Elevate Academy

The Rebecca Bender Initiative (RBI) is committed to changing the way Americans see and respond to human trafficking in their communities, and empowering survivors that live there. Elevate Academy, our milestone project, is the largest online school for survivors across the globe. Regardless of where women and teens live, survivors can receive support to take their lives to the next level through deeper levels of healing, economic empowerment-focused modules, professional coaching and mentoring at no charge to them.  We also offer in-person chapters which allow for trauma-informed mentorship that helps foster community.  Over the last five years, we have grown from the first 5 students to over 639 students across the U.S. and in five additional countries. Elevate is completely scalable and able to serve trafficking survivors worldwide with proper curriculum translation and mentors in the native language.

The International Labour Organization estimates that there are 40.3 million victims of human trafficking globally; 75% are women and girls, leaving many survivors living in communities where no services exist.Most survivors and their children face barriers to re-entry that make it difficult to integrate into their communities. The intensity of trauma incurred by victims of trafficking is immense and not something that is simply shrugged off. Additionally, the likelihood of broken education due to their victimization beginning at a young age leaves them at a great disadvantage in regards to both supporting themselves and meaningfully contributing to their communities. They are left feeling hopeful to be out of trafficking but frozen on how to navigate a new world of normalcy with hurdles such as PTSD, homelessness, lack of job history or skills, education and opportunities. Without proper support, survivors are often lured into subsequent exploitative situations or recidivate and go back to trafficking because it is familiar. It is absolutely essential that resources are provided that interrupts the trajectory towards poverty, heals those with high ACES scores and provides the proper aftercare to push them into all forms of empowerment.

While human trafficking victims themselves are seen as a marginalized group by the general public, we strive to provide curriculum and exit strategies that are culturally competent. We recognize and celebrate the diverse needs of the myriad of marginalized populations within the survivor community, including even the diverse trafficking situations survivors have experienced (familial, gang, pimp-controlled, labor, etc). 

Peer support has proven to be highly beneficial in serving this population. Over 50% of our staff are survivors of trafficking and/or exploitation which gives us a unique insight into the needs and hurdles survivors are facing.  

Our entire Elevate Academy is built around the concept of addressing barriers that survivors of exploitation face, similar to those faced by our founder Rebecca Bender when she fled her trafficker. Elevate Academy is distinct in that it provides survivors immediate access to desperately needed resources virtually, regardless of the availability of local resources. Elevate Academy meets the needs of survivors through a myriad of course topics, peer support, one on one mentoring, professional career coaching sessions, job opportunities, career assessments and a supportive community of peers.

As awareness of the truth of human trafficking has come further into the forefront of our societies globally, the demand for resources for those victimized has increased. We are thankfully seeing survivors come forward needing assistance with not only healing but with addressing the issue of ‘what now?’. Though the issue of human trafficking is quite immense the resources available are not. 

One of the first barriers a survivor may face is finding available services to access. Lack of services may be due to space limitations or specific qualifications for joining in-person services. Many survivors simply find that no services exist in their community. Elevate Academy removes those barriers. We meet students virtually in their communities, giving them a safe space to heal and connection with others who understand. We can serve many more survivors than traditional in-person programs, as we are not limited by physical space. Technology has given us the platform to serve survivors in a way that no one else is. This has allowed us to ‘sit’ with students as they go through really tragic situations, without physically being there. Since Elevate opened in 2014 we have walked with 639 survivors, the average in-person program has space for 5-15 survivors each year. 

Our current website is a custom built WordPress site using LearnDashLMS plugin for the courses. An enormous advantage to using WordPress and LearnDash is that they are both internationalized – making it easy for us to translate into other languages as we expand to reach more survivors internationally.  Currently, Elevate Academy offers a variety of courses, from a faith-based course for deeper healing, to how to start a non-profit, finding a job and keeping it, and even speaking and writing courses. The Academy utilizes several platforms including video conferencing, text messaging, online forums and secret Facebook groups; this  has proven to be a lifeline and an education funnel to students as they trek through their healing journey and onward to fulfilling their dreams and finding successful careers.  We use Zoom for video conferencing and webinars, and Facebook to foster peer connection, facilitate on the spot mentoring and sharing information. Amazon Kindle is used to publish our curriculum and workbooks.