We collaborated with the Universities of Liverpool and Nottingham to establish preventative slavery measures in three countries that are on the UN’s poverty risk register: Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone.
Our focus was Sierra Leone, and specifically Hull’s twin city Freetown, where we worked with well-established links cultivated from our previous work. Initially we scoped what might be possible – discussing what was needed and what might work with those who were living and working on the ground.
New and unique arts initiatives were then created and established in-country. Each of these in some way demonstrated the ways that somebody could unwittingly fall into slavery. They varied from smaller to larger scale projects and targeted different age ranges, and included performances to storytelling to exhibitions.
We worked with pupils and schools to develop their own projects on a number of heritage sites and created an education programme centering on child trafficking for schools and cultural partners.