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The goal of Freedom Week is to provide you with a greater understanding of the issue of human trafficking in our community- both the tragedy and the hope.  We have compiled a Resource booklet to help  connect you to those providing help to victims of human trafficking in our community.

May it help you begin to develop your own response, and in turn, enthuse your local community to get involved in helping free the captives and create a “slave free” world. Click on the image below to view and download

Go Forward Resource Booklet

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Though human trafficking is hidden, victims may be in plain sight. This includes those in schools within our community. Children may be victims of sex trafficking, through gangs or other traffickers. Heartbreakingly, some victims are trafficked by their own families. Children may also be victims of labor trafficking in agricultural labor or other forms of labor. Trafficked children may be kept from going to school, but others may continue as students and that is way it is important for educators to not only be aware of child trafficking, but to learn the red flags that may indicate victimization and  how to respond.
Last year, a Clovis student was rescued after it was found that she was a victim of domestic servitude, working at a family’s house, though they told everyone she was an adopted daughter.
She shared an insight from her experience with future teachers at Fresno Pacific, “If a student can’t explain or doesn’t say what he or she does after school or on the weekends, that is a red flag.”
There are other signs and a teacher with an awareness of the signs can play a part in bringing freedom to a juvenile victim. We also have a national hotline, 888-3737-888, that educators and other can call if they suspect possible human trafficking. The operators are trained and can answer question, advise callers, and dispatch to the appropriate authorities.
On our website is a wealth of simple yet comprehensive resources on our Educators’ page.
We encourage teachers and other educators to attend our trainings during Freedom Week and other times, to request training at their school, and help in the fight against human trafficking of children.

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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!