November 11, 2025 | News

Physical safety is the first and most visible layer of protection. Secure homes, schools and community spaces aren’t just walls — they are foundations for trust, wellbeing and resilience.

In Nepal, something as simple as secure shelter is a luxury for many. Countless families live below the poverty line, often in makeshift or damaged homes without doors that lock. Others are forced into temporary shelters after landslides, floods or earthquakes. For those in remote areas, travelling alone to work or school can mean risking abduction or assault. Many face physical violence at home, forced to flee into vulnerable and exploitative situations.

Women and children without consistent physical safety face a higher risk of exposure to traffickers. Even when survivors escape exploitation, they remain vulnerable to re-trafficking if they don’t have a safe place to live and recover.

Safety begins with place. A locked door can be the first step toward freedom.

At The Pokhara Project, physical safety is built into every aspect of design. Secure buildings, trauma-informed architecture and trained personnel help reduce fear and protect residents from harm.

Right now, our field partner 3 Angels Nepal operates across multiple sites, spreading staff and resources thin. The new Pokhara campus will unite their services on one secure site, creating a protected environment for survivors, children and staff alike. It will include:

• 24-hour monitored CCTV
• Purpose-built guardhouse
• Safe, stable housing including the Women’s Safe Haven and Vulnerable Children’s Homes
• Fencing and physical design that supports security and healing
• Security personnel on site, and security training for staff
• A more secure, private location positioned outside of central Pokhara city

Your support helps build the foundations of physical safety — real walls that protect, and spaces that restore peace of mind.

Ensuring women and children are free from immediate danger is only the first step. True freedom depends on psychological and emotional safety — the ability to feel secure, express oneself, and connect without fear.

Without psychological safety, survivors can remain trapped in cycles of fear, trauma, anxiety, and depression. For children, emotional insecurity can hinder both physical and intellectual development, and women may find it hard to trust or engage with others.

Without a sense of belonging or the confidence to participate, growth and recovery remain out of reach, and women and children remain vulnerable to further exploitation or re-trafficking.

Through The Pokhara Project, 3 Angels Nepal provides specialist trauma-informed care to help women and children rebuild from within. Many survivors live with post-traumatic stress or complex trauma that can be life-threatening if untreated.

The secure campus offers the stability needed for long-term recovery:

• Trauma-informed care and counseling provide professional therapeutic support to process past experiences and build coping strategies.
• Structured, trauma-informed education programs: foster curiosity, learning, and skill-building in a supportive, non-judgmental environment.
• Consistent, nurturing relationships with caregivers and mentors builds trust, belonging, and social confidence.
• Empowerment opportunities encourage participation in decisions, reinforcing agency and resilience.

By prioritising psychological safety, The Pokhara Project helps survivors recover from trauma, engage in learning and form meaningful relationships — creating the foundation for lifelong resilience.

Your gift helps transform fear into confidence, and trauma into healing.

For survivors of trafficking and children growing up in danger, safety isn’t only about protection from harm — it’s about belonging without fear.

In Nepal, many women and children face stigma and exclusion. Survivors are often blamed for their exploitation or rejected because of caste or gender. Children from marginalised families are denied access to school. Poverty and isolation leave entire communities vulnerable to traffickers’ false promises.

Social safety means being accepted, connected and supported. It is the foundation of resilience, confidence and hope, helping individuals rebuild their lives and strengthening communities against exploitation.

When connection grows, exploitation loses power.

The Pokhara Project is not only a place of protection, but of connection. An inclusive, trauma-informed campus where survivors and at-risk children live and learn side by side, free from stigma and discrimination.

Through 3 Angels Nepal’s community-led programs, awareness and compassion are built into the heart of the project so that safety extends beyond the campus walls and into families, schools and neighbourhoods.

• Inclusive mixed-caste campus environment: where every child and woman is treated with dignity and equality.
• Community awareness and education programs: that challenge stigma, prevent trafficking and strengthen protective networks within the community
• Stable, nurturing relationships with carers, mentors and peers that rebuild trust and belonging.
• Locally-led development that creates ripple effects of safety and inclusion throughout the Pokhara community.

When people are accepted and included, they become stronger than the systems that exploit them. 

Your support helps create communities where everyone is valued — and no one is left behind.

When poverty defines daily life, safety can feel out of reach. In Nepal, more than one in five people live below the poverty line. For women and children, the lack of economic opportunity can be dangerous — forcing many into unsafe work or exploitative relationships. Traffickers prey on this desperation, offering false promises of jobs or education.

Economic safety gives individuals the freedom to choose safety over survival. Access to education, skills and stable income creates long-term independence and protection from re-exploitation.

Economic safety gives survivors more than income — it gives them freedom, dignity and the power to choose their own future.

Through The Pokhara Project, Give Freedom International and 3 Angels Nepal are helping women and children build the skills and opportunities they need for safe, independent lives.

• Vocational training: equip survivors and at-risk youth with practical skills and pathways to employment.

   

• 3 Angels Nepal School: provides trauma-informed education to survivors and at-risk children who are often excluded from schools
• Secure housing and daily needs provision reduce the economic pressures that lead to unsafe choices.
• Microfinance and livelihood support strengthen families and prevent trafficking before it happens.
• Integrated programs connect economic opportunity with emotional, physical and social support — ensuring recovery is sustainable and safe.
• Employment opportunities: survivors and graduates often transition into employed roles within 3 Angels Nepal’s programs and initiatives

When women and children have the means to provide for themselves, they are not only protected from exploitation — they are empowered to shape their own futures.

Your support helps break the cycle of poverty, giving women and children the tools and support to build a future of freedom. 

Each pillar of safety reinforces the others. Together, they create an ecosystem where survivors and at-risk families can recover, grow, and thrive.

At Give Freedom International, we believe safety is the foundation on which freedom is built. When physical protection, emotional healing, social belonging and economic stability come together, lasting change becomes possible.

Because when a person is safe,  their whole world can change. Safety is not only protection from harm; it’s the foundation of dignity, opportunity and hope.

This Christmas, your generosity can help complete The Pokhara Project — building safe homes, classrooms and community spaces for women and children who may have never known what safety feels like.

Together, we can create a place where every woman and child is protected, supported and free to build a future full of possibility.

Give the gift of safety this Christmas