Community Partner: She is Safe

Keeping Girls Safe and Free

In a defining moment that quite literally changed the course of her future, Michele Rickett discovered her lifes purpose while working in East Africa as a young woman. Global slavery was still a distant phrase when she began witnessing unthinkable injustices against African women and girls.

In 2002, with her studies behind her and her children grown, Michele founded She Is Safe, which is a nonprofit organization that is headquartered in Roswell. She then began her life-saving work of prevention, rescue, and restoration of exploited women and girls. Sixteen years later, Michele has leveraged her years of international development to equip oppressed women and girls with the ability to break the cycles of abuse and slavery, while also providing leadership to other ministries that are resolved to end human trafficking.


Revealing the story behind her lifes work, Michele thoughtfully shares that she is not just a survivor but a thriver. There was a time when she wondered aloud to God how she could help set vulnerable girls free. There are so many exploited and abused girls, Michele prayed; how can I possibly make a difference? Where do I even start?

Now, with more than three decades of advocating, working, and leading the effective counter-trafficking nonprofit she started, Michele has answers to those early questions. She Is Safes team of twenty country directors, sector specialists, and corporate staff members manage holistic, grassroots initiatives in seven countries: Indonesia, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Mali, South Sudan, and Lebanon. She Is Safe also provided direct ministry to more than 17,000 women and girls last year. Additionally, the nonprofit equipped more than 50,000 at-risk Indonesian school children with abuse prevention training and established a hotline for help through its Pantaloons, Protection, and Pencil Pouches project.

To help others truly understand what the world of human trafficking is like, Michele drew upon her own heart-rending rescue and transformation and then, along with co-author Kay Strom, she also travelled the continents to procure first-hand interviews with girls who share what it is really like to grow up female in the worlds most dangerous places. These accounts are compiled in their book entitled Forgotten Girls: Stories of Hope and Courage. This book explains why 98% of the worlds sex slaves are female and what each one of us can do to help protect these girls from a lifetime of exploitation and enslavement.

For more information about She Is Safe, or to learn how you can help, visit SheIsSafe.org, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or call 770-552-1400.

She Is Safe is located at 11095 Houze Road, Suite 100 in Roswell.