Dr. Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak talk about a great way to promote human trafficking awareness during basketball’s March Madness. Join in on the #SlamDemand hashtag!

How to get 3 points for #SlamDemand

The #SlamDemand Toolkit

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Transcript

Dave: [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 167, A Three-Pointer to #SlamDemand.

Production Credits: [00:00:08] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave: [00:00:28] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: [00:00:34] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: [00:00:36] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. And scoring a three-pointer now and then, right Sandie.

Sandie: [00:00:47] That’s right. You know of all of the sports, basketball was always a little more assessable for me as a very vertically challenged person. I know that sounds a little counterintuitive, but I was a good guard in middle school because people tripped over me.

Dave: [00:01:08] Used it to your advantage.

Sandie: [00:01:09] Yeah. There you go. And then people didn’t expect me to actually shoot, but I could do a decent layup. So, I like watching basketball, it moves fast, the games are always really energetic, and I just love basketball. So, when the anti-trafficking world started using sports as a platform for increasing awareness about human trafficking like Nicosia did #tackledemand during the Super Bowl. So, when a lot of people are focused on a sport, there’s a brand-new audience for us to start talking to about human trafficking. And we’ve got to spread and broaden our reach. And during baseball season Deidre Pujols launched #strikeoutslavery in 2016. So, this year at Vanguard University our Live to Free students, launched #slamdemand at a doubleheader, I don’t know if they say that in basketball, but two games in one night, and at our Vanguard gym. And it was so much fun. And our students were posting on social media. Our athletes were doing their best jump shots to slam dunk, and the focus was on all forms of human trafficking. So, I thought, let’s equip our community with the toolkit we put together for that event at Vanguard. March Madness is coming up. Do you know what that is?

Dave: [00:02:52] I do know what March Madness.

Sandie: [00:02:53] Well tell us about it.

Dave: [00:02:55] The NCAA tournament that happens every year for college basketball, it’s you know they get down to Sweet 16, and the Elite 8, and the Final Four, and eventually there’s a national championship. I don’t know what city it is in this year.

Sandie: [00:03:08] It’s in San Antonio this year.

Dave: [00:03:10] Oh good. So yeah, it’s quite the event and especially the couple days with the first and second rounds are going on, so many people across the country are watching it and tuning into it. So, it really seems like a logical place, Sandie, to come alongside and to raise awareness. And that actually brings up a point as we’re of course really big on prevention. And I know you say a lot about we need to move beyond just awareness but in this case a slightly different focus, right?

Sandie: [00:03:35] Yeah, I’m actually kind of adjusting my perceptions on this because sometimes awareness is prevention. It’s like if there has been a flood or something, they’ll put signs up, “water is contaminated, don’t drink from here.” Well, that’s preventing people from getting some really awful health issues. But in an area of fighting human trafficking where we haven’t really reached a population. Sports fans they are a cross-section of our community across our nation. And for these few days every year, everybody’s tuned in that is a fan of that particular sport. And so, we want that to happen during March Madness. And we want to equip you, as a sports fan, to spread this awareness to your community. And we looked at this a little bit from a basketball rules point of view. Like, when I was growing up, so this kind of tells you how old I am. You could only score two points with a basket.

Dave: [00:04:40] Really?

Sandie: [00:04:43] See Dave, for you what was the top score?

Dave: [00:04:46] Of my top score?

Sandie: [00:04:47] Yeah. Did you ever get a three-pointer?

Dave: [00:04:50] Oh, I’m sure I did when I was standing by myself after attempting it seven times at a gym. No one else around. But I don’t think ever in a basketball game.

Sandie: [00:04:58] Well I went online to look at how did that come into being, because I didn’t get to do that. And so, I found out that it’s kind of a very measured arc and it’s like 22 feet away from the basket, and so you get three points instead of only two because the level of expertise is higher. Right? So, my theory in using this model is that you, as a listener, will improve your expertise and improve your score on fighting human trafficking during March Madness by using our little tool kit as a way to just bring it up and increase people’s awareness and understanding of how they might be contributing to demand. And that is the key to reduce human trafficking, we have to reduce demand. And we’ve talked about that on this show so many times and it is an important aspect.

Dave: [00:06:02] So that’s what the three-pointers are. And you mentioned you didn’t get to do a three-pointer, why was that?

Sandie: [00:06:07] Because it didn’t exist when I was a student. We only had two points in 1979.

Dave: