NOT TOO YOUNG TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

(Guest Post by Nishka Gurung Capstone Service Project Student)

Human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation are uncomfortable topics to address. As a 16-year-old student, I heard about these issues from visiting NGOs at my church and school. I heard, but I didn't fully understand. Trafficking and exploitation seemed so distant from my own community. Besides, as a teenager, how could I do anything to help address such a complex, difficult, and large problem? I didn't think I could. Still, every time I learned more about human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, I felt sad and angry at the injustice of the fact that the stories I heard were the reality of millions of people.

While planning my senior capstone service project, my mind kept returning to this issue. Was there any way I could contribute to helping those negatively impacted by trafficking and exploitation? I had no idea. So, I decided to do some research. Having heard of NightLight and its mission to reach out, rescue, and restore, I began going through their website. It was the NightLight Blog that drew me in. The stories of individuals, the insight and compassion of NightLight team members, and the resilience and strength of victims and survivors of trafficking and exploitation gave me the desire and courage to ask NightLight if they'd be willing to have me create a project that would help them.

NightLight was willing. My project centers around the lack of awareness of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Specifically, I designed a project that would help young people like myself to learn about trafficking and exploitation and the role of organizations such as NightLight.

This project consisted of an interactive presentation and infographic designed to teach youth about these issues in a way that builds awareness, empathy, and an understanding of what we can do to combat this global problem even as young people. The resources I created explain the mission of NightLight International, what the issue of human trafficking is and its different forms, the situation in Thailand and Missouri, and why human trafficking happens, as well as four sets of activities and discussion questions meant to help youth understand power dynamics, judgment, labeling, and the importance of empathy. These tools are meant to be used in settings such as school assemblies, global issues classes, or youth groups. If you contact NightLight with a request, they can make these resources available to you for use in teaching the young people in your community about human trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, and how these are issues that we need to be aware of, even as teenagers.

After creating these resources, I had the privilege of running a workshop with 36 people at the Evangelical Church of Bangkok's high school youth group. Essentially, I did what any leader who requests these materials will do in the future, sharing the content in the presentation and leading the youth in each of the four activities and discussion questions. Surveys from before and after the workshop showed that more students left thinking about the issue of human trafficking more often, were more aware of its presence in the city they live in, more comfortable with discussing human trafficking, viewed the issue as less distant from their own lives, believed that they had much in common with people who are victims and survivors of human trafficking, believed in the harmfulness of making generalizations about people, and understood the value of empathizing with victims and survivors of trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation instead of simply offering pity without understanding.

Seeing these responses from people my age gave me hope. Hope because this workshop helped them to better understand an uncomfortable issue and equipped them with the skills to make change by being informed, raising awareness, and refusing to objectify. They weren't the only ones who learned these lessons. In the process of creating resources to educate other young people about human trafficking, I also taught myself why awareness is so important. Awareness allows us to get help for people in danger of being trafficked or exploited, but it's also a necessity even if you and the people you know aren't at risk. Awareness is a necessity because fully understanding the issues of trafficking and exploitation allows you to see people who have been exploited as people, instead of just as victims. The power of this is that it replaces pity with empathy. Human trafficking itself is rooted in objectification. It's a system that reduces people to products. When we are aware and understand, we can counter this by seeing people as people. We stop judging them by a label. We start treating them with the dignity they deserve. And that's a habit that matters. No matter how old you are.

To explore using Nishka's materials to engage students in your community, contact us at info@nightlightinternational.com.