Announcing a new Meetup for Virginia - Stop Modern Slavery (VASMS)!

What: Speaker - Aashika Damodar, CEO & Founder of Survivors Connect

When: Wednesday, May 12,[masked]:00 PM

Where:
The Buchanon Apartment Complex
320 23rd Street
Arlington, VA 22227

Please come out and listen to Aashika Damodar speak about human trafficking, her experiences around the globe, and specifically about how she views technology's role in the human trafficking movement. There will be ample time for questions and answers, plus an opportunity to discuss the human trafficking issue in general among our members. Don't miss this open forum and opportunity to learn more about this issue.

Refreshments will be provided for free -- count on seeing some Fair Trade products there!

When: May 12th, 7-9pm
Where: The Buchanan, located at[masked]rd Street South, Arlington, VA, across the street from the Crystal City Metro, 23rd Street Exit. The Public Room has been reserved for this event.

She is the CEO and Founder of Survivors Connect. "Survivors Connect is an organization that works to build global advocacy & support networks of survivors and activists working to end modern-day slavery and human trafficking. We use innovative instruments such as social media and connective technologies to empower and enhance protection, prosecution and prevention efforts. Our mission is to empower the survivor and activist, advocate the movement and network to build a globalized response to modern-day slavery and human trafficking using the power of technology. We?re a global group of technology experts, researchers, activists, survivors and organizations working to develop a holistic understanding and response to modern-day slavery and human trafficking. Our team researches the latest tools in social networking, mobile and web technology and innovations in campaigns and uses them to strengthen anti-trafficking efforts, networks, build community resilience against slavery and improve our responses to combating slavery. With new, free and open source technologies emerging globally, we work together to find ways these can be used to reduce trafficking, support anti-trafficking efforts and empower survivors and activists to advocate."

Aashika Damodar is Founder and CEO of Survivors Connect and a graduate from the University of California, Berkeley in Anthropology and Political Science. Her research interests include international development and human rights. Her honors thesis on the politics of the ?trafficked victim? won the Ronald Frankenberg Prize for the best thesis in Critical Medical Anthropology, the Sylvia Forman Prize from the American Anthropological Association and was recently published in the 2010 Project Censored Journal. She was a Free The Slaves Zimmerman Fellow and Freedom Award winner in 2008.

A big thank you to Elizabeth Gihuly, with the DC Fair Trade Network Meetup Group for providing our space!

Learn more here:
http://www.meetup.com/virginiastopmodernslavery/calendar/13296856/