Wed., Jan 11th, National Human Trafficking Awareness Day GSRD Conference at Frisco Discovery Center

Jan. 5, 2012 - PRLog -- January 11th was marked forever as a day of awareness and vigilance for the countless victims of human trafficking across the globe by a resolution passed by the U.S. Senate in 2007. To commemorate this day, Global Slavery Remembrance Day will host the 2nd. annual Human Trafficking Awareness Conference at the Sci-Tech Discovery Center in Frisco, TX.

“I believe we can and must end modern-day slavery in our lifetime,” says Venita Benitez, founder and executive director of GSRD, a non-profit organization whose mission is to raise awareness about modern day slavery among our communities, homes, schools and businesses, one step at a time. Benitez, author of  “First Seeds of Civil War are Sown: Global Slavery Remembrance Day,” was outraged to find out that 25% of human trafficking victims come to the U.S. through the State of Texas.

Melisa, a survivor of human trafficking who resides in Texas be sharing her story with the audience, and Mayor Maher Maso of Frisco, Texas, will issue his second proclamation against human trafficking on this night.

A year ago, on January 24th, 2011, and thanks to the efforts of Ms. Benitez, who urged the Texas government to make the first proclamation against this crime against humanity, the Senate issued Resolution No. 50, which declares that “It is appropriate to pay tribute to local, state, and federal agencies, social service providers, private industry, and nongovernmental agencies for their ongoing efforts to end slavery and human trafficking, and it is further appropriate for the citizens of our nation to recommit to the struggle against this heinous practice.”

The conference keynote speaker will be documentary filmmaker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle, a Spaniard living in Malibu, California who has been amplifying the voices of victims of human trafficking for over 14 years around the world and is currently using transmedia to reach a wide range of demographics.

Alvarez-Stehle will screen her newly edited 30 min. rough cut of her documentary “SANDS OF SILENCE: A Personal Journey into the Trafficking of Women” (in English & Spanish.) The film, which has Academy Award nominee Vicente Franco as Directory of Photography, is currently in post production with twice Academy Award winner documentary editor Kate Amend, ACE. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session.

Alvarez-Stehle is capitalizing on the popularity of online games to educate the youth on this sensitive issue. “The power of transmedia,” says Alvarez-Stehle, “is that it enables you to reach teen demographics—using what could be considered the digital age’s Tower of Babel unifying language: video gaming.” She will be presenting a prototype for her state-of-the-art social impact game SOS_SLAVES: Changing the Trafficking Game, which received development funding by Latino Public Broadcasting and, thanks to the fundraising efforts by Global Slavery Remembrance Day, received further seed-funding from Oklahoma-based Hypernet Solutions, Inc. The game’s prototype is currently being produced by game developers Codewalla along with the World Bank’s “Evoke” game writer Ken Eklund and lead artist Ian Peter Hosfeld, who for years illustrated Spider-Man video games.

In SOS_SLAVES, players find ways to help victims escape a slavery scenario or learn how to identify situations that may lead to sexual slavery. In the process, players become aware of how, as consumers, they may be unknowingly abetting slavery by buying popular-brands chocolate produced at cocoa farms that use child-labor or T-shirts from sweat-shops in the U.S., or by responding to modeling ads that are a front for sexual exploitation.

In June, Alvarez-Stehle was one of six producers around the world selected to present SOS_SLAVES at the Games for Change Festival Demo Spotlight in New York. And in November she was invited by Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health to present her project at the 5th International Entertainment Education Conference in New Delhi, India. There, she met fellow panelist Professor Arvind Singhal, Director of the Social Justice Initiative at the University of Texas, El Paso, a scholar on both human trafficking and entertainment-education through digital games, with whom she plans to collaborate.

Conference attendees will enjoy performances by three singer songwriters. Rebecca Martinez will deliver her newly written song “Freedom Help Me,” which future proceeds will be donated to GSRD. Madeline Benitez will sing her newly released theme “Salga el Sol” (Let The Sun Rise.) Fifty percent of the proceeds from this song will be directed to GSRD Human Trafficking events to help raise national and global awareness. The third voice will be that of gospel singer Angelia Robinson, who has become a powerful voice against modern-day slavery since her participation in the Human Trafficking Awareness event that GSRD hosted a year ago at the Sci-Tech Discovery Center.

The event will be catered by TV's "Chef DC" of DC’s Cafe & Catering/Catering to Combat Human Trafficking. Chef DC devotes 25% of his catering proceedings to benefit GSRD’s activities. The evening will conclude with a candle light vigil to show solidarity with victims of human trafficking.

The doors to the event will open at 6 pm. Reservations are a must: venita @ cateringtocombathumantrafficking.com More information about the event at: http://www.cateringtocombathumantrafficking.com or www.nationalfreedomday.com
For information on Alvarez-Stehle’s work: http://www.sandsofsilence.com
Read the Jan. 4th, 2012 Malibu Times article:
"Malibu filmmaker launches entertainment-based campaign to stop 21st-century slavery"
http://www.malibutimes.com/articles/2012/01/04/malibu_lif...