By Elisabeth Walker

Catholic Charities of Louisville (CCL) was established in 1939 to coordinate social services by Catholics around the Archdiocese of Louisville. It remains an apostolate of the Archdiocese today, though it operates as a separate legal entity. Through CCL’s long history of service, changes in programming and strategic direction have been inevitable. Change can be hard, but it’s a necessary evolution: for CCL to provide help and create hope for as many people as possible, the agency has to adapt to the realities of changing needs and limited resources.

One of CCL’s original purposes was to direct services for children and families. Catholic Charities coordinated the efforts of child welfare institutions, which led to CCL’s work in adoption services. Over many years, CCL placed hundreds of babies with loving families – but today CCL no longer offers direct adoption placement. While birth parents and adoptive families still need assistance, the CCL model was no longer a good fit for our twenty-first century community – and others had risen to better serve the need.

In the same way that adoption moved out of CCL’s portfolio of programs, the issue of human trafficking in Kentucky surfaced. Human trafficking isn’t a new problem. In fact, CCL’s program to combat human trafficking, the Bakhita Empowerment Initiative, is named for St. Josephine Bakhita, who was seven years old in 1876 when she was kidnapped from her homeland in Darfur, Somalia, and sold to slave traders. After years of slavery in Africa, Josephine was brought to Venice, Italy, where she escaped, found refuge with the Canossian religious sisters, took vows, and spent the rest of her life in service to others.

The horrific reality is that even today, here in our community, individuals are being forced or coerced for the purpose of sexual exploitation or labor. I am grateful that CCL saw the need and found the resources in 2007 to begin building a program to combat human trafficking throughout our state. The program not only serves clients who are seeking to emancipate themselves, by means of direct assistance and case management – it also aims to educate the community about human trafficking, and to educate and empower young women who might be at risk.

CCL is hosting the Bakhita Bash this fall to honor the Bakhita Empowerment Initiative for over a decade of empowering survivors of human trafficking. Please join us on Thursday, October 25, 2018 from 5:30 – 7:30 to support and learn more about this life-changing program. Contact me at ewalker@archlou.org or click here for more information.

Change can be complicated and messy, but CCL is committed to listening to God’s call, discerning where it can best meet the reality of the world around us. Our community’s greatest needs will continue to evolve and CCL will continue to be here, evolving to meet those needs.

Elisabeth Walker is the Director of Communication & Development at Catholic Charities of Louisville, Inc.

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