The survivors in our care receive three healthy meals a day, their own bed with a mosquito net to sleep in, and a safe house with a gated compound to spend their days in. We have security at our gate for further protection.

 

However, the girls are allowed to attend boarding school and move outdoors if they choose, as long as they comply with the rules of the house and our strict curfew. Essentially, the girls are under our care, but we trust them to be responsible for themselves within reason. None of the names or faces of the girls in our care are released to the public, and as mentioned before, the location of our shelter is confidential. 

The girls have been reunited with their biological families and maintain strong and healthy relationships with their home communities, occasionally going home to visit or hosting a mother or sister to stay at Lily of the Valley.

 

Not only that, but at Lily we work on empowering the girls’ mothers to be able to support their families and send their daughters to school. This way, families won’t have to give up their daughters to people like Bery Glaser because they can’t afford to feed and educate them. What we are really doing is fighting poverty by empowering women, which is the first step to ending sexual abuse. 

We are proud that these girls have the opportunity to not only attend school, whether formal or vocational, but also learn several income-generating skills at home in order to be able to support themselves economically.

 

In terms of personal empowerment, at Lily of the Valley we preach the motto “I Am Enough” and work with the girls to foster an environment of resiliency, high self-esteem, and love and kindness towards themselves and one another.

 

The girls receive trauma-informed counseling as they heal from the sadness of the past. However, they know that their past is part of their story of strength. They are dedicated to preventing sexual abuse and protecting vulnerable or at-risk girls like them.

 

At home, they are soon getting ready to start an advocacy training program where they learn how to sensitize schoolchildren and community members on child sexual abuse and teach girls how to report sexual violence. Engaging the community is the first step to changing harmful socio-cultural norms that normalize abuse against women and put girls in danger.