First, just a quick introduction to what Blue Dragon is. A Vietnamese based NGO founded in 2003, the organization strives to fight human trafficking in South East Asia. Through the rescue, provision of aid and rehabilitation offered to victims of human trafficking, the group has made significant contributions to the reduction of trafficking in Vietnam, including changing the law to include men as victims of sexual assault.
Now, while our school has supported this group through fundraising and advocacy, raising tens of thousands of dollars to support this cause in the process, I myself never really got involved with them. Through my years in both primary as well as secondary school, I hadn’t taken the time to learn much more about the group outside of the little I knew from the repetitive slogans that dogged every exhibition, every talk, and every event in which service groups in our school participated. It wasn’t until my sophomore year (G10), where I received an assignment that forced me to research human trafficking in the (coincidence?) region of South East Asia that I took another look at Blue Dragon.
Now, the answer that I give anyone when they ask me why I joined the global concern at our school, and the pitch that I give people I’m trying to recruit into the group, is Blue Dragon’s merit as an organization. From the first ted talk I heard from their founder, Michael Browsoski, I was hooked.
For me, the stories were what mattered most – a little boy Ngoc, selling flowers on the street, who had been taken away from his home, to countless children who ran away from home and ended up on the streets. Not just the initial conditions of these cases, as well, but what happened next, with countless stories of Blue Dragon children who continued their education and got jobs, or were reunited with their families. This … this was work worth doing. Work worth supporting.
The biggest issue or flaw with the way in which service is conducted at our school, I think, is that it’s all talk. People stress the importance of ‘advocacy’ for their causes for instance, and yet, repeat the same message to the same audience (UWCSEA students) over and over again – never expanding their reach. Real initiatives are attempted, and upon reaching a barrier, are promptly dropped – service becoming a fulfillment students make rather than anything meaningful. That EXACT problem is what I aim to address with this podcast project of ours.
There’s a quote from Browsowski that I quite like, something along the lines of human trafficking being an international problem that can never be solved without a coordinated international effort. The importance of connections – communities from all over working in sync with organizations and groups within their region, in order to address the issue of human trafficking – is something that I believe in, and place great emphasis on. If, there was some possible way that we (the Blue Dragon GC) could get people AROUND the world to work with their respective local organizations to combat human trafficking, maybe, just maybe we could make a dent in the millions of modern-day slaves that exist (and FINALLY do something significant and meaningful on our part to champion this cause that we’re so passionate about).
Armed with that, our group has settled on a podcast – the aim to create an intimate and friendly environment where issues of trafficking, present in various communities, can be discussed and highlighted (Learning outcome 6 of the IB CAS system). The tone – casual but appropriate. The style – conversational in nature. And the audience? Anyone who gives a damn. It’s going to be a lot of work – with several hours put in beside our weekly meeting. It’s going to be challenging, with commitment and perseverance needed (LO4), with lots of new skills being tested (LO2) and developed (who knows how to run a podcast anyway?).
I can’t wait.
