For the second consecutive year, the SAFE Center has been selected by the American Hotel and Lodging Association Foundation (AHLA) as a national grant recipient to expand its program in partnership with Marriott International to train human trafficking survivors nationwide for careers in the hospitality industry. In 2018, Marriott International and the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery co-developed this Future in Training (FiT) Curriculum. After successfully piloting the program, the SAFE Center was selected for and completed the first year of the FiT Curriculum national rollout with generous support from AHLA and Marriott International. In its first year of the rollout, the SAFE Center and its partners reached over 200 human trafficking survivors to provide economic empowerment resources and trauma-informed job readiness training for survivors interested in hospitality careers.
“Our continued partnership will allow the SAFE Center to provide job training to survivors in different regions of the country, to work with hospitality companies to create internship and job opportunities for survivors, and to assist survivors in the program with their job searches,” said Susan Esserman, Founder and CEO of the SAFE Center.
At the national business summit announcing grant awards, a survivor who received job training at the SAFE Center shared insights from program and their experience becoming a training facilitator. Alongside their remarks, Vasudevan Moodley, Director of Economic Empowerment at the SAFE Center, also highlighted how this initiative is more than just job training. He shared, “this training program is a critical source of hope and a pathway to independence for the survivors of human trafficking we work with. Together, we are fostering a future where every survivor can thrive and achieve their goals.”
See the AHLA Foundation press release here.
See the Marriott International press release here.
