Summary by Alessio Atria
The fight against human trafficking, being spearheaded by DELL Technologies’ Interfaith ERG, is fight that touches everyone because human traffickers target the vulnerable, regardless of faith, creed, orientation, ability or any other identity. The candid discussion at the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation’s 2022 Dare to Overcome shows the progress Dell Technologies’ “Initiative for Freedom” has made in effectively combatting human trafficking, inspiring other companies at the conference to start a similar initiative.
The candid discussion focusing on the origins of Dell Technologies’ Initiative for Freedom was led by Alicia Malboef, the Chief of Staff of Enterprise Architecture at Dell Technologies and Glenda Cameron, the Escalation Manager at Dell Technologies. Shawn Trotter, Vice President of the North America Commercial Channel for Dell Technologies, Josh Gamboa, the Channel Sales Senior Consultant of Dell Technologies, and Steve Helms, the Alliances Account Executive for Dell Technologies also led this discussion. It occurred during the opening plenary of Dare to Overcome, the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation’s annual faith@work conference, May 23-25, 2022.
This initiative focused on spreading awareness of human trafficking in order to combat it. The Initiative did so by equipping Dell employees and helping them understand the risk, identify the risk, and reduce the risk of it ever happening again.
They aligned with the NGO A21 because their goal is to end slavery everywhere forever.
The Initiative is led by Dell’s Interfaith employee resource group (ERG). They have multi-faith events several times a year around loving one’s neighbor, community involvement, and ways to give back to others. They feel it is important to show that if people from different faiths can come together for a common cause, then so can everyone else.
The Dell employees starting the Initiative for Freedom knew that because they were new and small, their voice was also small. The Initiative’s leaders talked to friends in different employee resource groups and asked them to join the Initiative as they should all be one voice.
A21 helped out by sharing videos and talking about the fact that human trafficking is happening closer than people think. Whenever A21 shows up to the Initiative for Freedom’s events and shares their story and their collateral about human trafficking, Dell’s Interfaith ERG reports that it motivates everyone wants to join the fight.
By working with the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation at Dare to Overcome, the Initiative amplified their message about combatting human trafficking, including building connections with other companies also interested in getting involved, such as the Ford Motor Company.
Employee resource groups usually each have one specific group of people as members, but this initiative included everybody from across all Dell’s ERGs. Pan-employee resource groups are a big deal for those in the faith community as they want to be light and want people to see the love they are bringing to the table.
Observations:
- — The A21 videos showing how human trafficking is happening everywhere were so emotionally impactful that Dell technologies employees teared up as they watched them.
- — One does not need to be an expert on human trafficking in order to successfully fight against it, especially since, thanks to social media, warning people online that human trafficking can happen anywhere keeps thousands of people informed.