WOMEN & GIRLS EMPOWERMENT
Within the poorest communities, there are tragically too many instances of sexual abuse and abandonment of women and young girls. TFT provides advocacy and vital support to get these women and girls out to a place of safety - an important job completed; preservation of life. But what kind of life does anybody have if they remain in a cycle of poverty?
Saving someone from a situation is simply the start of the journey, empowering them to stand on their own two feet is critical to continued success.
So TFT set up the Heartbeat Centre, a safe house to save women and girls to keep them out of abusive institutions. The Heartbeat Centre provides safe shelter, Pro-bono legal services by an all-female group of lawyers and education to help these marginalised people to build a better life.
The girls who arrive at the centre are ghostly versions of themselves, their innocence gone and spirits squashed with no hope of a life beyond destitution. In one situation a young girl had been adopted when her parents split up, her abusive mother returned to reclaim her and then treated her so badly that the youngster poisoned herself. Presumed dead she was lying in a mortuary when someone saw her moving and she was revived, only to be inexplicably put in prison. Sent to an institution rife with abuse, she ran away and eventually found herself at the Heartbeat Centre. Despite being scarred physically and emotionally, the care and love she now receives is building her self worth. For the first time in her life, she sees options and wants to train to be in the police. Other victims are all from similarly torrid backgrounds and shown a lifeline to dream of an independent life and many want to become nurses, lawyers, in the police; inspired by the individuals who saved them.
Without education and without space from a bad situation we cannot see a way out. There is no freedom to dream of change let alone make steps towards it.
