Erica Greve, Unlikely Heroes, accepts Golden Goody Award at Girl Rising Screening

The Goody Awards recognized Erica Greve, Unlikely Heroes Founder, with a Golden Goody Award for her anti-human trafficking efforts and global rehabilitation programs for girls at a special “Girl Rising” screening at USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism on April 18, 2013.

Net Impact LA President Brandon Smith nominated Erica Greve, who accepted the award via satellite in the Philippines where she has been running rehabilitation programs for girls with a US team of therapists. She was selected for the Golden Goody Award not only because of her great mission, but because her work supports the “Girl Rising” goals to “Change minds, change lives and change policy.”

Erica’s 1-minute video had everyone standing still, “Thank you for recognizing me and the efforts of all of us who are working so hard to rescue children out of sex slavery and to see an end to human trafficking…. We just spent a week with the child victims that we’ve been able to rescue for the past 1 ½ years out of brothels here in the Philippines….By the time they left, you could see the healing and breakthroughs on their faces.”

Unlikely Heroes exists to rescue, restore and rehabilitate child victims of sex slavery and other forms of human trafficking through the implementation of restoration homes and rescue and prevention programs worldwide. Their work is essential to re-building girl’s self-esteem, confidence and the economy.

This lifetime achievement award for social good is given on rare occasions at live events as part of Goody Awards cause marketing campaigns. Previous winners have included Louie Psihoyos, Academy Award winner and Director of “The Cove”, Producer Lucy Webb from Women In Film in Park City at the Sundance Film Festival, and Anna Cummins, 5 Gyres Founder.

This Golden Goody Award is part of the Goody Awards #GirlEmpowerment Campaign (April/May 2013), which will include live events, press releases, social media, weekly Girl Empowerment videos, and media coverage of this important topic impacting millions of girls worldwide.

We support Unlikely Heroes mission and the “Girl Rising” goal to “Educate a Girl, Change the World” as part of our focus on women empowerment. Educating girls is a hug issue that needs global attention. Did you know 66 million girls ages 5-18 are out of school worldwide, 14 million girls under 18 will get married this year, which is 38,000 girls married today and 13 girls married in the last 30 seconds? The more you tweet with #GirlRising #GirlRisingLA #UnlikelyHeroes and share the stories of heroes helping to change these numbers, the closer we can get to changing this story.

Thank you Erica Greve and the Unlikely Heroes team for all that you do, and thank you to everyone behind “Girl Rising”, USC Annenberg, Goody Awards, Net Impact LA, Net Impact USC Marshall for continuing this movement through film. Go see “Girl Rising”, sign up to host a screening and join this girl empowerment movement!

© Goody Awards 2013