“Teachers acting as advocates for us are essential. If they don’t, we are severely limited…”
–Tina Bigdeli, FAIR Girls Maryland Outreach and Direct Services Program Manager
Back in March, we shared with you how excited we were that we’d be partnering with FAIR Girls, an organization working to prevent exploitation through education and employment.
Through a combination of their hard work in schools and our resources, finances and oversight as support, the Love146-FAIR Girls joint effort has reached nearly 1,000 youth with prevention education since our Baltimore office opened less than four months ago.
Reaching that many youth at risk in such a short amount of time is encouraging, but it’s the passion of the teachers that’s gotten us really excited.
Tina Bigdeli, the Maryland Outreach and Direct Services Program Manager for FAIR Girls, said that it’s exciting when that light-switch flips in the minds of students. But when it happens with teachers, it helps us get to more children more quickly.
“Just recently, we went into a classroom and the teacher quickly got on board. Before we knew it, she was asking other teachers if they wanted us to come in during a free period. It’s the number one way to reach students in Baltimore because principals have sole control over what goes on in their classrooms… Plus, instead of having to spend an hour on the road to travel to a different school, we just have to walk down a hallway. You wouldn’t believe the amount of time it frees up to educate more kids.”
We went into Baltimore and set a goal to reach 1,000 students by the end of the year. We’re on track to surpass that goal before the end of June.
Become a monthly partner and help us go even further!
