Articles Tagged ‘spanish’

According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) an estimated 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States each year. Victims are often lured into trafficking networks through false promises of good working conditions and high pay as domestic workers, factory and farm workers, nannies, waitresses, sales clerks, or models. Once in this country, many suffer extreme physical and mental abuse, including rape, sexual exploitation, torture, beatings, starvation, death threats, and threats to family members. It is believed that most victims who are trafficked are isolated and remain undetected by the public because 1) the strategies used by the perpetrators isolate victims and prevent them from coming forward, and 2) the public and the victim service providers have only recently become aware of this issue and may not be familiar with how to recognize or respond to trafficking victims.

To help stem human trafficking in the US, the Self Reliance Foundation is working with its media partner Hispanic Communications Network to design a Spanish-language public awareness campaign with support from the US Department of Justice – Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).

This high-impact multimedia campaign is launching in early November 2009. The campaign will pilot in the Washington, DC metro area. Produced in Spanish, this effort will support local human trafficking programs and services, and also help to increase detection and reporting of cases of human trafficking among the local Spanish-speaking population.

To complement the media campaign, SRF will collaborate with the Hispanic-serving community and faith-based partners to disseminate the campaign’s public education materials, and implement interpersonal grassroots outreach efforts to engage “Good Samaritan” members of the greater Hispanic community in the campaign. Our strategy two-pronged strategy is designed to increase the number of community members who understand how to identify human trafficking victims, are aware of the purpose and services of the local service providers, and ultimately are willing to work with the these groups to identify and also rescue and assist human trafficking victims.

To learn more about human trafficking please visit the US Department of Justice’s Online Description.

ConCienciaNews.com is a project designed by SRF, developed and implemented in collaboration with Hispanic Communications Network (HCN), and financed by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

ConCiencia News is the first Spanish-language news service in the United States focused exclusively on health, science and environmental news.  SRF distributes news via ConCiencia free of cost to a diverse array of Hispanic media including 100+ newspapers and magazines, top Hispanic web portals, and almost 150 Spanish-language radio stations.  Each news story features original content developed by SRF journalists, and Hispanic reasearchers are often features to serve as role models for the public.

Why ConCiencia News Service?

The reduction of staff and consolidation of the media has left few resources for local Spanish-language media to offer scientific information to their Latino audiences.  Current studies reveal that Latinos score well below average in math and science in public schools, and are poorly represented in professions related to science and engineering.  To help address these challenges, SRF provides Hispanic media with a continuous source of high-quality scientific news adapted to the needs and interests of the Hispanic community.  This service increases the capacity of Spanish-language news agencies to offer better scientific content.

The market for Spanish-language news media in the United States is broad and growing.  Currently there are more than 1,500 Spanish-language newspapers printed in the U.S. with a circulation of more than 42 million people, and 1,000 Spanish-language radio stations on the air around the country reaching millions of listeners each day.  In addition the Hispanic online presence is growing steadily.

ConCiencia News is supported by an Advisory Committee comprised of experts in the science field and members of the National Association for Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).

Click here to download a brochure about the ConCiencia News service.