Soup With Substance: Sexual Violence
Consent, Trafficking, and Support for Victims
February 12, 2013
Speaker Bios and Educational Links
Amy Coubertier and Laura Conner—Staff members at The Genesis Project
http://www.gpseattle.org/
childrenofthenight.org
Darrell Goodwin—Associate Dean of Students at Seattle University
Dr. Jodi O’Brien—Department Chair of Sociology, and Professor of Anthropology, Sociology, Social Work, and Women and Gender Studies at Seattle University
Emily Cohen
Emily Cohen (SU ’10) is the Program and Learning Coordinator at FaithTrust Institute, a national organization that provides faith communities and advocates with the tools and knowledge they need to address the faith and cultural issues related to abuse. Emily works with FaithTrust Institute staff and trainers to provide multifaith and religion-specific intervention and prevention training, consulting, and educational materials for national and local faith-based and secular organizations in the following areas:
Domestic and sexual violence
Healthy teen relationships
Child abuse, and the effects of children exposed to domestic violence
Healthy boundaries for clergy and spiritual teachers
Responding to clergy misconduct
Trafficking of persons
Read more about FaithTrust Institute on their website: www.faithtrustinstitute.org
Educational weblinks:
FaithTrust Institute: www.faithtrustinstitute.org
Robert Garey
Rob Garey serves on the board of Seattle Against Slavery, a grassroots coalition working to make a slave-free Seattle. He began his abolitionist work in 2008 when he worked with the Seattle Police Department to organize awareness events for young professionals. He then served as the Marketing Director for the release of the Call+Response documentary in Seattle, and co-founded Climb for Captives, an annual mountaineering initiative raising money for survivors of human trafficking.
Rob is a graduate of Pepperdine University and Oxford, and currently consults to Fortunate 500 companies with Point B. He and his wife, Vanessa, live in Seattle, and their latest adventure is a 10-month old daughter named Quinn.
Sabrina Chen
Sabrina is the youth specialist at API Chaya. She received her bachelors in social work and minor in women studies at Seattle University where she was also part of an on campus collective called Break the Silence that planned an on campus conference addressing sexual violence. Her current work at API Chaya consists of planning, developing, and implementing a dating violence and sexual assault prevention curriculum for high school young women that identify with the Asian, Pacific Islander, and South Asian community. Additionally, she provides advocacy based services for anyone under 24 years old that has experienced/is experiencing dating or sexual violence.
http://www.apichaya.org/
http://facebook.com/apiwfsc
Serena Cosgrove
I have spent the past twenty years working directly on issues of human rights, sustainable development and women’s rights in Latin America. I lived in the war zones of Nicaragua for 2½ years monitoring human rights in the late 1980s and then moved to El Salvador where I monitored human rights in the final years of the civil war. I also supported the emerging Salvadoran women’s movement for four years before returning to the United States to attend graduate school. While at Northeastern University, my graduate research focused on evaluating the impact of microcredit programming in postconflict El Salvador. Upon graduation with my MA in Anthropology and my PhD in Sociology, I secured a job with the Latin American foundation AVINA, where I worked for twelve years monitoring project implementation and developing a knowledge management program for the entire foundation, staff, and partners.
Since September 2009, I have been working at Seattle University teaching Global Poverty courses and the additional following courses: War & Reconciliation, Gender&Development, and Women and Leadership in Latin America. My book Leadership from the Margins: Women and Civil Society Organizations in Argentina, Chile, and El Salvador, published by Rutgers University Press, focuses on how women leaders—even with the marginalization that can come from gender, ethnicity, and class—are transforming their communities through the efforts of the nonprofits they are leading. In 2011, I traveled to Zambia to carry out poverty alleviation research with Dr. Curtis; we spent two weeks visiting successful programs and took two Seattle U students with us as research assistants. In June of 2012, we took 10 students to Ghana to carry out research about microcredit. The research was to gather information about successful poverty alleviation efforts for the textbook we are writing on the causes and solutions of global poverty. I am now preparing for another student research trip to Guatemala in June 2013 to evaluate efforts to eradicate violence against women.
Sheila Houston
Seattle Met Magazine recognizes Sheila, as the “The Finder of Lost Children”, she is also recognized as a “Survivor of sex trafficking and speaker” by Headline News with Jane-Velez-Mitchell. Sheila is recognized on SB Bill 6476 for her testimony which raised penalties for the promotion of commercial sex abuse of a minor. Sheila is the Founder of Rare Coins Ministries and a leading Authority for working with victims involved in Sex Trafficking.
Sheila was the first and only Director of Late Night Outreach at New Horizons ministries; her leadership consisted of her being directly involved with over 2500 girls and young women working on the streets Seattle in the sex trade and young men involved in pimping. Sheila has trained and led teams of men and women to walk along side of her on the streets late at night. Sheila has provided training for organizations & leaders working with trafficking victims throughout Washington State and internationally. Sheila is and has been involved in many advocacy groups locally and nationally. Sheila is a spokesperson for small and large groups on trafficking issues; she has become an expert.
When asked why she works with this population, she answers with her own story. Sheila says her past has allowed her to understand the pain and suffering that girls (victims) experience. Her past also helps to understanding why so many girls think they are in love with their abusers/pimps. As a believer Sheila believe in restoration for young men trapped in the cycles pimping as a positive lifestyle. Sheila a champion and advocate for women and children trapped in the cycle of Domestic Sex trafficking as well as broken young men who don’t understand what it means to be a man.
Sheila has received awards from Soroptimist International, Inaugural Lincoln Award from Seattle Against Slavery, Murdock Trust Mentoring Award, and Hazen High School Leadership Award.
Sheila’s background, skills and expertise have equipped her to launch Rare Coins Ministries on January 1, 2012.
http://rarecoinsministries.org/
Student Campus Ministers for Social Justice: Ray Kaffer and Colleen Newell.
For more information, please contact Seán Bray, Social Justice Minister, at 206.296.6079.