CART students hope advocacy project on Human Trafficking Prevention extends beyond the classroom

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Students at the Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART) have created a student project that is now expanding beyond the classroom.

A new billboard along Clovis Avenue is shining a light on student work and a problem in the Central Valley.

Juniors and seniors from across Fresno and Clovis are part of the Law Lab at CART.

In the fall, they started their work on an advocacy project focused on Human Trafficking Prevention.

"We realized that the Central Valley is one of the biggest human trafficking hot spots because of its location in between major cities like San Francisco and LA," Junior Carolina Ferreira said.

The group of students is made up of juniors Carolina Ferreira, Grace Escobar, Kelsey Lyles, Mary Jane Reyna and seniors Rachel Von Dohlen, Brooke Brown and Arturo Barela.

They partnered with Breaking the Chains and Shared Hope International.

The non-profits work to end human trafficking.

Shared Hope International provided students with prepared materials including a video about signs to look out for and prevention.

"As long as we have their logos on the papers, we can teach all of this for free. The only cost would be to print out the posters and the discussion questions," Kelsey Lyles said.

The students say they knew they were on the right track when they discovered Assembly Bill 1227 was signed into law requiring school districts to include human trafficking prevention education as part of health class.

"So It was passed in 2018, but we as a group had never received any of this education," Carolina said.

The students tested out how theirs would do in the real world by giving the lesson to Edison High School students.

After less than an hour of learning, 70% of students said they would feel confident explaining the signs and red flags to other students.

To supplement the materials, the group created flyers and their own billboard.

They presented all their work at the CART Showcase and won first place.

Then, their billboard was selected to go up in Clovis.

Now, they're working with Fresno and Clovis School Districts on ways to get these prevention lessons to every student.

"It starts small with one school, then a district and then, obviously, getting up to the state level," Carolina said.

The student's full-size billboard went up last month, and it will be up for at least the next few days.

You can check it out on Clovis Avenue between Olive & McKinley.

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