EMPOWERING SURVIVORS TO BE CHANGEMAKERS

Featuring Sarah Symons

Founder & Executive Director, Her Future Coalition

May 2024

Sarah Symons is passionate about many things, but one of her primary passions is to empower survivors of human trafficking to be the changemakers in their families and throughout their communities. 

Sarah and her husband John Berger founded Her Future Coalition in 2005. Sarah had learned that people all over the world were standing up slavery, even putting their lives on the line to fight it, and felt compelled to find a way to help. At the time, Sarah was writing and recording music for TV. In 2002 a song she had written was used as the title song in a film that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. While Sarah was there, she saw a documentary about child sex trafficking between Nepal and India. She contacted one of the organizations featured in the film and was invited to visit their shelter in Kathmandu. 

While at the shelter, she got the idea to sell products made by survivors as a way to help them earn an income and also raise awareness of human trafficking.  Her Future Coalition was birthed from this idea and has continued to grow throughout the years. 

As an organization, Her Future Coalition not only sells wares created by survivors of human trafficking but have added education, shelter, and mental health programs for survivors in India, Nepal, Cambodia, and Thailand.  Sarah states that the most exciting part of her job is seeing survivors who joined the program as young girls managing the programs and working to train and mentor newly rescued girls. 

In addition to her work as founder and president of Her Future Coalition, Sarah is an author and speaker, advocating for the women and girls she serves through both opportunities. She has authored two books, This is No Ordinary Joy, a memoir, and Standing in the Way, another memoir co-authored with a survivor of human trafficking. Sarah has also been featured on a TEDTalk for her work to end human trafficking through Her Future Coalition. 

G.L.O.B.A.L. Justice is pleased to partner with Sarah Symons and her work at Her Future Coalition. We have collaborated together on various projects, including the GLBL MRKT where we shared survivor made gifts hand crafted by women and girls that Her Future Coalition serves.  Shop these gifts + justice at www.globaljusticeonline.org/glbl-mrkt

PROMOTING FREEDOM, HUMAN RIGHTS, & DIGNITY FOR NORTH KOREAN PEOPLE

Featuring Suzanne Scholte

Chair, North Korea Freedom Coalition; President Defense Forum Foundation; 

Vice-Chair, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

May 2024

An estimated 3 million North Koreans have perished under North Korea’s dictatorship  since the mid -1990s. Families continue to starve and the government detains, tortures, and executes its citizens, including children, in a large network of prison and labor camps. 

Dr. Suzanne Scholte is considered one of the world’s leading activists in the North Korean human rights movement having spent over two decades working to promote the freedom and dignity of the North Korean People. She advocates on behalf of the North Korean people, speaks and writes to raise awareness and change policies that affect North Koreans, and has assisted in the rescue of North Koreans fleeing North Korea. She also has established the Sin U Nam Rescue Fund which helps to support the rescue of hundreds of North Korean refugees through the underground railroad. 

In 1996, she began a program to host the first North Korean defectors in the United States, giving them a platform to speak out about the atrocities that are committed against the North Korean people. Dr. Scholte  has led international efforts to pressure China to end their reparation policy and has been involved in the rescue of hundreds of North Koreans escaping from North Korea. Dr. Scholte’s work includes helping author and present “The Seoul Statement” on North Korean Human Rights in 1999 at the First International Conference on North Korea Human Rights and Refugees. 

In addition, Dr. Scholte has testified before the United States Congress and at the United Nations regarding the plight of the North Korean people. In Congress, she has organized the first and subsequent Congressional hearing on the North Korea’s political prison camps in 1999 and 2011; the first Congressional hearing on the trafficking of North Korean Women in 2005; the first Congressional hearing on South Korean and Japanese Abductees, South Korean POWs, and North Korea’s Illicit Activities in 2006; and the first Congressional hearing witnesses on the persecution of Christians in North Korea in 2008. 

Dr. Scholte’s  efforts and work on behalf of the North Korean people is vast. She is the Chair and Founding Member of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, an organization of over 65 nongovernmental organizations and individuals around the world promoting the freedom and human rights of the North Korean People. In addition, Dr. Scholte serves as the Honorary Chair of the Free North Korea Radio, the only defectors-run radio program broadcasting news and information into North Korea. She also serves as the Honorary Chair of the North Korea People’s Liberation Front, elected unanimously by former North Koren soldiers who are working against the Kim Jon-un regime and pro-communist groups in South Korea. Dr. Scholte also serves as Vice Chair and Founding Board Member of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, an organization that publishes factual information about North Korea human rights issues. 

Dr. Suzanne Scholte’s work advocating on behalf of the North Korean people and raising awareness of human rights concerns affecting North Koreans within and outside of North Korea is impactful and inspiring.