Alternative Break: Combating Human Trafficking in Your Zone

Sign-up your students for a hybrid Alternative Break that will bring informative and impacting speakers to where your students are located (on campus, at home) then enable them to take action locally.

Human trafficking is a crime that is happening in every community in the United States. The need to take collective action has never been greater. Sharing One Love created this program so students can learn from experts while equipping them to make an impact in their immediate community.

Sharing One Love's Alternative Break experience includes:

  • A mix of live and pre-recorded workshops with anti-trafficking experts from around the world.
  • Easy to use tools to increase community awareness and opportunities for victims to get help.

Workshops:

Here's a sample of the workshops that are often part of an Alternative Break. Each session provides cumlulative skills that participants can then practice during field activities and simulations.

  • Awareness and Prevention - Learn the importance of sharing the facts about human trafficking and practice creative ways to engage teens in learning how to watch out for predators and identify peers that might be at-risk of being trafficked. The workshop includes field practice where participants practice sharing prevention information and spreading awareness in person and on social media.
  • Sex Trafficking 101 -  A multi-part training with an emphasis on domestic sex trafficking along with an overview of effective strategies in the prevention of this crime and intervening upstream in the lives of at-risk youth.  Participants also gain insight on the traumatic impact that trafficking makes in the lives of survivors and their vulnerability to be re-victimized. Workshops include mock simulations of scenarios where participants advocate on behalf of a survivor, practice spreading awareness, learn to identify the signs of potential human trafficking and more.
  • Labor Trafficking - A deep dive in the forces that lead millions of individuals to live and work in deplorable conditions for little to no pay, often being exploited out in plain site. Learn how labor trafficking affects victims of all ages, to spot the signs of possible labor trafficking and how educating local businesses can help prevent more people from being exploited. 
  • Identifying and Serving At-Risk Youth and Young Adults - This workshop is for individuals that desire to work directly with youth. Participants learn to identify the signs of possible abuse and exploitation. What to do when a child speaks up about sex abuse while at home, school, church, trips and outings. Participants learn how to work with counselors and police to follow-thru on reported cases of abuse.  Workshop participants practice scenarios where they must decide if and when to report suspected cases of child abuse and how to approach individuals within your organization, family that have been accused of sexual abuse.
  • Street Outreach - Victims of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation often find themselves enslaved within blocks or miles of their own neighborhood.  Bringing awareness and actively conducting outreach into the community is key in helping identify potential victims and also making harder for traffickers to operate within legal businesses or residential areas.
  • Internet Outreach - For every child sold on the street there are three sold online. Participants learn how to conduct an internet outreach and survey sex workers and connect them with helpful resources. 
  • Learn the Survivor’s Perspective - Listen to a survivor of human trafficking share about how she ended up in, “The Life” and her journey to recovery. Every minute, 2 children are enslaved. Understanding their story is crucial in building long-term, empowering and supportive relationships with survivors.
  • Increase Opportunities for Healing - The path to healing and recovery from sex trafficking can be long and difficult. Learning how to build long-term relationships is a key component in avoiding re-victimization and living a life of freedom from abuse and exploitation. This multi-part training includes modules on understanding the Stockholm syndrome, steps towards empowering survivors to, the role of mentors and much more. Workshop includes mock client interviews where participants practice accomplishing simple tasks with a survivor.
  • New programs are in the works for 2021! - Human Trafficking and Sex Worker Advocacy and Human Trafficking in India.

Field Activities: 

After completing onllne workshops there are opportunities to practice their new knowledge and skills in the field. Each field activity includes access to online tools that report on the outcomes of every Alternative Break's collective efforts.  

  • Street Outreach to help end the exploitation of local runaway children. - Participants visit local businesses to help identify local missing and runaway children while and teaching them how to report possible exploitation. 
  • Get Help Now! Outreach to help connect possible victims of exploitation with help in their language. Participants collaborate with local businesses to help position informative stickers in strategic locations with the hope that victims will notice them and use the information to get help.
  • Coordinate a Support Campaign for a victim of human trafficking and help them get access the resources they need to recover. 

 

Want to learn more? Fill out the form below to get started.

Alternative Breaks School or Organization
Please provide information on the organization that is considering to send a team to one of our Alternative Break experiences.
Alternative Breaks Coordinator
Activity
What date will your team be ready to start their first workshop.
By what date should all activities be completed by.
How many team members are there in the team?
$
What is the trip budget per participant not including transportation?