Amy’s Friends (dba New Friends New Life)

Volunteer Opportunities: Yes

History, mission and vision:

Nineteen years ago a women’s committee from a Dallas area church elected to help a woman seeking to stop working as an exotic dancer. This committee offered financial assistance and access to services. From this initial engagement New Friends New Life (NFNL) launched a mission to restore and empower formerly trafficked teen girls and sexually exploited women and their children. By providing access to education, job training, interim financial assistance, mental health and spiritual support, NFNL helps women and their children overcome backgrounds of abuse, addiction, poverty, and limited opportunities.

To date, NFNL has delivered its services to more than 1,200 members. The women and children that NFNL serves have been plagued by a variety of life experiences, including childhood sexual abuse, rape, parental abandonment, woefully inadequate education, few job skills, addiction, criminal background, and trafficking or pimping by a family member or close friend. Emotional trauma emerging from such experiences have included responses such as self-harm, PTSD, dissociative identify disorder, and lack of coping mechanisms. NFNL provides a path forward to keep these experiences from determining how the lives of exploited women must unfold.