SAMPLE IDEAS

Here we share a collection of ideas for your World Merit Council to take inspiration from to shine a light on slavery. Note: one of the key purposes of the challenge is to do this in creative ways, so if you are taking inspiration from one of these ideas – make it better!

ACTION: ORGANIZE A CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL

Organize a light-a-candle event gathering as many people as possible in your community. Choose a date of significance around slavery or child labor and have everyone in attendance light a candle. March if possible and involve experts from your community who might do work to combat human trafficking/modern slavery.

The vigil on the right was organized by our partners at Rotary International in Atlanta, Georgia.

ACTION: RAISE FUNDS IN AN INNOVATIVE WAY

8 year old Vivienne Harr walked into Lisa Kristine’s photo gallery in Northern California and her life was changed. She saw photos of enslaved children and knew she had to take action.

Vivienne started Take A Stand Lemonade, a lemonade stand where when people stopped to buy lemonade, she asked the to make a contribution to fight human trafficking. In her first year, Vivienne raised more than $100,000 in profits, all of which was donated to partner charities.

What new idea could you come up with to raise funds to support anti-slavery organizations?

ACTION: CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN

In February 2018, in partnership with Stop the Traffik in the UK, the Human Thread Foundation began a video campaign on Facebook to spotlight human trafficking  in the San Francisco Bay Area. The video was targeted to run only in three Northern California cities and in our first week running the campaign, more than 250,000 people saw the video with nearly 8% click-through rate (industry average is .9%).

How can you utilize social media to draw awareness to the topic of human trafficking?

“In the eyes of God, each human being, whether girl, boy, woman or man, is a free person.”

Pope Francis