Southwark Against Modern Slavery (SAMS) is committed to raising awareness of modern slavery in local areas by helping people recognise the signs of modern slavery and know how they can report anything of concern that they see.
Talks
We are very happy to come and talk to groups about modern slavery. These sessions can be organised to fit the time that you have available and can be delivered at a location that suits you. We can also talk to groups online.
Hidden Voices Courses
If you want to learn more and find out how you can take simple actions to reduce the incidence of modern slavery in your community then you could consider asking us to run a Hidden Voices course. This was created by Mosaic Creative for The Clewer Initiative.
Some people might ask, what can communities do about modern slavery? The truth is local people are key to solving this puzzle. For starters, they can spot the signs of modern slavery and help the police to find victims. They can prevent vulnerable people they work with, like the homeless, from being trafficked or exploited. And they can support the survivors of modern slavery, and help them to overcome the trauma they have experienced.
Hidden Voices is delivered as four sessions:
- Setting the scene for action
- Detection
- Prevention
- Action planning.
All of the sessions include practical tools and activities to help churches work alongside their community. There are also case studies that help people to see how they might already be coming across modern slavery without knowing it. We hope that groups who do the Hidden Voices resource will feel inspired and ready to start a project of their own by the end. They might not have all the answers, but they will certainly know where to start.
Action Groups
Following on from Hidden Voices courses, we encourage people to set up a local action group, taking steps that they feel capable of achieving. This might be to do more to raise awareness in their community, raise money for a charity that is working in the modern slavery field, to look for ways that local projects can be made more ‘slavery proof’ or start a new project in their community to support and protect the vulnerable.
Places To Find More Information
Many organisations are working tirelessly to raise awareness of and reduce the incidence of modern slavery. Some work just in the UK and others across the world. Below are some of the organisations that we at SAMS have either worked in close partnership with or found helpful in our work towards our shared goals.
The Clewer Initiative is the national work of the Church of England to combat modern slavery.
Their key premise is to reduce the prevalence of modern slavery in our communities. Based on their belief that the tools to tackle modern slavery lie within communities, they work with local churches to build resilience and support vulnerable groups. They also work at a national and international level through a range of partnerships and collaborations raising awareness and developing practical tools and resources for use by churches, communities, partners and the public.
https://theclewerinitiative.org/
Unseen is a UK charity with its head office in Bristol. They provide safehouses and support in the community for survivors of trafficking and modern slavery. They also run the UK Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline and work with individuals, communities, businesses, governments, other charities and statutory agencies to stamp out slavery for good.
The Human Trafficking Foundation grew out of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery with three objectives:
- To shape policy and legislation by equipping parliamentarians and policy makers, lead government departments, local authorities, police and statutory agencies to better understand the extent and nature of human trafficking, and the need to adjust rapidly to changing trends;
- To provide a sustained and collective voice amongst NGOs, civil society, and voluntary organisations fighting modern day slavery so that short-comings in current policy can be identified and addressed, and how that can best be tackled; and
- Identifying opportunities for new and different types of intervention within the rapidly evolving landscape of human trafficking
https://www.humantraffickingfoundation.org/
The Salvation Army provides specialist support to protect and care for all adult survivors of modern slavery in England and Wales through a government contract which was first awarded in 2011.
https://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/modern-slavery
Their Voice is an organisation founded on care and compassion. They are dedicated to aiding survivors of human trafficking and modern slavery in the UK, facilitating their journey towards healing and the reconstruction of their lives.
Central to their ethos is the profound belief in the fundamental dignity and value of every person they serve. Through their services, they aim to provide essential practical resources that may not be accessible through other avenues, ensuring that each individual’s needs are met.
https://theirvoicemodernslavery.org.uk/
Justice and Care aims to end modern slavery by freeing the exploited, dismantling the criminal networks responsible, and changing the policies that allow it to thrive. They work to achieve this by joining forces to end modern slavery – working with others to bring freedom for individuals and societies.
Southwark Against Modern Slavery 