What Is It? What Are Others Doing? What Can I Do? How Do I Give? About AB Women's Ministries

 

Funding received during the third year of the Break the Chains Project (August 2009 through July 2010) will help the following ministries:

  • In Arlington, Massachusetts, the “All Hands In” ministry is fighting human trafficking by educational awareness programs and providing the only safe house in Boston, MA, for trafficking victims.
  • In Kansas City, Kansas, the Bethel Neighborhood Center is working with 25-30 adolescent girls, ages 10-18, to educate and equip them from becoming a victim of human/sex trafficking. Many of these young girls come from the newly immigrated families from Burma, Bhutan, and Latin American countries.
  • In Puerto Rico, Corporación Milagros del Amor is helping the Dominican women and their children develop basic skills for reading and writing, develop skills in communication in English, and equip parents with the skills to identify and promote resiliency in themselves and their children.
  • In Olympia, Washington, the Helping Children Read ministry, “Readers Are Succeeders,” is helping disadvantaged children who have trouble reading to be able to read well by 3rd grade. The ability to read well will allow them to go forward in school, graduate high school, and ultimately have careers of their choice, decreasing their risk of being exploited.
  • In Mexico, Deborah House shelters women who have been battered and abused. A new Sewing Cooperative will give women opportunity to make income by making aprons, bags and uniforms while learning valuable skills.
  • Safe House for Survivors of Human Trafficking, Southeast Asia*
  • In Zambria, the “Sex Workers in the Copperbelt Region” ministry is redirecting the women and vulnerable children from dangerous, high risk and health- threatening involvement in prostitution and illicit brewing to more socially acceptable empowerment projects such as livestock farming, fish and vegetable vending, candle making, basket weaving, etc.
  • In India, the “Temple Prostitutes” project will provide women with vocational training in areas such as tailoring, sari embroidery, candle making and to provide self employment in a small business such as a vegetable car or breakfast center. 

(*This grant recipient cannot have specific info about the project posted via the Internet for security reasons.)

 

 

 

 

Funding received during the second year of the Break the Chains Project (August 2008 through July 2009) will help the following ministries:

  • A new ministry in Ghana will provide care to persons rescued from sexual slavery, in a culture where families will give their daughters to witchdoctors in false hopes of combating evil spirits and calamities.
  • In Italy, the new Woman to Woman project will minister to and empower immigrant women likely to be trafficked into or through the country or working in prostitution.
  • In Lebanon, the Maids in Lebanon ministry will provide care, advocacy, and freedom to foreign women brought into the country to be maids, and who are imprisoned as "illegals." 
  • In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, BE FREE Transformation Ministries will restore the community by addressing the issue of sexual exploitation in the US and transnationally.
  • NightLight USA, a ministry based in Los Angeles, California will again receive Break the Chains funding to train community members to help human trafficking victims and to organize and mobile volunteers to do street outreach to potential victims.
  • Peoria Friendship House of Christian Service in Peoria, Illinois, will again receive Break the Chains funding to empower more Hispanic immigrant women to earn a respectable income through its cottage industry crafting "Matthew 25" scripture-based charm bracelets, and to expand marketing efforts for the bracelets.

 

 

Funding received during the first year of the Break the Chains Project (through July 2008) is helping six ministries:

  • A new ministry in Thailand through the New Life Center Foundation directed by American Baptist missionary, Karen Smith. The New Life Center in Chiang Mai will educate 50 girls and women who have never had a the chance to receive education. Funding for the New Life Center will help provide rehabilitation services to 15 girls and women who are victims of sexual abuse, labor exploitation, and human trafficking. 
  • Launch a new ministry in Costa Rica. The Mansion of Light Baptist Church is situated in a poor community where children are subjected to physical and sexual violence in their homes and where young girls gather at bus stops to go into the city to sell their bodies. The church has a dream to open a Family Life Center that will be a safe place for children. Break the Chains project funds will help them begin. 
  • A ministry in Philippines. The Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches will minister to young girls at risk and girls who prostitute themselves in five different communities in the beach area of Iloilo. Funding will help the Convention construct a building and provide staffing and programming that will offer girls education and healthy alternatives to prostitution.
  • A Ministry Model and How-to Resources. First Baptist Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota began a ministry named Elizabeth’s House to offer safe and secure housing to young, single women who are at risk of exploitation because of their situations. Break the Chains will fund practical training resources and a model for outreach ministry that will help all of us learn how to develop outreach ministries for at-risk women. 
  • NightLight USA, a new ministry based in Los Angeles, California. NightLight USA addresses issues of trafficking and sexual exploitation in the United States, and provides advocacy, trainings, and street outreach to equip business owners and community members with the tools to recognize and act when they encounter trafficking.    
  • Gaining financial independence through a jewelry making cooperative. Peoria Friendship House of Christian Service in Peoria, Illinois, is teaching Hispanic immigrant women a cottage industry of jewelry making; the cooperative will make and market scripture-based charm bracelets.


Become part of the solution!



Make all donations to “Break the Chains” payable to:

 

“AB Women’s Ministries Break the Chains”

 

Mail to American Baptist Women’s Ministries, PO Box 851, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851

 

We thank you for your involvement!

 

 

 We exceeded our monetary goal of $250,000 and we're still raising money for the Break the Chains project!

  

God at Work
Adalia Schellinger-Guitierrez, IM missionary at Deborah's House in Mexico