Trafficking Prevention and Foster Care in Thailand

Why are we named Jojo’s Sanctuary? We get asked this question a lot. We named our project in honor of a little boy called Jojo that our founders knew. We founded this project only weeks after his tragic death and in an effort to keep his memory alive and always remember why we do what we do, decided to name it in his honor. Jojo was the nephew of friends who do humanitarian relief work in Thailand. For several years after Jojo’s parents divorced, Jojo and his siblings lived with this aunt and uncle while his father and other relatives remained in Laos. Once his father was more stable, the children moved back to Laos, but their dad couldn’t take care of all the kids on his own, so Jojo was sent to live out in the country with a different aunt and uncle. Sadly for all involved, the aunt did not adjust to parenting well and began abusing little Jojo, resulting in his death at the age of 8 years old. When we decided to form Jojo’s Sanctuary, we did it with the idea that we could reach out into rural communities and teach both children and their caregivers about children’s rights, abuse, and positive discipline techniques to try to prevent this from happening to other children. If children are being abused, their caregivers can be equipped with the information necessary to parent better and get help for themselves and their family. 2017 has seen our outreach program reap good results. Thank you for helping us to continue it in 2018!