527 Counter Trafficking Seminar

Last weekend, I successfully organized and held my 527 Counter Trafficking Seminar in downtown Kharkiv. I worked with my friend Natalia who works for the Kharkiv Red Cross office and as the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) program Eastern Ukraine Alumni Coordinator to make this seminar happen. I had almost forgotten how much I love organizing events, this was my first seminar that I've run since I worked with the Georgia Tech Women's Leadership Conference over a year ago. Completing projects like these are what really make me feel like I'm having an impact and making a difference in peoples' lives here as a Peace Corps Volunteer :)

Natalia and I by the Red Cross banner.

What is 527, you may be asking? 527 is the Counter-trafficking and Migrant Advice Hotline developed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Mission in Ukraine. The hotline is advertised in all counter-trafficking information campaigns as a helpline providing advice and assistance to victims of trafficking or risk groups. Additionally, it is advertised in information campaigns targeting potential migrants as a helpline which provides information on the current realities and dangers facing Ukrainian migrants abroad, including human trafficking and the consequences of irregular entry and stay in foreign countries. By calling the hotline, Ukrainians can:

• Be provided with information about how to travel, work, and study abroad safely and legally
• Find out if the foreign employer offering work is a legitimate and legal source of employment
• Know what legal, medical, psychological, and professional reintegration help is available to victims of trafficking through IOM and IOM Partner Organizations in Ukraine

 We had 17 participants attend our seminar, all with a very high level of English and therefore we were able to teach this entire seminar in English! 8 other Peace Corps Volunteers from Kharkiv Oblast were able to come and help teach, which was awesome. This made it a great networking opportunity for everyone who attended the seminar - we were able to meet active Ukrainian university students and English teachers, and they were able to meet and get to know us. 

Everyone at the end of the seminar, with our posters advertising 527.

The Ukrainian participants.

The Peace Corps Volunteers.

 We taught a basic overview of human trafficking and included some specific statistics related to the situation in Ukraine. The goal of this seminar was to increase awareness of human trafficking and educate our participants on how to protect themselves from becoming victims of human traffickers. As an icebreaker, we did a blindfolded trust run, where volunteers were asked to run in between two parallel lines of people. Afterwards, we talked about trust and why trust is important in life. We discussed how 57% of traffickers are women, because people are more likely to trust women rather then men.

Natalia running down the hallway.

Next, we asked the participants to guess whether a statement about human trafficking was true or false. They were asked to move to the right side of the room if they thought the statement was true, and to the left if they thought it was false. It was interesting to see both sides defend their views, especially when some of the statments contained statistics that were surprising to the participants. For example, one statement was that "Ukraine is a country of origin and transit – not destination – for trafficking in human beings." This statement is FALSE, because Ukraine is all 3: a country of origin, transit, and destination.

Everyone debating one of the true/false statements.

 We gave a general overview of the Who, What, Where, and How of human trafficking using the powerpoint slides provided by the Gender and Development Working Group of Peace Corps Ukraine. This covered where people are recruited by traffickers, how people may find job opportunities that are not legitimate, what jobs they are offered, who is most at-risk to be trafficked and how victims may escape. The participants were surprised to learn that many people become victims of trafficking when their own family or friends lead them to find opportunities that are not legitimate job or travel offers.

After the overview, the participants were asked to identify the different steps in the human trafficking process.

It was inspiring to see how our presentation impacted the participants - they were able to realize that human trafficking does not only involve women who want to become models and end up being trafficked into the sex industry - absolutely anyone who is interested in traveling or working abroad is also at risk for becoming trafficked. Many of them began to ask questions about how to tell if a job opportunity is legitimate or not, so we explained that there are different factors that contribute to a victim's helplessness (such as having their passport and official documents confiscated by the trafficker). We covered some tips on how to check if a company is legitimate and how to make sure that a job contract is real. To summarize the information covered in the seminar, we divided the participants into smaller groups and provided them with different tasks related to human trafficking. 

The participants then presented their posters to the class. The first group presented an overview of the human trafficking process. The second group brainstormed on how human trafficking can be fought on a personal, community and national level. The third group came up with reasons why people potentially become victims of human trafficking and why women seem to be more at risk than men.

Group 1.

Group 2.

Group 3.

 The last part of our seminar was the action component. To do this, we asked the participants to write information advertising the 527 hotline and about human trafficking on posters. We filmed a short public service announcement using these posters.. you can view our PSA on YouTube here! I apologize about the volume, the microphone on my little Canon PowerShot was clearly not meant for filming videos on busy streets. But we had fun filming the PSA and I hope that you enjoy it. Our video clips from Kharkiv will be submitted to the Gender and Development Working Group of Peace Corps Ukraine and they will compile a PSA with clips from everyone's 527 seminars from all over Ukraine to send to CNN later this fall!

Ed overseeing the poster-making.

Everyone and their posters (sorry its so far away, I wanted to show the scope of the Metalist stadium).

Everyone on the steps of the Sportivna Metro entrance.

We wrapped up the seminar by handing out certificates to all of the participants and giving them the resources to hold such trainings of their own on flash drives. I wish we had time to watch the MTV "Exit" video about human trafficking, but I was happy with all that we were able to accomplish in a short 4 hour seminar. And last but not least, here are the obligatory "funny" photos of the group :)

Showing off big "American" smiles.

Kharkiv Oblast PCVs rock!

More Info about the Counter-trafficking and Migrant Advice Hotline:

Dialing 527 is toll-free from Beeline, life :), Kyivstar and MTS mobile operators in Ukraine.

Dialing 0 800 505 501 is toll-free from landline phones in Ukraine (launched in 2006).

Kharkiv Metalist Football Game

Its everyone's favorite time of the year.... football season! And I'm not just talking about American football or college gamedays, it is professional football (soccer) season here in Ukraine too. I went to a Kharkiv Metalist football game last weekend with a few other Peace Corps Volunteers from my oblast. Metalist is the name of the professional team here in Kharkiv, each major city in Ukraine has a professional team. One cool thing about living close to the 2nd largest city in Ukraine is that we have one of the better football teams :) Kharkiv will also host some of the EuroCup 2012 matches so we got a sneak preview of the renovated stadium.

Brooks, Sam, and Kyle.

We all bought some Metalist gear so we could fit in with the fans.

The Metalist Stadium is located at the Sportivna Metro stop. I thought this area would be much busier, since it is the location of one of the EuroCup stadiums but its actually fairly residential. There is a bazaar (open-air market) behind the stadium, but everything else around it is high rise apartment buildings. We tossed around an American football on the lawn across the street from the stadium, which drew some questioning looks from Ukrainians passing by but it was fun to hang out on gameday.

Can you believe how empty these fields are? These would be packed if this was a college gameday in America.

 

 We got tickets all together and sat in the 5th row for only 40 griven - the equivalent of $5 USD!! How crazy is that? I can't believe that tickets to a professional sporting event were so inexpensive... after working for a year at Aspire with GT Athletics to sell football and basketball season tickets, such a low price seems crazy to me.

Whitney and I rocking our Metalist gear.

Everyone holds up their scarves like this.

See?

One thing that I thought was interesting - you know how in a college football stadium, the student sections traditionally sit on both endzones? At this Metalist game, there were also two specific cheering sections of hardcore Metalist football fans seated in the end zones. And they had someone who acted as a drum major and coordinated the stadium cheers, like when to raise the scarves and when to stomp/clap to a chant. It was a fun atmosphere and reminded me a lot of home!

All the fans holding up their scarves together.

The fans in the front holding up Metalist flags.

The sea of fans dressed in yellow jerseys, down at the other end zone.

Our group sitting together!

The game was Kharkiv Metalist vs. Arsenal Kyiv and it ended up being 0-0 in overtime. I hate to admit this, but the top team in Ukraine is probably the Donetsk Shaktars (coal-miners), followed by Dynamo Kyiv. I'm not sure if this was considered a big game or not, but there seemed to be a ton of football fans there. Its times like these that I wish I had one of those fancy DSLR cameras instead of my 6-year old Canon Powershot... but oh well, at least I have a working camera even if I can't take professional-quality sports photos haha.

Such a squeaky clean new stadium... have you ever seen a blue jogging track before?

Players marching out onto the field.

Me, Jillian and Whitney at halftime! I will miss my group 37 friends when they leave.

A corner kick?

PEPFAR Conference About HIV/AIDS Awareness and Education

So I know its been a while since my last post, and I promised to upload photos from my travels with Annie... but things have been busy since school started. I had the opportunity to attend the PEPFAR conference with our school psychologist Irina Ivanovna about HIV/AIDS awareness and education. PEPFAR stands for President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and it is an international Peace Corps initiative.

With a few Ukrainian counterparts and Doug Teschner (our PC Country Director).

Ira and I in front of the banners :)

Ira and I with Andriy, the Peace Corps PEPFAR coordinator. 

 Last week, Irina and I joined about 25 Peace Corps Volunteers and their counterparts from their school or organizations in Kalamets-Podilsky for the conference. The sanatorium that we stayed at turned out to be a beautiful resort on a lake... western Ukraine is so green and pretty! We were lucky to have a few days of clear weather, we spent our coffee breaks outside enjoying the scenery and sunshine : )

Alex, Maria, Robin, Patrick and Kym.

Robin, Alex, me, Amanda and Abby.

Just stopping to smell the flowers.

Ira and I by the fountain.

with Abby and Amanda, the other counselors from Camp HEAL and OHALOW :)

No conference is complete without a jumping photo.

We spent a week learning about the biology of HIV/AIDS, methods of transmission, stages of infection, stigma and discrimination, and we also had a few very valuable language lessons on HIV/AIDS terminology in Russian. We also had a few guest speakers who came to tell us their stories as HIV positive individuals, one was an intravenous drug user (IDU) and one was a commercial sex worker. It was really interesting to hear about their firsthand experiences with living with HIV/AIDS in Ukraine and listen to their opinions about how Peace Corps Volunteers can work with our communities to help educate about HIV/AIDS.

PCVs learning about ways of transmission.

An joint session between PCVs and Ukrainian counterparts, working on a stigma/discrimination activity.

Learning about the different stages of HIV in a Russian language class.

I had a great time at the PEPFAR conference, and I think that Ira (my school psychologist) enjoyed it as well. It was great to meet other Ukrainian counterparts and talk to other volunteers about their different experiences working with organizations in their community. I am excited to start organizing a project at my own site, we are planning on doing a small presentation on  December 1st, HIV/AIDS Awareness Day!