Country: United States

Organization: The New York City Fight Human Trafficking Group

Innovation: Guerilla advertising is a known outreach method on the streets of New York. This approach will bring the counter-trafficking movement into bathroom stalls, bars, coffee shops, art exhibitions, musical festivals and more. We engage the artist and young community to design and to move for a cause that every American is taught to admire from a young age: the Global Anti-Slave Trade Movement of the 1800's. By comparing the current trafficking routes to the Slave Trade of the 1700's and 1800's we will prove that, more than ever, we need to FIGHT trafficking of human beings. Designers, musicians and student intelligensia lead the battle with eye-catching and thought-provoking print that will be seen in every crack in the sidewalk of NYC!

Impact: The Beta-project of the FHTG will be based in New York City and will feed into every borough of the city. We will be engaged in music festivals and art exhibitions, will paste stickers in bathrooms and on the street using innnovative design to attract the community to the cause. The tone of the project will be energetic, fun, and purposeful, and will attract the community through its pure movement of form and function towards the end of the modern day slave trade.

Tipping Point: Nobody wants another slave trade. Nobody. This is not just about people being forced to work, this is not just about poor versus rich, and this is not just about those people over there. This is about boats and planes and vehicles coming into national ports and unloading human beings for slavery. This is about 1808. The gap in our community organization is financial as we do not have any funds nor are we currently registered as a 501(c)3. We meet bi-monthly on our own time to design and discuss, and I will be paying for the outreach materials and website out of my own pocket. I cannot produce enough stickers and introduce enough musicians to paint the city on my budget of 9 dollars a month that pays for our meetup fee, but I will try!

Replication: I have already spoken to a group in Georigia who are interested in combining media, design and human rights to attract the community to the issue of traffikcing that is being so proudly handled by competant and devoted nonprofits around the world. The more people paste a sticker, the more people sing, the more people wear the 'orange flag', the sooner the trade will be exposed for what it is, a true slave trade of 2K. We currently have a e-newsletter that is distributed throughout America, and would be able to send 'paint the town orange' materials to members as soon as they joined the site. Then they put up stickers in their bars and coffee shops and engage their grassroots musicians for the cause.

Sustainability: In the long run, the organization will be a combination of foundation-funded and corporate-funded support. Because we are using the print media, corporations such as Kinko and organizations such as the design collaborative, will join forces to print materials and to consistetly maintain an aesthetic that pushes the issue of global trafficking and the current slave trade to the forefront of the movers and the shakers. Also, the FHTG will have an orange 'flag' that you can buy to wear against trafficking.

Position in the Human Trafficking Mosaic of Solutions:

Factor: Corruption and Inadequate Government Policy

Principle: Creating Value-Driven Communities