The Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) and the Deborah L. Coffin Women’s Center at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) hosted a viewing of the documentary “A Path Appears” on January 25 in the Women’s Center to raise awareness of human trafficking. The event began at 6:30 p.m. with a screening of “A Path Appears,” a documentary focusing on the issue of human trafficking in the United States. After the film, a discussion was held about the movie and what can be done about this issue. There are 300,000 children at risk of being trafficked in the United States.
This film tells the stories of women who have suffered from this issue and how people can reach out and help. Elle Tibbitts, the CCEL service learning program coordinator, helped organize this event. “I was hoping by showing this documentary we could get people talking,” said Tibbitts. “If no one’s talking about it or looking at the problem, there is no pressure to start solving things”.
A Path Appears was shown as a part of human trafficking awareness month to bring attention to the extent of human trafficking in the United States. By showing this film, CCEL and the Women’s Center hopes that more people recognize the issue and work to fight it.
The students in attendance expressed concern for what they could do as individuals and how the university can continue moving forward to raise awareness and cause change in their local and national community. Problem solving and event planning began occurring. “It’s a grassroots movement,” said Tibbitts. “If people are talking about it on campus and people are talking about it in their towns, if it’s being talked about on social media, mainstream media is going to pick up on that. It’s going to become a national conversation.”
