Equipping the local church

In July 2021, 339 church members across Cambodia learnt more about human trafficking, children’s rights, safe migration and positive parenting through training provided by their church leaders. One of the participants said:

“Thank you for helping me to gained knowledge on human trafficking and its impact as well as how to protect my children and other children in my community. I will take this to share with my family…”

This is an outcome of a wider Hagar driven project which seeks to use churches, and their leaders, as a channel to communicate with communities about human trafficking, how to prevent it and how to help survivors. While these 339 church members have received training from their leaders, it is Hagar who has worked and equipped these leaders with the knowledge and tools to provide this training. In April 2021, for example, 11 Church leaders in Cambodia received training from the Hagar team on Human Trafficking and Child Protection.

Hagar’s work with churches has two main focuses: 

1) Hagar is a pioneer of foster care in Cambodia and the majority of our existing foster caregivers are pastors and Church leaders. With a need for more foster families, the Hagar Cambodia team are working with churches to raise awareness about human trafficking, and other severe forms of abuse, while also talking about the value foster families can have in individual recovery. Hagar knows that children in recovery respond to treatment quicker in a family-like setting as it resembles their own home, community and experiences. By serving as a foster parent, church members are able to directly impact the lives of survivors.

2) While also raising awareness within Churches about human trafficking (and providing opportunity for church members to directly help survivors through foster care), this project also seeks to equip church members with the tools they need to increase awareness in their communities about potential risks. Whether this be through outreach or hosted targeted events, the goal is that each Church that Hagar works with will share key messages in their surrounding areas to protect residents. Hagar also hopes to train church members in how to identify survivors of trafficking and abuse so that they can later refer them for help

Hagar sees the church as a key agency that can make a real positive difference in the lives of those living in communities around them. This project focuses on equipping the church to become a partner in both preventing trafficking and abuse from occurring but also playing a part in the recovery journey of survivors as well. Pictured on this post are just two of the trainings that have occurred to date as a result of this project!