Every girl deserves their freedom" Julie Dowse - AusCam Freedom Project Founder

We empower adolescent girls from impoverished communities to break the cycle of poverty and exploitation through education and holistic support leading to life changing opportunities. 

Our Values

• Participation – through accessibility, inclusiveness, equity
• Relationships – that are respectful, non-judgmental, authentic, belonging, generosity     
• Excellence – continuous improvement, good governance, integrity, sustainability
• Justice – ensuring equitable gains for adolescent girls in health, educational and legal systems and recognising that disparity exists among girls, therefore we serve those girls with the highest needs and who have limited access to opportunity.
• Innovation – We employ creative and critical thought to develop new solutions and approaches to achieve our mission.               

Our Principles and Practice Framework

1. Popular Education: We follow a model of education which is built on the belief that learning is not a top down process, but that the main goal of learning is to create positive social change based on the needs of those involved. We live this by keeping our focus on our girls’ experiences in our programs, allowing us to see them as individuals. We design and deliver our programs through active consultation and we invite them to be experts in their own lives. This validates girls’ experiential experience and actively engages and empowers them.
2.  Transformational Change: We believe that both individual and collective action is required to create a socially just world free of exploitation, discrimination and oppression. Social justice requires change on multiple levels: the individual, the community and the systemic. This means that we support girls to take action in their own lives, their communities and their own initiatives.
3. Organic and Agile: Our approach is continuously shaped and reshaped through ongoing reflection, consultation and feedback by the girls, our staff and partners. We adopt an ongoing approach to research and evaluation to inform both the organisation and our programs. We are committed to remaining adaptable and relevant to the changing realities of the girls’ and young women’s lives.
4. Trauma Theory: Trauma is defined as an experience in which a person’s internal resources are not adequate to cope with external stressors. We align with the framework of trauma theory for understanding the impact of those experiences on development and relationships. Trauma theory suggests that many of the behavioural symptoms that we see in both our families and young women, is a direct result of coping with adverse experiences. What we may identify as negative behaviours is actually misapplied survival skills.