Students of the Department of Psychology, Political Science, and Socio-Cultural Technologies of the Faculty FPSC, SumDU, organized a challenge, "Slavery is forbidden, but trafficking exists", timed to the International Day for the Control of Slavery.
Facebook has become a platform for the implementation of the challenge. The event included the publication of video/photo posts and information about human trafficking/slavery (own reflections, stories, statistics, etc.) and the transfer of the challenge initiative to other participants. They published the posts with thematic hashtags #CONCERNSEVERYONE #CRIMEOFXXICENTURY #EVERYONEHASTHERIGHTTOFREEDOM #PERSONISNOTAGOOD #WORLDWITHOUTSLAVARY.
The primary purpose of the event is to inform and draw attention to the problem of slavery in the world. The challenge has become widespread, to its implementation joined not only students and faculty workers but also participants of the National mechanism of fighting human trafficking in Ukraine, representatives of PO and local governments, public assets. Primarily, the Department of Social Protection of Sumy City Council, the Department of Social Protection of Sumy, Shostka, and Romny RSA supported the initiatives.
Activist of the project, the student, majoring in Social Work, Karyna Hlushchenko, believes that the main reason for the existence of slavery in the modern world is the lack of information about aspects of problems and mechanisms of counteraction:
- The main issue that I highlight is the lack of awareness of people about the problems of slavery. Many people do not identify themselves as a person who has got in trafficking. Moreover, there is a certain distrust in society towards the police, the authorities, and even if a person experienced exploitation, he did not believe that he could get help.
Student-journalist Zoreslava Shedenko, who also joined the challenge, agrees that the main thing now is to inform as many people as possible about issues of human trafficking.
- In general, we need to fight this problem at different levels. After all, people often don't know about what risks exist.
In addition to the social component of the project, this challenge has become an educational element of STEAM education, implemented within the academic disciplines at the Faculty FPSC, SumDU. In general, students demonstrated a creative approach and confident usage of information and telecommunication technologies; they independently shot and edited thematic videos that they shared with the help of social network tools and actively involved the online audience.
Such students' initiatives, which our faculty eagerly supports, contribute to implementing a practice-oriented and multidisciplinary approach, help students demonstrate their abilities, increase students' involvement, and make learning more productive and exciting.
Anastasiia Kyzym, student of the group ZhT-11