Country: United States

Organization: Graduate Fellow from Duke University

Innovation: The strategy of the project is innovative in that it goes beyond mobilizing the resources of the State and focuses on empowering the people of a nation from the ground up. The project is self-sustainable. While it would require professional oversight, it will eventually be driven by local ownership and management. Lastly, the project is innovative because it aims to change the heart of a community, one person at a time. It is not a large ý one fits all ý project. Each community would have its personal profile, its personal adversities and its personal solutions. The underlying idea is to enable such community to learn what its weaknesses and its solutions are while remaining available to facilitate the positive change when they ask.

Impact: The project creates systemic change at the community level. The manner in which trafficking in persons is combated will be fundamentally altered because the project alters the ethical position of the community members. Such change wonýt be imposed by state law or by institutional reforms. It will occur because the structural violence that comes from trafficking will become unacceptable. The systemic change will be felt slowly & gradually, one community at a time. The effect shall spread like a rumor. It will spread because the community people will start believing that trafficking of children should be terminated and will become owners of that opinion with enough conviction and pride to persuade others within their sphere of influence.

Tipping Point: The project approaches a tipping point by slowly yet radically altering peopleýs attitudes & values towards trafficking & the violence that is associated with it. The tipping point will occur when one hotel manager, truck driver, or border guard, will go against their familiar routine & intervene to signal the trafficking of a group of children to authorities or the most active local NGO. The concrete action of one person will then cause dialogue & momentum within that community for the anti-trafficking analysts to reach more people, widen their audience, & plant the seed of change in another community member. There are two gaps: the deep pockets of traffickers & the potential cultural opposition towards such anti- trafficking activities.

Replication: The activity ý at this time ý is not being replicated in any way. I am currently completing the formulation of the project as the thesis for the graduate program I will be completing in May 2005. The project ý in order to be replicated ý will need both financial and human resources. Such resources can be attained through further sponsorships or through an organization that, believing in the micro scale successes the project can have, is willing to adopt its idea and to proceed with implementation.

Sustainability: The project has a significant degree of long term self- sustainability because it will rely, almost entirely, on the word of mouth & on the contagion effects once the behavior of a few key people starts persuading & motivating the behavior of community members. These effects will easily be perpetuated over the long-term because they rely solely on the infectious nature of human behavior & human psychology. In the short term, the projectýs sustainability depends on the level of human & financial resources needed by the core anti-trafficking analysts who will spearhead the implementation of the project. A diversity of resources will be needed to sustain the project and such resources will most likely originate from donor funding.

Position in the Human Trafficking Mosaic of Solutions:

Factor: Culture of Tolerance

Principle: Creating Value-Driven Communities