There are an estimated 20 to 65 million citizens in India trafficked into forced labor, according to the 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report. Of these, millions of women and children are victims of sex trafficking. This issue continues due to rises in increased mobility and growth in industries that use forced labor. Many of the victims are children—and children, in any case, are the future of any society.
In addressing this problem, I’m very fortunate to be traveling to India this summer as a part of a larger ongoing project, beyondABC, with Kate Wallace and Keiji Kimura. As a previous ICI Fellow, Kate traveled to India and researched youth trafficking and exploitation. Moving forward with Kate’s research we are exploring ways to educate at-risk youth about trafficking and exploitation through a fun and interactive approach. As a collaboration, we are looking at this through different lenses within our field of expertise to address the issue.
Realizing that the issues may be on the systemic level, we still want to provide education and equip youth with tools and knowledge about their situation to prevent them from being susceptible to trafficking and exploitation. Through small change and aspiring youth to dream about their future is my goal. As the future of their society, they are key to the success to their lives.
We are all dreamers, shaping and shifting our very world through imagination and creativity. Tackling everyday problems to much larger issues, we use design in different ways to gain insight, discover new ways of thinking and seeing, and to problem solve. It is not to say that design is the answer to our problems, but it is another way to look at the world.
To design is to dream.