Project IMPACT was an 8-week leadership-through-storytelling workshop for teen survivors of commercial sexual exploitation.

In 2013, The Arts Effect partnered with Equality NOW and Lauren Hersh, JCCA, and the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition to develop and implement Project IMPACT (funded by the New York Women’s Foundation). Working with survivors at the Gateways program in NY, the goal was to offer a safe space and the creative tools for the girls of Gateways to come together as a community, openly discuss their rights and the current state of anti-trafficking legislation, and most importantly, discover the power and freedom that comes with telling their stories. We also strived to help survivors understand that survivor storytelling is a choice—and the survivor gets to select if, when, and how she wants to share her story.

“I think telling my story matters because it could help other girls like me.”

“I guess storytelling is important because I lived this – Iʼm the one who knows what itʼs really like.”

“Because every person and every story is different and I think they all deserve to be listened to.”

Through poetry, music-writing, monologue creation, and visual arts (picture above was created during one of our creative sessions), the girls revealed their truths – the painful reality of family strife, substance abuse, entry into the life, betrayal by the criminal justice system, brutal violence suffered at the hands of pimps and buyers, AND ALSO the details of their courageous efforts to fight back, break free, and strive for a vibrant future.

Over the course of 3 months, as they pieced their personal survivor stories together, the girls learned that they are the teachers, they are the experts – that we all need to LISTEN and learn from them.

On May 21st, 2013, the program culminated in a trip to Albany where the project impact team and members of The Arts Effect All-Girl Theater Company had the distinct honor of accompanying the survivors to Albany to lobby for the Trafficking Victims Protection and Justice Act. Listening to them speak, watching these brave teens command a room of lawmakers, it was clear they refused to let their experiences in the life define them – instead, they choose to own their experiences and serve as gaming-changing advocates. It is their powerful voices that will continue to lead the charge toward a safer, more just world.