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