One day, perusing www.ted.com for inspiring ideas, I was struck by Lisa Kristine’s account of modern slavery and by her photography. I was so mad at my own ignorance, I was not aware of the staggering figures of a lucrative business that I thought belonged to the Atlantic slave trade period only. The more I investigated and surfed the net for information the more stunned I felt. One link sent me to another link, a sort of maddening search for an aching reality. The most useful webpages for a start are: Anti-Slavery and Modern Slavery. The investigation was an eye-opener and I realized I had to raise my students’ awareness too. I could not refrain from sharing this urge of knowledge with my students. If I did not know before, they must know now, they are the future and the more aware they are of these issues, the more the can make a difference, for the better. As usual I was perplexed that my colleagues had never tackled any of these “human rights” issues. So after listening to Lisa Kristine and watching her photos, after watching the ted talk by Kevin Bales “how to combat modern slavery”, we watched the film I am Slave (2010) by Gabriel Range and we decided to do a project dedicated to this issue.
Students were asked to choose one aspect of modern slavery and in groups prepare a presentation. Their “journey” into the appalling realities of modern slavery is a cry of protest against this inhuman and inhumane trade.
