Group Plans To Use Funds For Victimized Youth

Group Plans To Use Funds For Victimized Youth

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 14:42

A Regina organization that helps young people leave the sex trade has received a $100,000 grant from Heritage Canada.

The Street Workers Advocacy Project, also known as SWAP, will put the funding towards helping Aboriginal youth.

Executive Director Barb Lawrence says the funding is a chance to meet certain goals.

Lawrence says one of the challenges her group has faced over the years is that a lot of other “street involved people” have come to see her agency as a resource.

She says while that speaks to the credibility that the organization has established with people on the street, it is also indicative of the lack of adequate and accessible programming.

SWAP has been operating for the past 15 years.

About 90 per cent of the people they work with are Aboriginal youth who work in the sex trade, or have been affected by it in some way.