Empowerment & Development for Youths At Risk for Trafficking

Pacific Links Foundation’s youth development solution consists of specialized coding and English summer camps; weekly coding workshops; after-school ADAPT Clubs; student leader and teacher training emphasizing the strengthening of 21st century skills; online self-learning; social capital; and leadership capacity. The solution is scalable, adaptable, and responsive to funding availability.

Vietnam is in the midst of an ambitious development program to lift millions of its citizens out of poverty and improve their quality of life. Overall development, however, is uneven, and the income gap is widening with access to employment concentrated in urban areas. Consequently, Vietnam is a major source country for trafficking victims who are often lured away with false promises of employment. Vulnerable populations, especially women and girls in rural communities, lack access to education and skills training to help them achieve a better future. These gaps include technological literacy, critical thinking, self-awareness, adaptability, entrepreneurship, and inclusion.

Pacific Links Foundation creates innovative, effective development solutions and builds partnerships to prevent human trafficking of Vietnamese youth, reaching 50,000+ individuals since 2005. Several circumstances are currently converging: Vietnam’s rapidly growing tech sector, the need for dynamic workers with strong critical thinking skills, and 25% of the population under age 25. Our proposal addresses three of the factors that influence someone’s likelihood of being trafficked--education, gender, & poverty--by empowering vulnerable youths with life skills and career development education. This will increase their access to economic opportunities, reduce their vulnerability, and create a stronger workforce to meet 21st century employment challenges.

Our solution targets vulnerable middle/high school students, especially young women in impoverished regions. Deployed in schools and communities, it will:

1) Strengthen personal development in key skills, leadership, and self-awareness

2) Improve confidence in charting a future through thoughtful education, training and/or personal and education-related choices

3) Broaden earning potentials and enable better decisions for their personal and professional lives

Our objective is to:

1) Build knowledge & skills

2) Promote leadership development & peer-to-peer initiatives

3) Foster community involvement & networks to become change agents

The solution is adaptable for the growing $150 billion trafficking industry, affecting 20+ million people.

Reflections, focus group, attendance, pre and post test, tracking students' performance, tracking platform usage and results - Strengthen personal development in key skills, leadership, and self-awarenes

Reflections, focus group, pre and post test - Improve confidence in charting a future through thoughtful education, training and/or personal and education-related choices

Tracking students' performance, reflections, focus group, tracking platform usage and results - Broaden earning potentials and enable better decisions for their personal and professional lives

Our solution is differentiated through:

• New technology: Bite size lessons (5 minutes or less) platform designed and built by MIT alum with AI and Big Data background to encourage self-learning. This is especially critical for topics such as coding in remote regions, where teachers are not available.

• New application of existing technology, such as MIT’s Scratch programming language and MOCC platforms in our geographical coverage areas.

• New process for youth development leveraging a unique combination of staff expertise and cultural competency (down to the distinct regional differences).

We are also looking into developing an online mentorship platform and decision-making game.

Input from beneficiaries and program monitoring is essential to delivering quality outcomes with long-term, positive effects. Input is frequently and consistently documented to continuously improve solutions. Additionally our firsthand, longtime experience working with beneficiaries at the grassroots level since 2005 provides critical insight on what support is most needed.

For example, ADAPT Club serves as an extension of our annual youth development Summer Camp. When we first deployed an introduction to coding workshop using MIT’s Scratch programming language at Summer Camp in 2015, we found that 31% of campers accessed a computer less than 5 times in the past year.

Our immediate goal is to deploy our solution in all 40+ partner middle and high schools, and in communities where we have our scholarships and youth development Summer Camp for 3,000+ students. We will also leverage ADAPT Club that is currently implemented in 5 schools. Next is reaching all eligible students at each partner school, which averages 500-1,000 students per school. Participation is free and incentives are given to encourage participation. For example, schools are given priority to receive additional scholarships, teachers are given a management stipend and students are given access to unique professional development opportunities.

Pacific Links’ youth development, counter-trafficking work has operated continuously since its launch in 2005. Our diverse network of funders and supporters have included corporations such as L Brands, MGF Sourcing, Walmart, John Lewis, and Clarks; government funders such as the UK Government’s Home Office, US Department of States, US Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, USAID, Irish AID, UK Embassy in Vietnam; foundations such as Gerbode Foundation, EMpower, Give2Asia; and private individuals. We have also increased online and event-based fundraising efforts. Over time, this network continues to grow in the United States, Europe, and Vietnam.

Concurrently, we are building a revenue-earning model that includes transforming our factory training solution for international brands into a fee-based certification program, CSR consulting for foreign investors in Vietnam, and a 24/7 hotline service.

Therefore, we are confident that we will be able to secure support to pilot, grow and scale our solution.

Factors limiting success include:

1) Beneficiaries’ and stakeholders’ reluctance to engage due to unfamiliarity with youth development activities and limited time for activities

2) Resource constraints

3) Political sensitivities working with an authoritarian regime

To mitigate these challenges we:

1) Engage peer support group members to give new beneficiaries confidence

2) Engage relevant stakeholders from the outset

3) Utilize network to encourage and reassure stakeholders

4) Ensure ongoing participation and input to secure buy-in

5) Leverage partnerships for project implementation

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/17/asia/vietnamese-girls-child-brides-china/index.html

https://www.facebook.com/PacificLinks/

https://www.youtube.com/pacificlinksvn

Solve gives us the opportunity to partner with Solve’s community of leaders and change-makers to deploy, grow scale our solution. We are especially in need of resources to deepen impact among our 3,000+ students as well as the expertise, mentorship and know-how to effectively bring technology to students in remote and impoverished locations who are vulnerable to trafficking. Once the model has been successfully deployed, Solve’s community can be utilized to bring the model to other communities around the world with a localized curriculum.

Partners include local community organizations like the Study Promotion Associations; over 40 secondary schools and universities; the UK Home Office; local and international NGOs like Anti-Slavery International, ECPAT UK, World Vision, and Hagar; and corporations like L Brands, MGF Sourcing, Clarks, and Walmart.  

Competitors include VANGO, VietHope, Thrive Networks, and Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation.