Awaken Inc

City Transformation is aimed to create social change. Awaken educates and empowers individuals with the information and resources needed to combat sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. This is done through various advocacy and outreach efforts. Awaken's commitment to reaching community members is a key component in the fight against sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation that is taking place in our own backyard. Awaken cannot combat this heinous crime alone and we continue to ensure that our community is educated on the human rights violations that are taking place in our own backyard. Between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024, Awaken provided 41 engagements and educated over 2,023 community members on sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation.

In 2019, Awaken launched the Awaken Restorative Home to provide a safe, rent-free residential program for adult female survivors of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Since its inception, the program has served fifteen women, offering trauma-informed support and stability in a healing-focused environment. In the current tax year, Awaken strategically repurposed the Restorative Home to meet an emerging need by prioritizing services for pregnant and parenting mothers affected by trafficking. This shift reflects Awaken's continued commitment to breaking the generational cycle of exploitation by providing family-centered, holistic care.

Awaken offers preventative education efforts targeting the most vulnerable population - disadvantaged youth. Awaken presents at school assemblies, delivers classroom-based curriculum to students, and works with youth groups to talk to local students about the realities of human trafficking and how to prevent it from happening to them or their loved ones. Between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024, we had 20 different events and reached 744 students and school personnel from McQueen High School, Spanish Springs High School,Pinecrest Elementary School, Truckee Meadows Community College, the University of Nevada, Reno, West De Pere Middle School in Wisconsin and others. Awaken has also educated school counselors and safe school professionals in the area.In 2022, Awaken, in conjunction with Washoe County Human Services Agency launched Northern Nevada's first survivor developed curriculum from My Life My Choice. This evidence-based program equips vulnerable youth with essential life skills to break cycles of exploitation. This fiscal year, six at-risk youth benefited from this program.