Tell a survivor's story through art
Image Credit: The Blind Project
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The Blind Project, a collective of volunteers that empower survivors of the sex trade industry in Southeast Asia, has created Be A Biographer, a project that allows you to take part in giving new lives to women and children who are escaping enslavement in sex trafficking.
Learning new skills like those found in the textile industry has been a great way for survivors to start a new life. For example, the Hello Rewind project in New York trains survivors to sew laptop covers from old t-shirts, providing them with an income and marketable skills. The Blind Project is doing something similar, and at the same time, giving a voice to survivors so that others might be spared.
The plan is simple: Read survivor stories and find the one that inspires you the most, then create a t-shirt design that tells the story. Submit your idea and get your friends and family to vote for your design. Fifteen semi-finalists will be chosen, and judges from the project will decide whose design best brings a survivor's story to life. Read up on the details for submission, and the grand prize.
BE A BIOGRAPHER - Take The Blind Project Design Challenge from The Blind Project on Vimeo.
According to Crisis Aid, there have been an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 sex slaves in the U.S. since 2001, including girls as young as five and six years old. And that's just the US -- the situation is far worse in Southeast Asia. A study by the the International Labor Organization that covers Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand estimates that the sex industry accounts for between 2% and 14% of the GDP of the four countries and that ''the economic and social forces driving the sex industry show no signs of slowing down, particularly in light of rising unemployment in the region.''
It's time to change this. Ensuring that women have a way to earn a living, even own a business, in order to support their families is one of the most important solutions. From The Blind Project:
A story about three roommates who left the comforts of their life back in the States in pursuit of discovering the truth behind the global sex trade. What did they uncover? What is their plan to be part of the solution? Watch, learn and discuss how you too can be part of the solution to end modern day slavery in the commercial sex trade.
The Blind Project - From & To from The Blind Project on Vimeo.
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