We Are On Our Way

45 million men, women and children from around the world are being bought and sold as slaves for the uses of drug trafficking, forced army participation, prostitution, forced marriage and outright ownership. In Australia alone there are at least 15 thousand people living as modern slaves. This film seeks to show the necessity there is for people to take a stand against this problem, as well as helping the captive to regain freedom and restore their lives.

Currently there are millions of people living as modern slaves, this is more than ever before in history and sadly only one percent of people are ever set free. Our mission is to increase this percentage -- we want to see people return to their families, sons and daughters coming back to their parents. We hope to see children changing weapons for toys and to provide an idea of a solution for those stuck in the problem.

Immediate goals: Spreading awareness of the problem of contemporary slavery and taking an active approach towards helping people who have recently escaped their captors.

Medium term goals: Government and Educational awareness. We want to consult with the government to ideally implement new policies for businesses to prove that they are slave free. To encourage schools and universities to hold awareness sessions for students to educate them and prevent them from becoming trapped and to be able to identify someone that is enslaved and what necessary action should be taken for them to help the victim.

Long term goals: The percentage of people who are rescued out of millions is just one percent, we want this figure to increase and take actions to find the people that are lost. Also, to help spread awareness and increase finding for more rescue centers where victims can recover and be coached through reintegration to society.

As A21 and The Freedom Project actively engage in creating awareness amongst the high-risk group by providing school and university seminars, it has opened up an opportunity for us to reach our target audience with ease. In our documentary we aim to feature the local authorities and volunteers working towards ending human trafficking in each country, providing guidance on how the general public could identify and report someone who has been enslaved.

Having our documentary featured during the seminars conducted by these organizations is an effective way to reach out to those who are susceptible to such injustice. In addition, featuring information about how any suspicion of human trafficking can be reported by the public allows us to attain the overall increase in number of rescues. Additionally, featuring stories of survivors reintegrating into life showcases the success of the organizations attracting donors and volunteers to participate in the movement.

We are currently working with three organizations that want to abolish human trafficking: A21, The Freedom Project and the Freedom Hub. These are located in Sydney Australia as well as their overseas centers: A21 Greece and A21 Thailand, as well as The Freedom Project India.

These organizations are mainly helping us with resources for the film -- experts on the subject as well as people working in these organizations will give us an insight into what’s happening in the present day. We would be visiting their rescue centers to have a realistic perspective of the work they do to help people recover after these traumatic evets. They will help us deliver our film and core message to their audiences and people they reach through their educational programs which include donors, volunteers and their contacts with the police at each location.

We hope to see our audience have an overall change of mindset on human trafficking; to realize that is not just something that is happening in the darker corners of the world, it’s also happening in their backyard.

We want to see school programs being implemented to raise awareness in children from a younger age. People will hopefully donate to organizations that are fighting against modern slavery or even volunteer with them in their offices and rescue centers to help them with their reach. We want them to sign petitions to help implement stricter laws and policies that will require businesses to provide slave free products. And finally for viewers to bring this subject to social media where the majority of people all around the world have access to and can hopefully learn more about human trafficking. The more viewers, the louder the voice that will create lasting change.

Having partnered with the three organizations, we are able to obtain statistical data measuring the extent of awareness the documentary creates, the overall number of victims being rescued and the number of rescue centers established by these organizations themselves. The clearest indicator of immediate success will be the number of viewers attending the screenings measured by tracking number of tickets purchased and asking audience to fill out online surveys at the end of the session. The survey is to reflect the number of viewers willing to volunteer for the organizations involved in the documentary as well as test their knowledge of what human trafficking is, thereby measuring the impact of the film as an educational tool.

The indicators of the medium/long term goals are statistics obtained from the organizations which includes number of volunteers, rescues, rescue centers and reports of human trafficking made by the general public before and after the release of the documentary.