[Press] Second Life Educates About Trafficking
From a teen member of Second Life, comes a first person report after experiencing the Camp GK maze on sexual trafficking of children. The writer. Lee Stone, first tells about his experience in the maze and then analyzes it from the perspective of Second Life as an educational environment.
In it Lee writes:
Many people see second life as a place to chat and earn money. As a member of the teen grid, this is more evident, however, recently over at Global Kids island they've been creating some awareness about Child Sex Trafficking.
Throughout the summer, one of the islands in Teen Grid (Global Kids Island) is running a summer camp. The event was organised by those participating on the summer camp, passing on what they've learnt to their friends and other kids on Second Life.
Throughout the Camp Global Kids summer program, we explored a variety of global issues. Child Sex Trafficking is a particularly horrific issue that has struck us as profoundly worrisome, so we chose to take action here in the Teen Grid. This is why we're here - to inform YOU about Child Sex Trafficking and how you can help end this global crisis.
The event was centred a maze which as you went round gave you fact cards about different types of slavery such as human trafficking. The aim of this was to educate the users of second life. As each person completed the maze they were asked a quiz question, which if they got right were given a free item, generally containing information such as stop Slavery, or a dove of peace.
At the end second life members were also given the chance to donate some of their Linden dollars. The money raised through this is going to the Polaris Project, an organization that works to end Child Trafficking and modern day slavery. If requested, people could also put donation boxes in their own shops to help raise money.
People were also taking screenshots of their avatars, which would be used in a real life campaign, mixed in with photos of people wearing shirt and holding signs that say 'Slavery Still Exists'.
A Different Route of Education
The thing I found interesting about this was how, by trying to address teenagers from a route which many are more comfortable in, and spend quite a bit of time in, they're also managing to educate them, quite willingly in most places. As I went round the maze I saw many people stopping at each of the case studies and fact cards and reading them.
Could we be seeing maths or English taught in small classes in a similar way? An extra class in an environment the pupil is more comfortable in may be beneficial. Just chatting to others within the environment will help improve their English and perhaps confidence in talking to other people.
Also evident throughout second life are members educating themselves or each other. For example, a lot of items are created by the members, who have had to learn how to build them, then learn programming for more interactive elements. Many of the kids on Teen grid didn't know how to programme when they first arrived, however, through tutorials and people willing to help each other, they have learnt enough to complete items they are building, or have learnt where to go to find out more so they can continue to educate themselves.
Raising money was also another part of the event that seemed to be working quite well. It can often be hard to get teenagers to donate money, however, within the virtual world they were a lot more willing. The one donation box had raised about L$6500 within a few hours, which is about $22. Although it does not seem that much, If the same people had passed a donation box in the street for the same cause, would so much have been donated?
We've already seen Second Life plan live virtual gigs and link ups with events held by Radio 1. How long will it be until we start seeing some more charity fund raisers on there, or more events like those we attend in real life.
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