Have you ever considered hosting an awareness raising party to tell people about child trafficking and why we should get involved in eradicating it? It’s a great way to connect with your friends and tell them about a cause you’re passionate about over food and drinks!
It might be daunting to think of hosting such an event, but with a little planning, it can be a lot of fun and super rewarding to know you’re contributing to a good cause.
Here are some ideas to help you get started.
Hosting an Awareness Raising Party about Child Sex Trafficking
Consider the crowd
Sometimes we like to put pressure on ourselves to make things big. If big is your style, that’s great! If it’s not, though, just know that small and informal can also be super effective. Smaller groups can lend a sense of intimacy that helps facilitate great discussions.
Whatever the size, consider inviting the people in your life who you know are committed to making positive communal change or who are interested in related issues, and they can help set the vibe by having the shared, common interests.
Center it around food
Whether it’s coffee, tea and cake, a cocktail party, a luncheon, potluck, barbeque or a sit-down dinner party, make sure there’s plenty of yummy things to nibble! If you’re looking to raise awareness about The Freedom Story in particular, you can always have it catered by your favorite Thai restaurant!
Center it around a book or video
If your guests are readers, there are plenty of books about trafficking you can encourage them to read beforehand to discuss. There’s a list of books we recommend at the bottom of this page.
Having a video to show at your gathering is another great way to help get a conversation started. Our Vimeo account has lots of great options you can explore!
Consider a raffle
Having a little raffle can be a way to add a little extra fun to the event! Shop our store for swag you can offer as raffle prizes!
Prepare some remarks
You don’t have to be an expert on child trafficking to hold a successful awareness raising party. Having videos to show can provide a helpful starting point. Though you don’t need to be deeply involved in anti-trafficking work, it can be helpful to have a few talking points prepared, such as:
- how you first learned about child sex trafficking
- why you care about the cause
- what you think is most important to know about it, and
- how other people might get involved if they become interested too.
Child sex trafficking doesn’t have to be the starting point
It’s understandable that child sex trafficking might be a difficult topic to know how to even start talking about; it can make people feel uncomfortable even thinking about children needing to sell themselves in order to survive. However, the problem of child sex trafficking isn’t just about selling sex – it’s related to so many other issues: poverty, homelessness, gender issues, environmental concerns, immigration, national security, misinformation on social media, and more.
There are many different lenses you can use to look at it, and many different in-roads to start the conversation. For example, if you know your guests are concerned about issues related to poverty, you can start with how poverty is not only a scourge in itself, it can lead to other problems, including child sex trafficking. You can talk about the material reasons poverty pushes children into engaging in the sex trade, and you can also discuss how poverty causes trauma, which leads to psychological and emotional reasons children in poverty become more vulnerable. Here is a blog post we shared on this point.
Or if a lot of your guests are parents and concerned about the dangers children might encounter online and via social media, you can start by talking broadly about different forms of online violence perpetrated against children.
Browse our blog archives under “Intersectionality” for more ideas!
Reach Out to Us If You Need Support
We’d love to hear about your awareness raising party! If there’s any way we can support you with more information or any supplies you might need for your event, don’t hesitate to reach out. Email us at contact@thefreedomstory.org and we’ll be thrilled to help you get started!
We’re all looking for more ways to feel connected and build community. While our topic might sound difficult in some ways to talk about, in our experience, because it connects to so many other topics of common interest, it actually is a great way to build deeper connections and share about the things that worry us and matter most. Hosting an awareness raising party can be fun AND provide a new way to connect with the people we care about!
