs. Hendry-Glades are two of the adjacent counties to Lee County and along with Charlotte County, they make up the bulk of the SWFL Regional Human Trafficking Coalition. We are working with people in Sarasota County as well.

ARTREACH UPDATE!

SUMMER IS IN FULL SWING!

HTAP has been extremely busy this summer, sponsoring seven ARTREACH programs! So far we have worked with the girls from Our Mother's Home and for the first time we worked with the First Haitian Baptist Church of Fort Myers. We had a wonderful experience working with both groups. Their hard work and acquired knowledge of human trafficking truly shows through their paintings.

Lady in Chains and Beneath the Surface

Selling Women

The ARTREACH Program done at the First Haitian Baptist Church was the first in many pilot programs to incorporate boys into the program. According to research, boys are just as vulnerable as girls to become involved in human trafficking. Boys can either become a victim of human trafficking or become a trafficker themselves.We have to thank the First Haitian Baptist Church of Fort Myers for their wonderful hospitality and support. We had a total of

45 kids come to all five sessions of the program, with

20 boys and 25 girls. We had food donated for all five sessions and their paintings were fantastic. Thanks to Caesar's Pizza for 30 pizzas and McDonald's for 50 hamburger lunches.

Working on The Gift, Four Faces, and the boys of FHBC

The girls of FHBC painting The River

All the kids with Executive Director, Nola Theiss

RESOURCES

In June, The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report was released by the U.S. Department of the State. This report is the principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on the dangers of human trafficking. It provides an up to date and global account of the nature and scope of this heinous industry. Be sure to read the report on the United States and other countries you may live in or have interest in.

Click on the link below to read the report.

T.I.P Report 2014

IN MEMORY OF QUINTON B. MCNEW

We give our heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and associates of Quinton McNew, who passed away on Tuesday July 8th, 2014. Quinton and his partners showed their support to HTAP by donating office space to us. We are grateful for them and attribute much of our growth as an agency to them. They helped us build awareness of human trafficking in the SWFL community, a community he
Quinton loved and helped develop since the 1950's.
Quinton frequently stopped by our offices to see how we were doing and we always enjoyed hearing him talk about how
Fort Myers had changed.
He told us a story of how when he was building a road in a then rural area, a bus full of migrant laborers, including women, would use it to take a shortcut to the fields. When he heard the bus driver was taking advantage of the women on the bus, he put a front loader truck across the road. When the bus driver asked him to move it, Quinton said when the driver stopped abusing the women, he'd move the truck.

To read more about Quinton and his contributions to the Southwest Florida community please click on the link below.

Quinton B. McNew Obituary

239-415-2635
fax: 239-292-0230 239-292-3834 877-395-1737

Mailing address: PO Box 1113 Sanibel, FL 33957

Our Ft. Myers Office is located in South Ft. Myers. For directions, please email: info@humantraffickingawareness.org

www.humantraffickingawareness.org

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