Not For Sale

2.22.07 – 3.01.07

Alexis:
Free to Play has already gained a lot of interest around campus and at other schools, so now our challenge is to act on it and get others too as well.  This week the USF Women’s Soccer team has recently joined the Free to Play campaign.  We made a challenge video with different challenges for different positions. Our next step is going to be to get the entire Athletic Department to adopt Free to Play.  This means that each team would create their own challenge, designate one game or meet to be a FTP event, wear FTP t-shirts during warm-up, and spread awareness of the issue by hanging a banner or putting it up on their website. These are just some ideas that we have come up with but whoever is looking to get involved is encouraged to think of some new ideas as well. We can get creative with this campaign and that is what is going to make it successful. Emily:
In the New York Times yesterday there was an article about a video game created by the College Republican National Committee called: “Catch the Illegal Immigrant”.  The ultimate goal of the game is to capture an illegal immigrant in order to obtain a small sum of money, $ 200 dollars to be exact. How offensive! This country’s conservative view on immigration really needs to change. When will people realize that the reason why people are coming here in the first place to find jobs is because they can’t find any in their own countries? They are desperate, and that is how some people become trafficked. They see an opportunity to make more money than they could ever imagine working in their home countries and make contracts with people who are supposed to help them find jobs elsewhere. When they finally are exposed to the reality of what is expected of them it is too late because often the contractors will take away their passports and charge them for their own escape. We need to not only help expose the people who are doing this to other human beings; we need to actually help to end the demand for this kind of work where people are enslaved. We have to think about where the demand is coming from, and realize that it might be coming from us as well. New York Times Article Website: “Game With No Winner” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/opinion/27tue2.html  

Angelica:
As the filmer/photographer, I’ve spent most of this week trying to figure out the quality of the resources available to us in order to document the process. I’m getting more and more familiar with the AV staff, and have scheduled a technician to come in and teach the main filmers how to use the equipment.

I’m also trying to establish connections with film teachers here on campus and am currently trying to get in touch with the documentary teacher in order to get some tips to carry with me and the filming crew. After discussing the project with my film teacher, he emphasized the importance of audio, which is an aspect I hadn’t given much thought to. I hope to pick up on more important factors that go into documentary film making as the project goes on.

Devon Davey:
This week I have been following up with the work that I was doing last week. I am still making contacts to obtain all of the information that I can get on business licenses. I have also been making contacts with battered women’s shelters. I have obtained some contact information for people who have played important roles in precious police busts (re:human trafficking).  Laura:
These first few weeks have been quite hectic!  I knew it would be difficult to lay the groundwork for this movement and to design a process to map human trafficking in

San Francisco, but every step seems to be arduous and more time consuming than I planned!  I have finally finished creating a few documents which I think will help make the process go much smoother.   I made the final edits to the master contact list with everyone’s emails, phone numbers, etc.  I’ve gathered the definitions of everyone’s roles with the specific assignments, descriptions, and some starting points which will help clarify and define our expectations of ourselves and one another, and serve as a great reference point throughout the semester.   Furthermore, I created an Excel spreadsheet of the set times everyone in the program/course is unavailable for the semester (because of class or work, etc) so I can use it as a reference when working out interview dates with potential contacts.   This way I can immediately see the times that will not work for sure because the interviewers or film crew or very few people are available to perform the interview.   Finally, I created an Excel spreadsheet about our interview contacts.  This way, I can keep track of who I’ve contacted, at what point they are in the process (I developed a 6 step process, step 1 being I’ve sent them an initial contact, step 2 being we’re negotiating general availability, etc) as well as a bit of their background info and all the necessary contact information all in one place.   Whew!