Last week we got the great opportunity to be in Southern Romania to see the results of a campaign we were a part of in November: Open Your Eyes. This project encouraged young women in the community to be aware of the dangers around them and to actively be involved in their communities in order to transform them for the better.
Together with our partners from Nea Zoi, F.R.E.E and CBI, we got to visit two of the locations where we held sessions on what is Human Trafficking and how can one become an activist against this.
As we reached the first location, we got to chat with the girls and hear about their campaigns. They focused on awareness actions, such as booths, public-place material dissemination and sharing the information on a peer-to-peer level. There was cake involved, because we wanted to celebrate them, and also a lot of debriefing regarding how their small efforts could have a huge impact. Keeping in mind that everyONE matters changes your perspective, doesn’t it?
In the second location, we were privy to nothing less than an art show: from poetry slams, to hip hop songs with an anti-trafficking message and several short films on the subject. Soon, we will be sharing some of these with you, because there was power in the message of these pieces.
Now, for the confession part: I kind of prepared myself before going on this trip that, due to extremely difficult circumstances and a normalization of the trafficking phenomenon in those areas, the projects would probably not be extensive, or existent. To some degree, I was right. Some of the participants were not able to implement anything due to the personal implications of the subject, but the ones that did surpassed every expectation and delivered something transformational!
The conclusion? It’s good to be surprised by HOPE!