Week 8- WASHINGTON DC

Day 1 of Global Advocacy Days:

Our group gathered in the lobby of Dorathy Betts Marvin Theatre of George Wahington University, Monday afternoon to begin our first day with Not For Sale Campaign.

After finding our seats in the small theatre we got to hear from the Not For Sale Campaign Director of Advocacy, Kilian Moote. After introductions and welcoming we went right into our first session; 'Getting to know your Congressional Members.' We gathered into groups based on which Senators and State Representatives we were going to visit on Tuesday. Each group was divided into what state and county you were from, and from there, you were divided amongst State Representatives. I was in group CA2 (California 2) which saw Senator Dianne Feinstein, and State Representatives, Anna Eshoo and Sam Farr. We gathered into our groups to map out weather our Senators and State Representatives were members of the Human Trafficking Caucus (State Representative only), Co sponsor HR 7311 (Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008-State Representative only), Co Sponsor S. 3061 (Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorizatino act of 2008-- Senate only), Co Sponsor of the Unternational Violence Against Women Act 2010 [I-VAWA] --Senate Only, Co Sponsor of the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage [S.987]-- Senate Only, Co Sponsor of the Child Protection Compact Act, or apart of any other bill pertaining to Human Trafficking.. As you can see this stuff was complicated and hard to understand due to the complex language and codes! I had trouble understanding it! I still have trouble trying to explain what I was talking about, but luckily I wasn't speaking; I did the Recording!

We then heard Bama Athreya who talked to us about the International Labor Rights and Customs Facilitation and Trade Enforcement [S. 1631 Section 307 & 308] which was the main points that we were bringing to the Senator and the House Representatives attentions! We were basically prepared for what to expect at our meetings

Session 2 Consisted of Role playing and drafting our messages.

Session 3 was a special student session where we go to meet and greet other students and collaborate and exchange ideas for fundraising or bringing awareness to our campus about Human Trafficking. It was really fun hearing other schools ideas and what they were doing to get students attention!

I think the best part of the day was this last part.

The co-founder of Not For Sale Campaign all sparked from a book and abolitionist, Dr. David Batstone, called Not For $ale. He told us about his experience of how he used to attend this Indian Restaurant in the neighborhood quite frequently until he read in a newspaper where a yound woman, Chianti Pratipatte, died of a gas leak in an unventalated apartment owned by the proprietor of the restaurant, who forced Chianti and others into slavery under threat of reporting their illegal presence to the authorities. This shocked Dr. Batstone that his favorite Indian Restaurant had slave workers doing the dishes, cooking meals and performing other tasks. This shock turned into a passion that took him around the world to learn more about how slavery flourished into the shadows. This experience changed his life forever and helped bring us to where we are today, meeting in Washington DC throwing ideas at each other and inspiring others to GET INVOLVED!