By Han Nguyen and Dylan Wiener
Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is a charity that aims to provide young people with the tools to ensure upward mobility and a promising future. They lend a helping hand to children suffering from a lack of education, shelter, legal advocacy, and most pressingly, human trafficking. What began on the streets of Vietnam has now expanded into an incentive for change all over the world. Currently, the foundation is working with over 10,000 children and youth.
Recently, a group of CIS students were given the opportunity to attend Blue Dragon’s anti-trafficking workshop at UWCSEA. Although we did not know what to expect from the event, it was clear that we were all eager to learn more about the issue of human trafficking.
When we arrived, there were already tables filled with chatter amongst students from other international schools. Admittedly, it was intimidating at first, but we soon got acquainted with the other students through the activities. In the end, it was three hours of fascinating discussion between the students themselves and the workshop leaders.
At the beginning of the workshop, we were asked to play a game. Students were tasked to “go shopping”. This game required two players to race over the legs of other students to retrieve an image that corresponds to the shopping list. The first few entries of the list were tame, asking the students to return items such as food or drinks. Students began to indulge in the competitive spirit of the game, however, as the game went on for longer, the speaker began to strangely request to retrieve an image of a “schoolgirl” or “bride”.
Though these requests came as a shock to every student, the debrief afterward revealed that at no point did any of the students stop to question or oppose the items on the shopping list. This insight left us thinking about the nature of human trafficking and those who are involved in such detrimental practices.
In addition, another activity required students to separate into table groups, where we would read the case studies of people who were trafficked. An underlying theme of all of the stories was that human traffickers mislead and take advantage of underprivileged individuals who are looking for work or promising opportunities.
One of our principal takeaways from the workshop was the importance of education in reducing and preventing human trafficking. Many of the stories of the victims we heard involved individuals who were in vulnerable situations, unaware of the telltale signs that they were being trafficked. Blue Dragon aims to equip individuals with the knowledge and power to protect themselves from falling into the schemes of human traffickers and; ultimately, to eradicate human trafficking.
Although faced with a daunting challenge, Blue Dragon has actively been making strides to support and save individuals who have been trafficked. With that, the workshop has inspired the initiation of a service project group at CIS, aiming to support Blue Dragon and the causes they fight for. It hopes to foster awareness about human trafficking and motivate students to be agents of change.
If you wish to support Blue Dragon, you can donate to their website. To those who want to become a part of the Blue Dragon service group at CIS, please get in contact with Ms. Chelsea ([email protected]), Ms. Sit ([email protected]), or Ms. Granfelt ([email protected]).
Embrace the Blue Dragon.