Where is your happy place? During hot summers like this one, you might say “beachside,” “breathing in cool mountain air,” or “anywhere with air conditioning.” We are on the same page. However, another one of my happy places is seeing clean data in our databases and spreadsheets. Am I crazy? Perhaps, yes. But I think we can all agree that there’s a type of beauty in simplicity when jumbles of numbers are transformed into a streamlined chart.

Here at Allies Against Slavery, we built the Lighthouse Platform to house a myriad of trafficking data for the great states of Texas and Louisiana. Gathering input from their Governor’s Offices fundamentally shaped the development of Lighthouse in order to provide data that is most meaningful to their organizations – data that informs changes to legislation and empowers care coordination programs across the two states. This is the first time in the history of each of these states that such a breadth of trafficking data is housed in one place, and as a result, partner organizations throughout both states are seeing charts and reports that highlight gaps where they can improve on processes and provide a more holistic care experience. We understand how much our partners depend on good data to be the change-makers their vocation has called them to be, which is why our Lighthouse Team scours the data to the best of our ability to preserve its integrity.

So, as I sit amidst the numbers in my happy place, I invite you to help us in providing clean, meaningful data to our governments and to our service providers, so they can continue the good fight in the name of each worthy survivor who is never just a number in their eyes.

Grace Dai

Technology Manager

‍