Last week, we shared highlights from the first part of our trip to India.
Our team, along with six dedicated advocates, traveled to three different cities to spend meaningful time with our partner organizations and the women and children we serve.
This week, we’re honored to introduce you to another one of those partners in Hyderabad: My Choices.
My Choices
My Choices is doing life-saving work in India, stopping domestic violence before it starts and keeping children safe from sex trafficking. They don’t just work from an office, they go directly into villages. By partnering with over 100 groups across India, My Choices is teaching families how to look out for one another and giving communities the tools to protect their own.
One of their most powerful initiatives is the Safe Village training program. This proactive approach addresses the risks of trafficking before they escalate, equipping entire communities — boys, girls, men, and women — with the knowledge to recognize warning signs.
The training includes a thoughtfully designed booklet that walks through realistic scenarios illustrating how trafficking occurs. Stories depict false promises of well-paying jobs in distant cities, arranged marriages that conceal exploitation, and even instances where trusted family members are manipulated by traffickers. These narratives are shared openly in village gatherings, creating space for honest dialogue and awareness.
One of the most impactful moments of the training was watching local community members perform role-plays based on real-life situations. Created by and for the community, these powerful dramatizations make the dangers tangible and relatable, helping participants clearly see how exploitation unfolds, and how they can intervene. Each community member leaves with a Safe Village Program book, reinforcing the lessons and serving as an ongoing resource for protection and prevention.
And perhaps most powerfully, every community member takes a pledge to be a responsible and vigilant citizen, committing to protect the vulnerable and stand up for the safety and dignity of their community.
Following the training, we had the opportunity to meet the children who had just taken their pledge and got to hear about their lives.
We are so humbled to witness this remarkable community-led change in action.
In one advocates own words:
“Watching those children stand together and take a pledge to protect one another brought tears to my eyes. When they were recognized and erupted into cheers, it was pure joy, but it was also powerful. That moment felt like hope taking root.
This is where trafficking is truly confronted… at the level of prevention. Seeing the boys, especially, raise their hands and commit to never contributing to the ‘demand’ side of exploitation was incredibly moving. It felt like a generational shift happening right in front of us.”
And through another advocate’s eyes:
“It’s heartbreaking to know that many loving, well-meaning families are deceived into handing over their daughters because they simply don’t know the signs. That’s why this kind of awareness, reaching every single member of a community, is so essential. When people really understand what trafficking looks like and how it happens, they are empowered to protect their children, intervene early, and stop abuse before it begins. In those pledges, you could feel a community choosing courage, protection, and a different future.”
We look forward to sharing more stories from our travels in our next post.
