John Berger's blog

Preventing Recidivism in Human Trafficking

Submitted by John Berger on Thu, 10/13/2011 - 14:40

There is a tall wall, topped with barbed wire at one the best shelters in Calcutta for survivors of human trafficking.   Many visitors have asked why they need to keep the survivors behind a wall.  Show up at night and you will see why.  Human traffickers gather outside the wall, tossing notes and even cell phones over to the young women.   

 

Creativity – Finding Shelter in Hell

Submitted by John Berger on Thu, 02/03/2011 - 22:02

When selecting our NGO partners, one of the best signs of the quality of an organization is how little money they on trying to look impressive, and how they creatively solve problems with limited funds. I am in Kolkata India, and we are spending a lot of time with our partner Women’s Interlink Foundation. Women’s Interlink runs over 70 programs in Kolkata including red light district drop in shelters, long term shelter schools, and health and nutrition programs. In total they serve 4000 survivors and red light and high risk children . They are also our partners in our Kolkata jewelry manufacturing programs.

Reflections on my upcoming trip, and the pros and cons of Made By Survivors' growth

Submitted by John Berger on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 12:00

 

I leave in a few days to join one of our volunteer trips that Sarah and Paul are leading in Kolkata. Reflecting on past trips, I recently realized this is the first group trip I have gone on in 4 years. I frequently visit our programs, but as we grew we needed to start specializing and focusing on our areas of strength. As the business guy, I have been doing the business trips so I can focus more on meeting partners, potential partners, program managers and our staff, and developing strategy.  If it was not for the fact that there is team doing a documentary on us I would not be going, but the trip has been a good catalyst for me to reflect on how we had to change with growth and some of the things I have probably missed along the way.

 

How Can We Fight Slavery if We Can't Measure the Problem?

Submitted by John Berger on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 15:51

Recently, the US Government's Department of Health and Human Services released a survey of all the research on human trafficking, sex trafficking, and slavery in The United States. It’s a great report and you can read it here. The inescapable conclusion from the report is that there is no consistent and reliable body of research about slavery in the US. We don’t know how many slaves are here, how many are trafficked each year, or where to find them.

Using Slumdog Millionaire to Fight Slavery and Human Trafficking

Submitted by John Berger on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 11:43

I've got to be one of the last people to see Slumdog Millionaire, having only gone to see it this past week. Pretty much everyone I know has seen it, and as you might expect, all my friends know the work we do in human trafficking. I also read almost any blog post or news story that Google can find on trafficking or slavery, so I have a pretty good sense of what is going on. So while I knew that the movie had some trafficking it it, I was really surprised how strongly it was featured in the movie.

More on Social Enterprise

Submitted by John Berger on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 09:30

An article in the NYT got me thinking about Social Enterprise again. It’s a good article, but further reinforces the confusion about what the term means, and misses one of the single most important factors we all need to know about social enterprises, a factor I wish I knew about before I learned it the hard way.

Human Trafficking Awareness Day - who should we be targeting to become abolitionists?

Submitted by John Berger on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 09:30

Its national Human Trafficking Awareness day and a quick google search shows that there are dozens of events around the country. As shown in my previous blog, awareness of slavery is low compared to other causes so I very much hope this national day makes an impact.

If not many people care about slavery, what do we know about those who do care and how can we use that knowledge to expand awareness? There is not a lot of data that can help, but this is the bet we got. The chart below is the last three months of data from YouTube from our most viewed video

 

Google Trends - Measuring Social Impact and the Abolition Movement

Submitted by John Berger on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 00:20

With the Jan 11 Human trafficking Awareness Day fast approaching, I thought it might be useful to address the question "what is the awareness level of human trafficking/slavery and how has it been changing". How has the abolition movement been doing? I am aware of no decent surveys that measure, let alone show trends in slavery awareness so I have to look to other tools to try to get a sense on how things are going. Antidotal observations include : there are certainly a lot more non-profits dedicated to abolition, there are lot more books available, and there has been a lot more press. But what about the public? What does the public know and do they care about slavery?

Social Enterprise – what does it mean?

Submitted by John Berger on Wed, 01/07/2009 - 14:22

I’m blogging about this because I know I will be frequently using the terms ‘social enterprise’ or 'social entrepreneur' in my blogs and I wanted to be able to define what I am talking about. As someone coming out of the business/financial world I find it a bit strange that I even have to do this, but these terms have been defined and used in so many different ways in the nonprofit world they are almost in danger of losing meaning.

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