By Plamena Solakova, YES 2009- 2010 Bulgaria, hosted by PAX in Richland, WA 

On Friday, December 18, 2015, I organised a training course at Atanas Burov High School in Silistra, Bulgaria, on the dangers of human trafficking. The training lasted for two hours and aimed to raise awareness on the issue, which is generally not discussed in public in the city. The training was accompanied by a reception with the 53 participating high school students and special guests from the Border Police, the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime, the Bulgarian Red Cross, and Ekaterina Karavelova, a women's charity for victims of violence, women’s issues, and local and national media. An extensive social media campaign is also currently still running locally and nationally. SilisTRAffic (which comes from Silistra + traffic = SilisTRAffic) is a project generously funded by the U.S. Department of State through American Councils for International Education. I applied for the funds as a result of my participation in the YES Alumni Transformational Leadership Training workshop in 2015 where I attended an in-person training in Tirana, Albania and several online sessions.   

There has been an increasing focus on people being trafficked from Silistra and all of Bulgaria to Western Europe ever since Bulgaria’s joined the European Union in 2007. The sad reality is that there are more than 500,000 trafficked people in European Union countries, according to estimates by the International Labour Organisation. The training course with 53 high school juniors and seniors and special guests discussed the very nature of human trafficking, the estimated profits of this activity, categories of countries (source, transit and destination states), typical profiles of a trafficker and a victim, ways to protect oneself, and institutions to contact in times of need.

A questionnaire completed by students before the training had shocking results; although Bulgaria ranks in the top five European Union countries with the most victims of human trafficking, 40% of the students thought Bulgaria was not affected by trafficking. Furthermore, 48% of the students had never discussed trafficking before.

The training taught the students common ways to recruit victims, typical ages and genders of victims, and Bulgaria's role in trafficking routes. After that, a Border Police representative shared a real-life story of a trafficked girl, and the director of the women’s charity further emphasized the importance of reintegration of trafficking victims back into society.

My main partner in the project was Mrs. Milusheva, the High School's principal. I was also assisted by Rossy Ivanova, a business student who ran the social media campaign prior to and after the event, and Plamena’s mother, Galina Daskalova, who helped her with budgeting and media relations. Deborah Bicknell was also highly supportive of the project idea and proposal writing in her role as my coach in the TLT training in Albania this summer and afterwards.

Pictures from the event and links for articles in the local and national media describing the training and the project overall can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/SilisTRAffic.  

Thanks to the event on December 18 and the social media campaign that provoked social discussions in Silistra on this taboo subject, the Red Cross promised to run further projects on this issue. In addition to that, three of the student participants volunteered to run the training again next year for their peers. A final video on the project will also be published on YouTube in the upcoming weeks to maintain the project's momentum, spread the word, and inspire future projects on the issue.

Thank you, U.S. Department of State, American Councils and the YES program for this wonderful opportunity!