You can help end the commercial sexual exploitation of children by spreading the word about the documentary “What I Have Been Through is Who I Am” and hosting a screening of it in your area. There are a few ways to do this, and we have listed some suggestions below.
Step One: Gather Information on the Issue
Request a DVD of the Documentary by e-mailing Max Walker (mwalker@ecpatusa.org).
Watch the Documentary and all the extended features, writing down any questions you have.
See if you can find any answers on our website or through a search engine.
E-mail any remaining questions to Max Walker, he’ll try to answer as much as he can.
Step Two: Compile a Guest List
Who do you know specifically that would be interested in coming? See if they can help recruit other people they know to come to the screening.
Will the screening be open to the public? If so, how will you publicize it?
Step Three: Find a Venue
If you’re only inviting specific people and their friends, you should have a good idea of how many people to expect. You may be able to accommodate all of them in your home. If you’re reaching out to the general public, or want to reach out to more friends and family than your home can seat comfortably, you’ll need a public venue.
Check with your local public library, community center, or house of worship. Many of them have meeting rooms that can easily facilitate 100 people for watching a movie, make sure they can seat as many people as you intend to invite. See what dates they have available and make sure they know that its for a human rights cause, those institutions that normally charge a fee may be willing to waive it for you. If they won’t waive the fee, make sure you can afford it before proceeding.
Make sure the venue can play/project the DVD, and has enough seating for the crowd you intend to invite.
Step Four: Send Out Invitations
You can just send out one e-mail to all of your friends and family to invite them. You could also utilize a social networking site like facebook, or use one of the many e-vite services. The great part about using an e-vite service is that they can easily keep track of who’s RSVPed. If you’re planning to open it up to the public, you should print up flyers with all the information about the screening. Give some to the venue to have available to other patrons prior to the screening date, and see if local businesses would be willing to carry the flyer in their stores. Some businesses have a peg board for posting such notices. You should also see about registering the event with your local municipality, they can put it on their community calendar and, with enough notice, even include it in a regular mailing they send out to all citizens of the community.
If you’re really gung-ho, you can pass out flyers by hand by yourself or with a few friends. Make sure you know your municipality’s laws regarding such an undertaking, and apply for all necessary permits before you start handing out flyers.
Step Five: Prepare the Venue
Depending on the time of time of day and week of your screening and the crowd you invited, you may want to offer refreshments. It’s a short video, about twenty five minutes long, but people may be expecting at least some water, soda, or party mix. If you intend to serve refreshments, say so on the flyer and/or invitation. If you can’t serve refreshments, its not a requirement, so don’t feel bad about it.
Check with the venue the day before the event to make sure they know your screening is tomorrow, there’s numerous problems that could have happened between your reservation and the actual date, so make everything’s good to go. If you have good reason to believe more or less people will arrive then you originally stated, let them know.
On the day of the event arrive at the venue an hour early and make sure that there’s adequate seating. If you’re serving refreshments set them up now.
Once the appointed time arrives, step to the front of the venue and thank everyone for coming. Explain how you found out about the issue and the documentary, and why you feel it’s important that they watch it and learn about CSEC as well. When you finish, tell them to stay after the video is over to discuss the video.
Step Six: Discussion or Q&A
If you have a small crowd of people, rearrange the seating to a circle if need be and have a discussion, sharing thoughts and feelings on the documentary as well as anything the audience knew about the issue before hand.
If you have a large crowd of people, stand at the front of the venue and offer to answer any questions they may have. Explain that you are just a lay person, not involved in the making of the film or ECPAT-USA, but you have done research and will answer their questions as best they can.
If you are screening the film in the New York City area, e-mail the date and venue to Max Walker. We may be able to arrange a speaker from ECPAT-USA to answer questions from the audience.
Step Seven: Start a Movement
It’s possible that in preparing for the screening you already cultivated a group of friends dedicated to the issue, but you should definitely see if anyone else who attended the screening is willing to join you. You can plan other events, learn more about the issue, or try to tackle the problem head-on through advocacy and activism. Based on the collective skills and time commitments of the individuals in your group, you may be able to make an even greater difference than individually thought possible.
Click here to find out more about what you can do to spread the word