The Red Sand Project was created by Molly Gochman to help raise awareness of human trafficking. She created it in 2014 and in just 3 years, it has grown into a worldwide organization spanning over more than 70 countries. More than 155,000 Red Sand Project toolkits have been requested by people around the world.

Dominion came to participate because, “I found out about this Red Sand Project after going to a workshop about human trafficking that was sponsored by the world affairs council,l” said Ms. Relator, a history teacher who organized Dominion’s involvement in the Red Sand Project.

Students in one of Ms. Relator’s government classes, one of her ninth-grade history classes, one of Ms. Freeman’s art classes, and about 12 International delegates participated in the project.

“We reached out to Art Works for Freedom, the President Kay Chernush, and asked if we could do it. We read about the Red Sand Project and thought it would be a good collaboration for the two classes,” Freeman said.

The purpose of the project is “to take the bag of sand and dump it into the cracks to symbolically fill the cracks and then also it’s to remind you not to just walk over the cracks and forget about the human trafficking and raise awareness about the trafficking,” Freeman said.

One of the students who participated was Michaela Hansen, a student in Ms. Freeman’s graphic design class. The saying, “don’t step over the cracks” impacted Hansen by “making me think about people who are caught in trafficking and it was really sad. I was glad to be part of the project and hopefully raise awareness so that the people affected by this trafficking can have some help.”

“it’s not just a story about some girl from Pakistan being trafficked to London. There’s a lot of different men and women of all ages from all different countries who are being affected by this so I think it’s just about becoming more aware of it,” Relator said.

Students can participate more by going online and ordering their own Red Sand Projects packets and helping to raise awareness about human trafficking which exists everywhere. They can also retweet any tweets on Ms. Relator’s page or on friends’ pages that participated in the project.

The artists from Art Works for Freedom is located out of Washington D.C. and they are having an event next fall to help raise awareness about human trafficking and students are welcome to attend.

Art Works for Freedom Website: http://artworksforfreedom.org

Red Sand Project Website: https://redsandproject.org