Emerge Lanka

Research suggests that 11-34% of Sri Lankan girls experience child sexual abuse. Yet, due to stigma, less than 10% of cases are ever reported.

For 15+ years, Emerge has provided healing-centered programming to 1,121 teenage survivors of child sexual abuse who have had the courage to come forward against their abusers – that rare 10%. Our programming invests in their self-sufficiency and leadership, with a belief that they are positioned to radically change Sri Lanka.

Building on our direct service expertise, the Elevate Prize would help us launch THRIVE, an initiative to elevate the voices of survivors and build a more responsive, trauma-informed justice system and system of care overall, with the ultimate goal of preventing child abuse and decreasing secondary victimization of survivors when they come forward.

The Elevate Prize will enable us launch three pillars of work under THRIVE:

1. A peer-to-peer coalition of survivors to build power, mobilize, and create change across Sri Lanka

2. A trauma-informed system of care and justice that honors survivors’ rights and healing end-to-end

3. A Survivor Power Summit that convenes survivors; practitioners in domestic violence, child abuse, and anti-trafficking; funders; and policy makers to innovate, learn, and build intersectional movement power

I thought I was going to be an engineer. But, at age 19, on a tsunami relief trip to Sri Lanka, that changed. I met an 11-year-old girl who bravely took her father to court after bearing his child. As a result, she was locked up for 7 years for her protection while she testified in court. Witnessing her courage and seeing the stigma she faced turned my world upside down… Every ounce of me believed that she was the type of leader our world needed, and that she deserved a foundation of support.

This young woman inspired me to start Emerge, which to this day, is the only organization in Sri Lanka exclusively dedicated to serving teenage survivors of sexual abuse. Emerge supports survivors in healing and celebrating their beauty, developing their self-sufficiency, and becoming leaders of change in their communities. Over the past 15 years, we have served 1,121 girls. Despite all odds, our graduates are studying to be lawyers, running businesses, and building their own homes.

With our growing alumnae pool, we are now ready to mobilize this base to create systemic change that prevents child sexual abuse and the harm that comes with it.

Research suggests that 11-34% of Sri Lankan girls experience child sexual abuse (CSA). Yet, due to stigma, less than 10% of cases are reported. Those that report often face trials lasting 4-7 years, live institution during their trials, and experience challenges reintegrating into society. CSA is therefore the first of a series of traumatizing experiences these brave children face.   

Emerge supports Sri Lankan girls who have survived CSA and are courageously testifying in court against their perpetrators. These girls are placed into shelters that typically lack trauma-informed supports and access to the outside world. Emerge partners with these shelters to support survivors in healing and developing their business, life, and leadership skills; network; and financial capital. 

In 2016, Emerge launched a trauma-informed, residential empowerment center for young women transitioning out of shelters and into the community, the first of its kind in the country.

With our growing alumnae pool, we are now ready to mobilize this base to create systemic change to prevent CSA and the harm that comes with it.  The Elevate Prize would allow us to elevate survivors’ voices and ideas of a child-focused, survivor-informed system that minimizes harm and allows more children to come forward.

We are a survivor-led organization and the only organization in Sri Lanka that focuses exclusively on supporting teenage survivors of sexual abuse. For 15 years, we’ve worked in partnership with survivors to design and refine our programs to support their needs. Due to the sensitivity of the issue, we are also the only nonprofit in Sri Lanka that has access to government-run shelters for child abuse survivors. Because of this, we are uniquely positioned to lead the charge on centering survivor voices in systemic change.

A recent UNICEF report highlighted recommendations for serving children through Sri Lanka’s justice system that aligns with many recommendations from our participants. Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Justice supported the recommendations. We have a strong relationship with the Department of Probation and Childcare Services and believe now is a unique moment for systemic change.

We have three unique assets that we will harness in systems that are survivor-centered: (1) access to and rapport with survivors who have lived through the current system; (2) a strong history and relationship with the Department of Probation and Childcare Services; and (3) a growing network of celebrity ambassadors across Sri Lanka that will elevate our work to drive systems change.

For fifteen years, we have supported the healing and development of 1,121 brave young survivors of sexual abuse. Through Emerge, these young women have developed healthy coping mechanisms to manage their trauma and learned to set and work towards their own goals. They’ve applied the skills and financial resources developed through Emerge to start businesses, finance education, and even build homes. They’ve identified communal challenges and worked together to change them.

In starting Emerge, stigma made it hard to attract media or find people to volunteer. Today, we’re regularly in the media, our participants’ products are sold in well-known stores in Sri Lanka, and we have celebrity ambassadors, from former Miss Sri Lanka to two former national cricket players (the most popular sport in Sri Lanka!). We have a network of companies that employ our alumnae and champion our work. 

We plan to build on these outcomes to shift the existing systems that discourage survivors from coming forward, create further trauma, and do not meaningfully pursue justice. We are launching THRIVE with a series of design thinking convenings with survivors, nonprofits, UN agencies, and government leaders to garner ownership over change we plan to co-create.

Over the past 15 years, Emerge has supported the healing and educational journey of 1,121 extraordinary young women. In 2020, we welcomed 95 girls into our family. 

This year, despite changes to our traditional programming due to COVID-19, we have worked with 68 young women to date and anticipate serving at least 30 more by the end of 2021. We had over 70 applications for 10 slots in our upcoming cohort at the Emerge Center. 

In 2021, we anticipate directly impacting 250 people through the following breakdown:

• Emerge direct service programming - 135 participants

• THRIVE peer-to-peer coalition (first year) - 15 participants

• THRIVE incremental shifts in the system (first year)- 50 beneficiaries

• THRIVE Survivor Power Summit (first year) - 50 participants

• TOTAL: 250

Through THRIVE, we aim to exponentially increase our impact and the number of people served by shifting the systems that (1) currently compound the trauma survivors face and therefore deter them from coming forward and (2) currently prevent perpetrators of violence from being brought to justice. We do not expect to see its full impact in the first or even second year but do anticipate substantial systemic change within three years of work.

Emerge’s current programs measure impact through regular progress trackers, observational data, and participant interviews. Data is collected and entered weekly and assessed monthly. Due to the shifting timelines of participants, we focus on measuring the output and outcome level of our activities. We incorporate feedback from our government partners, participants, and alumnae. 

Emerge’s new arm, THRIVE, has three sub-initiatives, with the following indicators to measure progress:

1. Peer-to-peer coalition of survivors 

   1. Survivor Advisory Board - Membership numbers and engagement, recommendations made and implemented

   2. Coalition - Curriculum developed and implemented, level of engagement of coalition members, recommendations made and implemented

2. Trauma-informed system of care and justice 

   1. Laws changed

   2. Key frontline personnel trained

   3. Spaces transformed to be trauma-informed and survivor centered

   4. Survivors coming forward

   5. Perpetrators facing charges

3. Survivor Power Summit 

   1. Number and type of stakeholders engaged

   2. New initiatives / activities that emerge from the Power Summit 

In launching THRIVE, we will also explore partnering with an academic institution to conduct prevalence and attitudinal research throughout our work and to assess which of the relevant SDG indicators (5.2.1, 5.2.2, 16.2.1, 16.2.2, 16.2.3, 16.3.1, 16.3.2) are consistently monitored in Sri Lanka.

COVID - Sri Lanka has gone in and out of full lockdowns due to COVID, forcing us to move some of our direct services online. THRIVE will launch after funding is secured (~early 2022), and we anticipate SL to be more open then. However, if not, digital platforms will help kick-off THRIVE.

Stigma - Given the cultural stigma around CSA, we are building a team of celebrity ambassadors. The following individuals are involved in our work as ambassadors, advisors, or board members: Jehan Mubarak (former Sri Lankan Cricketer), Stephanie Siriwardhana (winner of 2011 Miss Universe Sri Lanka, model, host of Voice Teens Sri Lanka season 1), Russel Arnold (former Sri Lankan Cricketer) and Chamari Atapattu (Captain of the Women’s Cricket Team of Sri Lanka). The Elevate Prize would further help us combat stigma by helping us build out and activate a strong media presence.

Financial - Launching THRIVE requires a significant financial investment to build the team, compensate survivors, host convenings, and kick-off the work.  We plan on conducting a roadshow to raise funds and applying for additional grants, and will launch THRIVE when enough funding has been secured. An Elevate Prize would enable us to tackle this hurdle.

Media of all types will be essential to THRIVE’s success in Sri Lanka and beyond. We aim to develop a media plan that leverages all types of media (print, broadcast, outdoor advertising, and social/internet) to lift up the key themes that emerge as essential from our peer-to-peer coalition of survivors, Survivor Power Summit outcomes, and other convenings we host. This media will be an essential strategy in garnering public and government support for broader systemic change. Based on the interests and priorities of the survivors we engage, we can imagine bringing campaigns like Rights 4 Girls "#NoSuchThing Campaign" (https://rights4girls.org/campaign/) to Sri Lanka, which has dramatically decreased the usage of the term “child prostitute” in the United States, helping the public and policy makers to understand that these are survivors of rape, who deserve support not incarceration. By increasing our media footprint, we’ll be able to further elevate the voices of the young women we work with, create political will for change, and demonstrate to the world the importance of engaging those closest to the problems in designing solutions.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B) are essential to Emerge, from our team to our board. Our team is representative of Sri Lanka’s multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multilingual landscape. Building and nourishing our team requires care and continually refining how we show up and do the work together. 

We promote a culture of celebration and bringing one’s full-self to work. We offer equal benefits to all full-time employees, regardless of seniority or tenure. We prioritize nourishing our team’s wellbeing and offer free, confidential counseling to teammates during work hours. This is critical for a team that experiences vicarious trauma and hires those with experiences from which they are often still healing. 

 As next steps, we are: 

(1) Refining our compensation structure, which has developed organically over time rather than with the intention it deserves. Our goal is to build transparency around the responsibilities that are associated with different compensation levels. 

(2) Forming our Survivor Advisory Board. Until now, we haven’t had the capacity to do this in a meaningful way. We believe this requires a deep commitment to us building the relevant scaffolding/structure for their work to truly matter. 

Emerge is a survivor-led organization, with expertise from survivors at multiple levels of the organization. Our collective lived experiences offer insight into survivors’ healing journey, the memories our bodies hold, and the systems that have harmed us along the way. 

We are the only team in Sri Lanka that has become family to over 1,100 CSA survivors. We are an unstoppable sisterhood—there for all things big and small. These powerful relationships, our lived experience, and our professional expertise, uniquely positioned to tackle systemic change. 

I have 16 years of experience in the field, including developing and leading two organizations. After launching Emerge at age 19, I’ve been proud to watch it evolve beyond me. In the USA, I founded Freedom Forward (freedom-forward.org) to prevent the commercial sexual exploitation of youth through systems change. Through Freedom Forward, we developed the country’s first Youth Advisory Board for an anti-trafficking task force, along with a fellowship to support youth in shifting the narratives and systems that mattered most to them. I also partnered with the California government to reimagine foster care for teens who had experienced commercial sexual exploitation. I’m now ready to leverage these skills to support Emerge in launching THRIVE.

Starting Emerge developed and tested my leadership muscles in profound ways. It taught me the importance of contracts when the accountant I worked with stole money that I had transferred and then sexually harassed me. It taught me to always have a back-up system after my harddrive crashed. It taught me to navigate derogatory questions with humor.  More importantly, as I held a teenage mother who had just lost her 6-month-old son, I learned the power of love and loss to fuel my conviction. When a young woman told me that I was her only family, I learned the importance of consistently showing up. And, amidst an air raid during the civil war, I learned that there was no other place I would rather be — that I had found my life’s calling. But, I think the greatest test of my leadership was learning to let go, of passing the torch. I wanted the girls to see themselves in Emerge’s leader and for Emerge to be rooted in Sri Lankan culture. My greatest gift of love was learning to let go and then watching it continue to succeed with me as a board member rather than in the driver’s seat.

I have spoken about Emerge at a variety of venues, from conferences, to galas and major events, to classrooms, to rape crisis centers, to interviews with the media. We have been featured in publications such as Glamour Magazine, the Boston Globe, and the featured case study of NYT's best-seller "Do Good Well." For a list of press, see https://emergeglobal.org/press/ 

As I transitioned from my role as Emerge's Executive Director and joined the Emerge board in 2013, some of my television appearances (such as my interview on Good Morning Sri Lanka) appear to no longer be available online. 

Sample speaking engagements I can still find online include:

• 2020 Simply Unique "Rise Together" - Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/simply.unique.lanka/videos/382535242969645 
• Project Inspire 2015 Pitch (Runner Up): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eHYMYIc4-s 
• Sauvé Scholars Pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5LRZBgbqRA
• MIT Tech TV: https://techtv-mit-edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/videos/3169-alia-whitney-johnson-emerge-global 

An Elevate Prize will enable us to launch our new initiative, THRIVE, including doing the following over the two years of funding:

1. Develop THRIVE’s core infrastructure for Sri Lanka

• Hire our core team for THRIVE
• Design and implement THRIVE’s monitoring and evaluation system and participatory research and data collection tools
• Collect baseline data
• Develop fundraising infrastructure

2. Launch THRIVE’s work:

1. 1. Coalition Building

      1. Compensate survivors’ participation during coalition building sessions

      2. Fund leadership and advocacy curriculum development for meaningful engagement of our Survivor Advisory Board and activation of the coalition

   2. Systems Change

      1. Fund convenings to begin human centered design co-creation systems change process 

   3. Survivor Power Summit / Intersectional Movement Power

      1. Fund our first two Survivor Power Summits

Emerge has a strong network of partners to support its current work and will engage even more partnerships in launching THRIVE. Current partners include:

Programmatic partners:

• Department of Probation and Childcare Services - Government partner overseeing court cases and granting permission for us to work in shelters and with youth

• Children’s Development Centers - Shelter partners for programming

• Generation Never Give Up (GNG) Network - Partnering with them and the government to build out a plan for all institutional care leavers across Sri Lanka 

• Women In Need - Referral partner for alumnae in need of crisis shelter or legal support

Network of employers for alumnae:

• Brandix Apparel Limited

• MAS Holdings

• The Cake Factory

• Stepping Stones Montessory

• Ninewells Hospital (Pvt) Ltd.

• Shangri La HOtels

• Selyn

• Janet Salons

• Sambol Foundation

Funding:

• Alana Athletica 

• Colombo Round Table

• Access International (Pvt) Ltd.

• SPA Ceylon

• International Expats Association

• Simonas Trust Services (Pvt) Ltd.

• International Christmas Charity Bazaar

• Expatriate Furniture Sri Lanka

• Ladies Circle Colombo

Sales (vendors who sell jewelry that our participants make):

• Colombo Jewellery Stores

• Barefoot

• Selyn

• International Christmas Charity Bazaar

• Rocco’s

Celebrity Ambassadors:

• Russel Arnold (former Sri Lankan cricketer and current international commentator) 

• Chamari Atapattu (Captain, Women’s Cricket Team of Sri Lanka).