While the local, national, and global challenges of 2024 were serious and enormously consequential for those who work for social justice, I still look back at the last year with deep gratitude for our students and our partners, sincere hope in what the next generation can and will do, and heartfelt joy for what our team was able to accomplish together.
Higher education in the United States, particularly private institutions, is confronting a declining student population, increasing competition from public institutions, wavering faith in the value of the liberal arts, complexity with the federal student aid (FAFSA) process, and affordability more generally. UD is no exception. In spite of these pressures, the University—true to its Catholic and Marianist identity—remains committed to the mission and vision of the Human Rights Center. For example, this year the university supported the hiring of Dr. Satang Nabaneh as an Assistant Professor of Practice, a key transition from her role as staff. Building out HRC faculty is key to our long-term success.
From our advocacy at the city level, to our statewide anti-trafficking activities and human rights reporting submitted to international organizations, the University continues to support our work that ultimately aims to democratize global spaces and processes by providing channels for community-based participation”. I am grateful for the unwavering encouragement from senior leadership to continue to increase our efforts to protect human dignity for all people, embrace a global church, and always show the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable.
As we prepared this report, it is clear that our students and partners breathe life into the work we do everyday. Their idealism, knowledge, creativity, and persistence drive the advocacy-based research and make it better. For example, with the leadership of one of our graduate assistants, Layla Saquibuddin, the Human Rights Center was the organization to host an informative but difficult campus event to educate ourselves on the ongoing violence in the Middle East and the lived experiences of Jews and Palestinians in our community. At a national level, our partnership with RFK Human Rights enhanced the work of our fifth iteration of the Moral Courage Project and enabled our team to contribute to efforts to hold countries accountable to their obligations under international human rights law.
Lastly, close with appreciation and love for the team that I get to work with everyday. Our space on the third floor of Keller Hall (come see us) is vibrant and fun and supportive. The team of undergraduate interns, graduate assistants, staff, and faculty are among the most passionate, inclusive, hardworking, and caring that I have encountered. It is a privilege to be on this journey with each of them
In peace and hope,
Natalie F. Hudson, Ph.D.
GENERATIONAL RENEWAL
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 1.1
Number of students enrolled in HRC/HRS courses
FROM THE HRS PROGRAM DIRECTOR MIRANDA HALLETT:
This was a year of growth and outreach for the Human Rights Studies program with a varied and impactful slate of accomplishments:
• launched new courses on everything from Geographic Information Systems to Indigenous Theory
• contributed to the planning of two major conferences on campus - one on Shakespeare and Human Rights, the other on the Right to Development for Africa and People of African Descent
• hosted human rights defenders from Cristosal on a Midwestern speaking tour
• co-sponsored and organized three research lectures in collaboration with other disciplines and departments
• held a public event to build empathy for refugee and immigrant families called the Immigration Simulation
• planned and recruited for the student-driven ethical storytelling work of the Moral Courage Project
• planned and recruited for multiple international faculty-led immersions and internships in cutting-edge human rights work
• with the support of our amazing young alumni, launched an HRS alumni mentoring network
While our number of majors and minors is growing, and our students continue to engage in high-quality experiential learning at the Human Rights Center and beyond, equally important is the engagement and traction we are gaining across campus and in our community partnerships. Our strength is with our faculty and community partners whose collaborations for social change drive the visibility and impact of our unique programs and learning opportunities.
Over the past academic year, we focused on three key priorities, outlined below:
1. GROW THE PROGRAM: Generational Renewal. We focused heavily on outreach this year, building our recruitment materials, visiting courses, engaging on admitted students days, and tabling at Kennedy Union. Majors and minors are up by over 20%.
2. DEEPEN PARTNERSHIPS: North-South Collaboration. Working with Central America-based organization Cristosal and local partners who work on immigrant and refugee issues, we helped to platform important public education events and dialogues that raised awareness of our partners’ key concerns and deepened our relationships while engaging students as learners and advocates.
3. DEFINE AND ASSESS: Experiential Learning. We collaborated and dialogued with partners at the ETHOS Center, the School of Education, and the Office of Experiential Learning as well as convening an HRS-specific Experiential Learning Working Group to define EL for the HRS program and plan for effective assessment.
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 1.2
Increased students’ growth, learning and experience of agency & intercultural appreciation (MCP, AO, Fellowships, PREVENTS-OH, Practicums)
SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT
Sounds About Right is a student-run podcast from the University of Dayton’s Human Rights Center which gives students a platform to discuss human rights issues in their own words. Each season covers topics that range from sexual assault on college campuses to indigenous rights and features students interviewing activists, scholars, and their peers. This hands-on project allows students to explore these issues in depth while also learning the ins and outs of podcasting and storytelling.
For students, working on Sounds About Right is more than a creative project—it’s a way to grow, both personally and academically. They gain confidence by producing content that requires thoughtful conversation, and they learn to work closely with others on challenging topics. The experience also helps them develop a greater understanding and appreciation of other cultures and perspectives, showing them the importance of listening and empathy.
By designing and executing the podcasts from beginning to the end, students discover the impact they can have as advocates for change. Many find that they leave the experience with a stronger sense of purpose, seeing themselves as contributors to important human rights conversations. Sounds About Right has become a place for them to explore and share their voices, knowing their work reaches and informs a broader audience.
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 1.3
Publish at least 2 stories annually of alumni who have assumed leading and supporting roles within human rights struggles
Noah Aschemeier ‘23, Human Rights Alumna
MORAL COURAGE PROJECT
After the spring semester ended and with the conclusion of our preparatory course, the Moral Courage Project team departed in two vans from Dayton, Ohio for Atlanta, Georgia. To prepare for the fifth cycle of the program focusing on Stop Cop City and Defend the Atlanta Forest—a contemporary social movement that formed to oppose a $100 million plan to clear-cut over 85 acres of the forest and build a police training facility for urban, militarized tactical engagement with civilians—we spent the semester studying storytelling skills and methods and foundational concepts and theoretical frameworks. Our purpose was to conduct interviews with and take photographs and video of activists, organizers, and other upstanders associated with the movement toward the goal of producing multimedia, multi-platform materials for sharing stories of bravery and resistance. We spent twelve days in and around the city, learning about the place: its history and its people, their struggles, and their fortitude–an immersive experience that uniquely deepened our shared understanding of the content we’d studied in class.
Students were placed into three thematic teams: Environment, Democracy, and Policing. A fourth team was responsible for visual documentation in photo and video. Teams were free to pursue leads, schedule meetings, prepare for interviews, and to coordinate logistics around travel, food, and equipment. Across the first few days, we visited with local partners and took tours and heard talks from experts to help orient us. Days began with morning production meetings and ended with debriefings and collective reflection exercises. We all worked very hard, navigated a new city, and listened to many difficult stories from very resilient and committed people.
By the end of two weeks, the students conducted a total of 25 interviews. We returned to Dayton in the same two vans and came home confident in our position to transform raw materials into powerful and accessible stories about ordinary people facing extreme levels of repression in their defense of basic human rights. We anticipate rolling out a new exhibit and the fifth season of the podcast, Moral Courage Radio, in Spring 2025.
COASTERS & POSTERS
The Abolition Ohio team, in partnership with community organizations, successfully completed two major distribution projects in 2024. In collaboration with the SOAP Project (Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution), the AO Team distributed over 400 coasters to various establishments on Brown Street and throughout Downtown Dayton. Additionally, the AO Team distributed updated Missing and Exploited Children posters to dozens of businesses in the greater Dayton area. With both projects, we received positive feedback and overwhelming eagerness to help from all our community partners!
After graduating from the University of Dayton with a degree in Human Rights Studies, I wanted to pursue higher education regarding sustainability and its connection across many different realms of life. At UD, I had the tremendous opportunity to discover my passion for this area of study since I worked on a capstone project in my final year that focused on environmental justice throughout the Dayton Community. I was accepted to Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs where I am currently pursuing my Master’s in Public Affairs with a focus on sustainability and sustainable development (with a planned graduation in May 2025).
within the company’s supplier code of conduct.
This project was accomplished by utilizing 18 different public databases that measure risk in different ways, each according to the dimensions that were identified as individual categories
is easily accessible by employees within the company, as it will be utilized moving forward when certain manufacturers are at the consideration of being audited.
Overall, my summer experience with Sunbelt Rentals was everything hoped for and more. was able to gain
Because I am still in “school,” I applied for an internship opportunity with Sunbelt Rentals, a rental equipment company that has roots in Europe and operates primarily in the United States. I was given the opportunity to work in the sustainability department and had the important task of creating a due diligence risk index for the company to identify which countries of origin are at a higher risk of violating many processes codified
of measurement. Upon reviewing the Sunbelt Rentals supplier code of conduct and various national/global corporate reports and doctrines, I formulated 7 categories. These were then placed in order of importance pertaining to potential risks within our supply chain and are as follows: Labor, Human Rights, Governance & Corruption, Economic Health, Human Freedom, Sustainability, and Environment. The outcome was an interactive database and heatmap that
experience within the private sector while also working on a project that I can label as my own, and I will assist the company with their human rights measurements moving into the future. The internship was a perfect example of the intersection between human rights, sustainability, and the private realm of business.
PARTNERSHIP-BUILDING ACROSS GLOBAL DIVIDES THAT ALTERS POWER DYNAMICS
Bailey Johnson, ‘21, MPA ‘23, Human Rights Alumna
“I graduated with my degree in Human Rights Studies in 2020, an obviously tumultuous time in U.S. history. At the start of the pandemic, I was grateful to have the opportunity to build upon my education in the Human Rights Studies program by pursuing my master’s degree in public administration at the University of Dayton that same year while continuing my work with the Human Rights Center as a graduate assistant and providing administrative and programmatic support to Abolition Ohio. Working with Abolition Ohio and focusing on human trafficking education and advocacy, first as an undergraduate intern in the Human Rights Studies program and then as a graduate assistant while earning my master’s, inspired a passion for the prevention of sexualized violence I wished to continue pursuing in my career post-graduation. Following the completion of my master’s degree in 2022, I was thereafter proud
to accept an opportunity as Title IX Coordinator at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Working as a Title IX Coordinator at a small, liberal arts institution with a proud history in activism and advocacy for affirmative consent and the promotion of healthy sexuality was the perfect way to continue my career with a focus on prevention.
As Title IX Coordinator, I wore multiple hats. Similarly to my previous work at the HRC, I had the opportunity to develop and present trainings and resources and engage in advocacy work to inspire students to take action to prevent sexualized violence. However, I quickly became surprised with how much I enjoyed an entirely different element of the work: conducting investigations into reports of harassment, including sexualized violence, and other instances of discrimination on the bases of protected classes. At the start, was intimidated by the very thought of investigating. I had no idea how to interview the individuals involved, draft a report, collect evidence, or conduct a hearing. However, one of the biggest challenges for me to overcome was maintaining neutrality in a space where I was so used to being an advocate. Apart from a lot of trial and error, I was gradually able to work towards this by doing the personal work of putting my own biases aside and learning to sit with parties who had been harmed or were alleged to have done harm in some of the toughest moments of their lives and of my own vocational journey in a manner
that was empathetic, trauma-informed, and ultimately allowed me to determine responsibility and rectify harm that was done. Doing this work allowed me to grow as an individual person in ways that I never anticipated, and I will be infinitely grateful to the Human Rights Center for providing me with some of the most critical and foundational experiences and skills needed to do this work.
After two years of working for Antioch College, my love for the work of investigations grew until I was offered another exciting opportunity to be a Civil Rights Investigator for the Ohio Civil Rights Commission in October of 2024. I’m extremely grateful that this role will allow me to conduct investigations more often and will allow me to have a wider reach in my interactions with diverse populations across the state of Ohio. feel that both my education and my career up until this point have prepared me well for the work of being a Civil Rights Investigator. I no longer think about the role of neutrality with the level of anxiety did previously. Certainly, it is never favorable to the advancement of human rights to be neutral in the face of injustice. However, objectivity and neutrality are a kind of prevention of harm in and of themselves where biases and preferences can also lead to injustice and corruption. Objectivity and neutrality are the very tools that allow the truth of an injustice to come to light, leading to progress in the advancement of human rights. I feel incredibly invigorated in looking back at my experiences with the Human Rights Center that planted those seeds to think critically about all sides of a complex challenge that are so dear to me now as an investigator and grateful to have arrived at such an exciting moment in my career with the help of leaders and mentors at the HRC who inspired me
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 2.1
Showcase contributions to locally-led advocacy initiatives (legal, policy, campaigns, local, state and national levels)
THE “STOP COP CITY” MOVEMENT
Throughout the year, the Human Rights Center has focused significant energies on supporting the movement to Stop Cop City—a grassroots effort to halt a proposal to build a police training center in the middle of one of the “four lungs” of Atlanta, the South River Forest. The movement has fought the proposal, and its governmental and private sector backers, through all manner of tactics, including community organizing, narrative shift, digital activism, direct action, legal defense, and a ballot initiative. We were honored to be a part of a profound effort to bring the claims of Stop Cop City to the international community.
In September 2023, we co-authored a shadow report with the Southern Center for Human Rights (Atlanta) that was submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the treaty body tasked to monitor compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, before which the United States government was set to appear. The report detailed an escalating pattern of political repression against the Stop Cop City movement and argued that these state actions constituted human rights violations under the Covenant. Additionally, we joined the Center for Constitutional Rights (New York) in support of Rev. Keyanna Jones, a community organizer from Atlanta, who gave in-person testimony in Geneva, Switzerland during the proceedings.
In April 2024, in partnership with the Southern Center and RFK Human Rights (Washington, DC), we co-authored a petition to the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights on behalf of Belkis Terán, whose child was protecting the South River Forest when they were killed by law enforcement. Manuel Paez “Tortuguita” Terán was a 26 year-old, queer and non-binary Forest Defender with indigenous heritage who was shot over 50 times while sitting cross-legged inside a tent in a coordinated, multi-agency raid of the forest and is the first environmental human rights defender killed by police in US history.
RAISING AWARENESS, COUNTERING STEREOTYPES
Pope Francis and other global moral leaders have pointed to the rising xenophobia and anti-immigrant politics of the Global North as a grave threat to human dignity. Calling for safe and legal access to movement and an end to the militarization of borders and use of violence and incarceration against people in movement, Pope Francis asks the world to see migrants “as persons” and to respond to them in ways that are “always humane, just, and fraternal.” In this call, Pope Francis is perfectly aligned with the aims of human rights defenders working on immigration justice. Over the 2023-24 Academic Year, our team at the Human Rights Center has contributed significantly to efforts to raise awareness of the inhumane consequences of social and legal exclusion and to counter the dehumanization of immigrants through research public education and community-based work.
1. WALKING WITH AMAL. Students, faculty, and staff from Campus Ministry and the Human Rights Center attended banner-making workshops and then traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio in fall semester 2023 to join the “Walk with Amal.” We marched alongside thousands of others from the region and a giant puppet named Amal, representing an 11-year-old Syrian girl, to express our joyful support for the rights and dignity of immigrants and refugees.
2. THE IMMIGRATION SIMULATION. The 2023-2024 Majka Fellow, Sarah Naughton, conducted public data and narrative research to update the demographics and “family profiles” in an educational module called The Immigration Simulation takes participants through an intensive experience simulating the challenges facing immigrant families where participants role-play members of those households. Our team ran the Simulation for over one hundred and fifty participants—including students, faculty, staff, and community members—in late February 2024.
3. COALITION OF IMMOKALEE WORKERS. Inspired by a visit from activists and organizers from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to UD in fall 2023 sponsored by the Ferree Chair in Social Justice, students in the Human Rights Studies program and Human Rights Center conducted tabling sessions and mobilized people to take advocacy actions for the CIW’s campaign against enslavement and in defense of farmworker rights. We made a contribution to the campaign demanding that Kroger sign on to the Fair Food Program, and three student-activists traveled to Florida in March 2024 for the Farmworker Freedom Festival.
4. COMMUNITY-BASED DIALOGUE TRAINING. In collaboration with the Miami Valley Immigration Coalition, faculty and students from the Human Rights Center conducted a few brief community surveys to identify dominant narratives and the presence of misinformation in our communities. Then, the PREVENTS-OH grant team prepared and implemented a community-based “training for trainers,” held in the Osman Gazi Mosque in downtown Dayton, on best practices for dialogue to counter misinformation and foster fact-based and positive images of immigrant families and individuals. This work from spring 2024 laid the foundation for a more expansive “change the narrative” campaign in fall 2024.
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 2.2
Cultivation of quality spaces for dialogue, non-violence and reflection among community partners and UD students/campus
Modeling community ownership and providing one of the best examples of community-led problem solving, Dandelion Africa is a tribute to the resilience of women thriving in difficult environments. Wendo leads an allKenyan staff and a network of more than 200 volunteers, providing comprehensive health, economic, and educational services across a large swath of rural Kenya. This community-led and non-
violence approach has led to systemshifting impacts in rural and traditionally conservative communities, including a reduction in FGM, increased systems of support for survivors of gender-based violence, expansion in women’s access to reproductive health services, and the engagement of men and boys as advocates for women and girls thereby leading to non-violence gender-based social change. During her visit, Wendo shared her experiences and the lessons learned from their holistic approach, including training to prevent genderbased violence and engage young people through Girls for Leaders/Boys for Change in dialogue on the roles of gender.
A MESSAGE FROM WENDO
In October 2023, I visited the Human rights centre at Dayton University. On the first day, the modern ancient buildings reminded me of why human rights is important to bring the old into the new. I experienced a culture where students from diverse backgrounds understood
the importance of community ownership and the role of women and young people in creating change. I was involved in the human rights class, and was in awe of how ‘future teachers’ were being prepared to consciously teach culturally diverse students and this sets the basis of what the human rights centre represents – conscious action in every aspect of lifeWhat further struck me, was how nonviolent resistance education was carried through constructive programs and I related this to how Martin Luther’s saw non-violence as “the courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love” and to see this being taught through a human rights lens was empowering. I understood the context of the Practicum students who had visited Dandelion Africa that summer and gained a deep appreciation of what they stand for and the values they had come from.
Lastly, I attended the Social Practice of Human Rights conference, a coconvening with the International Conference on the Right to Development, focused on the theme – “Decolonization and Development for Africa and People of African Descent. A conference that aimed to bridge the conventional scholarpractitioner divide, focusing on critical self-reflections on strategies that drive interventions focused on Human rights. I was inspired by Satang Nabaneh for her
leadership as an African woman navigating the unique cultural highway, how she showed up and inspired young women to own their spaces and give themselves grace and permission to be
the best version of themselves regardless of their ethnicity or background. I am truly grateful to the sponsors, this experience left an impression on me to be more conscious and to bring the non-violence education to my country and community because we can all use the power of love to confront social discord.
Thank you.
Warmly, Wendo Sahar
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 2.3
Number of partnerships/collaborative engagements with non-governmental, businesses and state-related organizations.
In November 2023, we gathered for the 2023 Social Practice of Human Rights focused on the theme “Decolonization and Development for Africa and People of African Descent.” For the first time, the Human Rights Center partnered with the University of Pretoria and the University of the Free State in South Africa to coconvene the 6th Biennial SPHR and
the 6th International Conference on the Right to Development. This meaningful collaboration will improve advocacy methods around the themes of (1) the right to development; (2) building social movements; (3) facilitating just energy transitions; and (4) identity and belonging — as applied to Africa and the people of African descent.
This enabled the Africa-based human rights ecosystem to convene with U.S.based scholars, policy designers, and practitioners, serving as an avenue to actively work towards creating an antiracist, anti-privilege, and decolonizing practice of human rights. We saw the potential to disrupt the entrenched cycle generated by colonial and neocolonial dynamics by drawing on epistemologies of the Global South, particularly of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
The goal is to envision a new future of changing political, economic, feminist, and cultural engagement around Africa and people of African descent in the US and globally.
This incredible conference, included 2 keynotes, 4 plenary sessions, 5 Concurrent Sessions with over 30 panels and roundtables, 5 Forward-Looking Workshops, a Fireside Chat with UD Students, and a celebration of the arts at the #rightsfest.
ACTION RESEARCH AT SPHR
Building on what we learned at SPHR 2021, we committed to making the conference a dynamic platform for continuous learning and collaborative action rooted in our distinctive approach to the “social practice of human rights.” We innovated and integrated action research methods during the conference proceedings. During our time together, these innovative spaces included our microblog running on Padlet, whiteboard sharing spaces, fish bowl debrief, World Café, as well as multiple interactive sessions over the course of three days.
COLLECTIVE INPUT TO DRAFT UN DECLARATION ON THE PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT
The World Café session focused on a draft text of the Declaration on the Promotion and Full Respect of the Human Rights of People of African Descent, which Elías Murillo Martínez (Colombia), a member of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, graciously shared with us for this purpose.
Gaynel Curry (The Bahamas) and Justin Hansford (USA) also engaged in a conversation during SPHR23 to evaluate the draft declaration’s progress and discuss the Forum’s potential impact
and future direction. This informed our collaborative input submitted to the UN Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.
A rights-based approach to tackling racism and restoring dignity for all hinges on two crucial frameworks: intersectionality and decoloniality. These frameworks provide a solid foundation for grounding the declaration aimed at combating racism. While participants acknowledge the Declaration’s significance, concerns regarding its implementation and evaluation remain. Specifically, how will we ensure states uphold their commitments and effectively achieve the declaration’s goals? These concerns point to the need for a more inclusive globalized economy that doesn’t further marginalize already disadvantaged communities.
SO WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD, WE ASK OURSELVES?
Many presentations at SPHR asserted that the human rights framework is not only a useful organizing approach but also, given its holistic nature, a tool for motivating politics of solidarity and cooperation amongst diverse constituencies. As organizer Thenjiwe McHarris of BlackBird reminded us:
“THE HEART OF BLACK POWER IS NOT BLACK SUFFERING. IT’S BLACK LOVE. IT’S BLACK CREATIVITY. IT’S BLACK RESISTANCE.”
INNOVATION AND APPLICATION OF TRANSFORMATIONAL ADVOCACY METHODS
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 3.1
Number of high quality applied and other research tools, guides, materials and reports
COMMUNITY-BASED PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
In partnership with the Miami Valley Immigration Coalition (MVIC) and other local organizations such as Dayton Public Schools and St. John’s ESOL program run by the Miami Valley Career Technology Center, faculty and students from the Human Rights Center began to collaborate with refugee and immigrant community members to research the experiences, needs, and aspirations of their families and communities in Dayton and the region. The project began in spring 2024 with outreach and open listening sessions at St. John’s School of English.
Community-based Participatory Action Research (CB-PAR) is a flexible and open-ended form of research practice that requires constant reassessment of goals and methods with the various stakeholders in the project—in this case, MVIC and various immigrant-led community organizations. As we proceed with the project, we undertake periodic cycles of reflection in order to critically re-think our approach and ensure that we are responsive to the realities unfolding before us. With a focus on inviting the participation of community members, we use participatory action research methodology to conduct open-invitation dialogues in multiple languages followed by other qualitative measures such as focus groups and interviews.
The goal of this project is twofold: involving student development alongside community change and transformation. From this experience, students will develop their skills and knowledge related both to PAR methods and to substantive questions of immigrant justice. The potential contributions of this project on the community side go far beyond a simple assessment report or list of issues. Part of the CB-PAR approach is close attention to the social consequences of the research process itself. By participating in democratic spaces of dialogue and knowledge-building together, participants will build bridges, achieve a greater sense of collective agency over the problems facing their community, gain experience and confidence with civic engagement, and have an opportunity to contribute to public knowledge and debate around rights, belonging, community development, and the migration experience.
BLACK AUDIT PROJECT
In April 2024, the HRC partnered with Prof. Justin Hansford (Howard University), an elected member of the UN Permanant Forum on People of African Descent, Howard University, and over thirty community leaders to produce a report on the state of Black Daytonians using the UN Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) as a framework. We utilized a mix of qualitative and quantitative data from news media, government and NGO reports, public testimony and story-telling from community members, and stakeholder meetings to gather SDG data that was disaggregated by race.
The data show that people of African descent living in Dayton consistently lag behind their white counterparts in nearly every SDG category, including evidence of stagnation and even regression in key areas. In recent years, there has been significant attention to and investment in making gains, but the problematic actions of private actors in particular, coupled with the persistent impacts of the Great Recession and COVID-19 pandemic, present ongoing barriers to transformative change. The Black Audit Project and report are being used by the HRC and community actors, such as Dayton United for Human Rights, to draw attention to these persistent injustices and to galvanize actions to address them.
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 3.2
Extent of application of innovative advocacy and applied research methods, tools, and insights.
THE GAMIFICATION OF ANTI-HUMAN TRAFFICKING ADVOCACY
About a decade ago, UD students came up with an innocative, interactive way to raise awareness about commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking. It was a life-sized board game called “the Game of the Life” (GotL) where participants acted as the game pieces in a simple game that taught about the experiences of victims and survivors of sex trafficking. It was a novel, but fairly crude attempt at in-person gamification of a social issue. Over the past few years, we have used the game for awareness-raising at campus and community events. But, it was showing wear and tear and seemed a bit outdated.
The Abolition Ohio team decided to update and improve the game and to add assessment measures to gauge its effectiveness as an advocacy tool. We redesigned and rebuilt the game, added new dice and carpet squares as the game tiles, updated all materials, and refined and expanded the rules. We tested the new and improved GotL at a series of on campus events with students and playtested it with human trafficking advocates and survivors from our partner organizations.
GotL is an evidence-based, survivor-informed, interactive, easy to use, in-person, life-sized board game that serves as a simulation of commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). This innovative game has proven to increase awareness of human trafficking and enhance empathy toward victims and survivors. Participants (individually or in small groups, men and women) are “game pieces” that move along a game board, playing as characters who are experiencing CSE. They are confronted with a range of situations and experiences most often faced by victims, and as they “play” they earn and lose resources on their journey. The scenarios presented in the game are based upon real world experiences of diverse victims and survivors. The game ends as players eventually “escape the life.” Then, they are debriefed on their experience and attend a brief Human Trafficking 101 presentation that includes an overview, indicators, vulnerabilities, simple response protocol, and ways to become further involved. A trigger warning and mental health resource information are provided, and experienced advocates are present during the simulation.
Pre and post test data from 174 participants show a 35% increase in likelihood of becoming involved in ending human trafficking and a 36% increase in awareness of vulnerabilities leading to someone being trafficked (changes in response on 5 point likert scale). Increasing awareness is an important part of any anti-human trafficking strategy and is a key, initial step in an effective primary prevention strategy. Furthermore, engaging with narrative stories, even fictional ones, can lead to the development of empathy and social cognition. Notably, GotL is accessible and easy to use for a diverse group of participants and has shown to be an effective tool to engage men in anti-human trafficking efforts. Engaging men has been identified as a critical strategy in preventing sexual violence.
