2011 had been, to say the least, quite a year for Central valley Justice Coalition.
In 2011, we publicly launched CVJC. On 1-11-11, we did We Are One, a city-wide united worship and advocacy event. The We Are One team decided to focus on human trafficking trafficking in the area this year and invited us to team up with them. We also partnered by EOC Sanctuary, Central Valley Against Human Trafficking, Beauty For Ashes, the Fresno Police Department, the Vineyard Church, and others to not only present the reality of human trafficking, but give opportunity to respond in worship, prayer, education, and other action.
This event launched us into our education and training work. Throughout the year we had the incredible opportunity to train people in the community on human trafficking identification, outreach and project participation, awareness of the presence human trafficking in illicit massage parlors, on the streets, and in other locations in the Valley, and so forth.
We had the privilege of speaking and providing resources at the Fresno City Summit, Fresno Pacific University College Hour, and Jaron Ministries’ CODE3 event.
This gave us the incredible opportunity to meet and connect with many of you. It is humbling and exciting to meet others in the community who have had a heart for justice and freedom to those who are oppressed and were trying to find a way to get involved locally.
We’re all being drawn together and it’s beautiful.
Partnership is vital and we are honored to have had the opportunity this year to help build partnerships with other organizations and groups who have an important role in this effort. We recognized that there are those who can better meet needs we identified and have found so many local groups with whom we now have the privilege to work.
We have the honor to have released one of our leaders to form a partner organization, Faith.Hope.Love, which is focused on prevention and meeting needs regarding minor sex trafficking.
We are grateful for the many rescues that have occurred: 47 precious survivors in this area in the past year and honored to assist Central Valley Against Human Trafficking with providing resources to the beautiful survivors we celebrate.
It has also been a year of development for our group, as God has been revealing to us who we are and what we are called to do. Everything else has come out of that great partnership.
We are working with our new and old partners, churches and organizations, to launch the first Freedom Week, which will be proclaimed by the City of Fresno.
The incredible thing is, this is only the very beginning. We expect to see this work provide the foundation for an incredible collaborative work of love that will result in freedom throughout the Central Valley.
For all of you who have prayed, attended our events, took the initiative to move forward, or otherwise have supported this work in our community, thank you! We look forward to partnering with you in this new year!