Evan goes to Uganda: Anti-Human Trafficking Movement in Uganda

Wow! What a whirlwind this first week and a half has been! Luckily, I haven’t been on this journey by myself. Zoe, another Not For Sale representative that has gone through the Academy, is traveling and working with me. After a 36-hour flight process, stopping in Dubai and Ethiopia, we finally made it to Kampala, Uganda. Zoe and I met up with Brian, the Not For Sale Regional Director for this area, at the airport. Since then, Brian has been our guide, leader, and overall friend. The three of us have had a great time hanging out with each other. We are always joking, laughing, and best of all singing. Every once in a while, the three of us will break out in song, the most common artist being Michael Jackson.

So far, our work here has consisted of three main things—partnerships, mapping, and awareness. The first couple of days were spent developing some long- and short-term goals for NFS in Uganda. We realized that we needed to promote our new movement by partnering with other NGO’s. We are not going to be able to conquer human trafficking by ourselves. We specialize in awareness and we need other organizations to come along side us to make our efforts worthwhile.

Our first step in this process was doing some work in the slum areas to get a feel of what many people live like here. We wanted to see why people are often tempted to go with traffickers who offer them “great jobs” in Kamapla. We visited four ladies who were trying to raise families without a husband. One of them told us flat out she was a prostitute. We talked to them in their one-room houses on straw mats sitting on the floor. It was eye opening, disgusting, and heart breaking to listen to their stories. I pretty much just sat there, listened and felt no emotion until afterward because it was so hard for me to comprehend what they go through daily.

Not For Sale has already made some partnerships here, but we came and renewed those and created new ones. To do some mapping of slavery in Kampala, we met with Uganda Youth Development Link. They are an aftercare center for youth who have been involved in trafficking, violence, HIV/Aids, etc. We were able to read through many real cases and document them on slverymap.org. Mapping is one our main goals in Uganda. It is a vital tool in our awareness campaign as well as getting more legislation passed against human trafficking.

Early last week, Zoe, Brian, and I trained 8 volunteers from an NGO called Bridge Builders about what trafficking is, how it happens in this area, and why we wanted to partner with them. Bridge Builders focuses on getting street children back home and keeping kids in school. They helped us make appointments with two different schools. We taught about thirty, 8-14 year old kids at each of these schools what trafficking is, how it happens in their area, and how they can avoid it. These 30-minute sessions were very successful, mostly due to the review game that included candy. Their faces brighten up so much when they see the “sweets” bag come out. I feel that in each of those sessions, there were at least 3 or 4 kids that really understood and are going to go tell their friends and family about it.

Uganda has so much potential. I am so stoked to be a part of this revolution!

- Evan McCormick, BRUTE Guest Blogger