A bittersweet goodbye to IJM Organizing Director—East, Seth Wispelwey
Goodbyes are hard, which is why I’m completely avoiding this one.
February was my last month with IJM. The ending was bittersweet, and came faster than anyone would want at such a lovely, transformational place, but good things are ahead. Starting in March, I took on a new executive role in my hometown of Charlottesville, VA serving survivors of labor and sex trafficking—I’m still in this fight! And so I get to still write this …
Read More#7 in our series: Meet the Team! Here's Rene Vazquez.
Image note: Rene began his career with IJM in the Guatemala office (where this picture was taken), where we are working to protect children from sexual violence. To find out more about IJM's work in Guatemala, please see this page on our website.
Three things you'll love about the new Freedom Commons
When I’m informed about an issue, but don’t feel equipped to take action on it, I just feel overwhelmed. Just a decade ago, if the newspaper carried a story about someone who was brutalized, even enslaved, it was hard to know how to connect with other people who were similarly concerned. In today’s digital world, almost everyone we’ve met is just a click away—long-lost third cousins, friends from elementary school, people we chatted up at a conference.
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#3 in our series: Meet the team! Here's Eileen Campbell.
On the Government Relations & Advocacy (GRA) team at IJM, we are always interested in getting to know you and talking about how you can get involved in the fight to end slavery, but we realize that it might be nice for you to get to know our team, too! So, we’ll be doing a little blog series, featuring Q&A with each member of the GRA department. This will be your backstage pass to our legislative and advocacy programs, and an opportunity to learn more about the men and women who make up the team.
How it will work: Clara Campbell, GRA's Online Campaigns Manager, will interview each of the members of the team. There will be a mix of serious and fun questions, and ideally, after reading each post, you'll feel like you have a better idea who we are.
Read MoreIJM Day and What I Learned About Organizing
Emily Yount is the leader of the IJM student chapter at Vanderbilt University. Her group and their neighboring chapters at Belmont and Lipscomb Universities were instrumental in orchestrating the first ever “IJM Day,” that took place on October 1, 2013, in Nashville, TN. They also collected over 700 signed postcards, addressed to Senator Corker, asking him to support the Human Trafficking Prioritization Act. Emily is majoring in social work and will graduate in 2014.
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