International Justice Mission
A workshop series for an international nonprofit helping survivors of violence
Crosscut Studio worked with the International Justice Mission to develop a program to help violence survivors learn how to impact policy-making. Our work has helped over 1,000 survivors to gain powerful leadership and advocacy skills.
The Client
International Justice Mission (IJM) is a global non-profit that protects people in poverty from violence. With 33 program offices around the world, they partner with local authorities in 18 countries to combat trafficking and slavery, violence against women and children, and police abuse of power.
IJM program offices identified a collective problem: survivors of violence, trafficking, and slavery were expressing the desire to impact local policy, but they lacked necessary advocacy and leadership skills.
IJM approached Crosscut Studio with the need for a trauma-informed and survivor-centered advocacy and leadership development program that would enable survivors to effectively organize their communities around local policy reform. It was essential that the program be accessible to a wide range of backgrounds, and have components that match each country’s technological infrastructure.
The Challenge
The Outcomes
Together, we defined measurable learning outcomes for the survivors who would enroll in the program; deeply researched survivors through the lens of learning and development; and reviewed ways in which other organizations had responded to similar challenges. We found an existing curriculum from the Harvard Kennedy School that could be adapted for our learners and launched a re-design of the curriculum. The resulting deliverables included:
Multilingual Workshop Series: Aimed at inspiring policy action in communities, we developed two versions tailored for different literacy levels, which were translated into 9 languages. We also trained survivors on how to share personal stories effectively.
Digital Training Program: This program was made up of a combination of asynchronous and live elements, including videos, articles, quizzes, and live coaching. It also featured interactive video-conferenced class sessions.
Digital Library of Public Narratives: Accessible for reference and inspiration, this digital library includes sample narratives curated by IJM and Harvard University.
Spanish Sister Course for Guatemalan Survivors: We developed this course exclusively for a large community of survivors in Guatemala. Its fully digital format was designed for use during the Covid-19 pandemic.
We worked in lock-step with IJM from conception to launch, offering ideas for best practices along the way and clearing obstacles. Our knowledge of digital curriculum design, current research in teaching and learning, considerations for multi-cultural and low-literacy learners, and design-thinking ensured that IJM had support at every stage of the process.
The Impact
Survivor Participants: Over 1,000 survivors from Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, the Philippines, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, and India have taken the workshop series and gained powerful skills in leadership, advocacy, and storytelling.
Staff Trained: 112 IJM staff from 15 countries were trained to lead workshops and coach survivors in telling their stories for impact.