About Poiema Foundation
OUR VISION
We envision a world that is aware of sexual abuse and exploitation and will not tolerate it. We long for a world where sexually abused and exploited people receive safe housing and long-term trauma-informed care, resulting in restoration as they are loved unconditionally.
OUR MISSION
The Poiema Foundation educates the public and raises awareness in order to prevent sexual abuse, sex trafficking, and other methods of sexual exploitation. We also facilitate the restoration journey of survivors in our safe house by providing for their physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs.
OUR STRATEGY
Poiema has three main pillars as an area of focus:
• Education- Poiema has educated over 25,000 people about the dangers, prevention, and awareness of human trafficking through our most widely taught training, Human Trafficking 101, and various other trainings written by our Executive Director. Poiema also has trainings for safe house and other volunteers on a strength-based approach to trauma informed care for survivors. Our audiences include students, counselors, foster parents, CASA volunteers, minors in juvenile detention and their staff, law enforcement, churches, and many others. Poiema’s Human Trafficking curriculum for Health Care Professionals, also authored by our Executive Director, has been approved by the Department of Health and Human Services for continuing education credit.
• Engage- Engaging the public to be eyes and ears in the community and to identify victims of human trafficking is essential to ending this modern-day slavery, which Poiema accomplishes through monthly outreaches. which are held every Saturday. During outreach volunteers take posters of missing, vulnerable youth to hotels, bus stations, truck stops, and first responders, throughout the metroplex, asking them to keep watch for these children. We visit over 390 locations every month, gathering intel on suspicious activity as we go. In partnership with 4theOne Foundation, we have helped recover 373 minors, including 207 victims of trafficking or sexual exploitation.
• Empower- Poiema’s Safe House provides long-term support for survivors of human trafficking. To date we have helped 26 precious women in our home. The success of our program is greatly dependent on resources provided by volunteers and donors. Among the many opportunities to serve are mentoring, game nights, home maintenance, or teaching one of our many classes, including exercise, art, nutrition, cooking, and life skills. We continue to provide fellowship and community once women transition to independence. We also help girls who are still on the street. To date we have provided support to 141 survivors. Plans are underway to expand our home with the addition of four new bedrooms!