'Big Sisters' ride to rescue of Nepali child brides

Cece Yara Child Advocacy Centre Foundation provides comprehensive care, protection and legal assistance to youth who suffered sexual abuse or are at risk. So far, they’ve helped reach eight convictions and have about 57 ongoing cases. The Foundation also emphasizes the importance of psychotherapy and education, empowering youth to learn about personal safety, boundaries and age-appropriate sex education in an effort to prevent reoccurring abuse.

Jewish Family Services (JFS) has been delivering the Child Abuse Prevention Program to local schools for 30 years. JFS presents the program at 150 area schools, curating age-appropriate presentations for each grade level. The program covers examples of safe and appropriate touching, as well as what to do if the child finds themselves in an unsafe situation and how to tell an adult.

There are thousands of children caught in the midst of the migrant crisis, and many of them end up without their parents or with a relative. To avoid placing migrant children in facilities that would be unable to give them specialized care, people are stepping up to serve as foster parents for the time being. The foster parents support the children's emotional well being and sense of self, and now foster aunts—forming a relationship without taking over care—are also emerging. These initiatives help ease the process of starting over in a new place, especially for children.

A program called RAPP (Relationship Abuse Prevention Program) uses safe spaces for teens to talk about their romantic relationships with both peer and adult leaders as a way to prevent abusive relationships through education. It is supported by New York City's Human Resources Administration, the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, Day One, and Steps to End Violence and Urban Resource Institute (URI). The program is now in 94 schools across the city, and participants / peer leaders testify to how much it changed their lives.

The organization, Friends of the Children, is dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty by giving at-risk children adult mentors to help guide them. The program results in kids who avoid teen pregnancy, graduate from high school, and don't end up in the criminal justice system.

The DIKSHA youth club looks after the children of sex workers when their mothers are working. The club teaches youth about their rights, bodily autonomy and empowers them to take control of their futures and avoid joining the sex trade themselves. The club started in 2001, and over the past two decades, it has helped prevent young girls from joining the sex trade, reduced rates of trafficking in the area and also helped reduce the stigma children of sex workers face.

Students at East High School in Salt Lake City took matters into their own hands when they were confronted with the realities of segregation and separatist attitudes at their school. After 43 students had some hard conversations about privilege, cliques, and inequity, they greatly improved representation in the student governing body and started to break down the social (segregated) barriers of cliques in the lunchroom. Students and teachers still consider a lot of work to be done but can also testify to how much the experience has changed their perspective on things.

SOS Children's Villages is a non-profit group that services more than 80,000 kids. Their successful model emphasizes love, family, and relationships, even though the children aren't being raised in a "traditional" family.

Lake Park Society’s Camp Kin is a daytime summer camp for LGBTQIA+ youth ages seven to 12 and allies to participate in summer activities while fostering connections with youth and counselors they can relate to. The Camp is available at a sliding-scale rate — from free to full cost at $300 — and provides a safe space for youth to come out of their shells and feel supported.

Street Priests Incorporated engages with youth living on the streets in Nigeria to offer them scholarship funding, food aid, reunification with their families, and more. The organization has helped more than 17,000 children through its programs since 2014.