Freedom Week: Speakers & Artists

Deirdre Mars is the New York State Director of the Not For Sale Campaign, an organization that works to education, equip and mobilize Smart Activists to fight modern-day slavery using their own unique skills, talents, interests and resources.  Deirdre is a longtime student of the intersection of politics and religion, with degrees from Duke University (2005, BA, Political Science) and the University of Chicago (2010, MA, Social Sciences).  

Jonathan Walton is the Director of the New York City Urban Project, a ministry of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, which aims to change the culture of giving and volunteering on college campuses from one of constant consumption to consistent compassion compelled and sustained by the love of God.  NYCUP provides opportunities for for students and university communities to engage in the struggles of the impoverished and oppressed, in order to not only be hearers of the Word but doers also, while seeking justice, loving mercy and walking humbly after God.  InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is a ministry that serves students and faculty at colleges and universities across the United States and around the world. InterVarsity chapters are groups of students that enjoy fun and friendship together and help each other grow in their love for God and their knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Grace Akallo is a student at Gordon College near Boston, Massachusetts. She was abducted by Ugandan rebels at the age of 15 and now serves as a spokesperson and activist for peace in northern Uganda. She has founded a scholarship program, Gift of Grace, to benefit girls in Northern Uganda whose lives have been affected by the conflict and unrest.

Taina Bien-Aimé is the executive director of Equality Now, an international human rights organization that works for the protection of the rights of women and girls. Bien-Aimé holds a Juris Doctor from NYU School of Law and a License in Political Science from the University of Geneva and the Graduate School of International Studies, Switzerland. Prior to Equality Now, Bien-Aimé was director of Business Affairs/Film Acquisition at HBO. She also practiced international corporate law at a Wall Street law firm, Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton.

Braddigan, former member of Dispatch, has formed a diversely talented band: Braddigan on guitar and vocals, Reinaldo de Jesús from Barrio Obrero Santurce, Puerto Rico, on percussion, Tiago Mechado from Sao Paulo, Brazil on bass and other string instruments, most notably the Cavaquinoh, a Brazilian ukulele and Paul Stivitts from New York on Drums.

Much of the band's music is inspired by its nonprofit organization called Love, Light and Melody to benefit the people of La Chureca, the "trash dump community" of Managua, Nicaragua where Braddigan has taken a deep-rooted interest and concern with the people and way of life. Braddigan releases his music under his independent label, Third Surfer Music.

Kaign Christy is the director of operations for Southeast Asia for International Justice Mission. IJM is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression.

Prior to this position, Kaign served as director of IJM’s Field Office in Cambodia, working with Cambodian authorities to investigate and prosecute cases of sex trafficking, forced prostitution and the commercial sexual exploitation of trafficked women and children. Christy led and participated in investigations resulting in the arrest of 102 traffickers, and the rescue of 296 victims of sex trafficking, some as young as 6 years old.

As a result of his work, Christy was awarded the Commander Medal of Sahametrei by Cambodia’s Prime Minister; this is the highest award given by the Government of Cambodia to foreign nationals for service to the nation of Cambodia.

Dan is a founding member of Crossing Borders. In 2004, Dan decided to help his best friend who felt called to go on missions to China without an organization. Four years later, Crossing Borders was formed and has helped over 350 refugees and orphans in Northeast China. Dan currently serves on the board of directors at Crossing Borders and makes regular visits to the field. Dan graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Aaron Cohen, one-time best friend and business partner to Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, works to find and free human beings from various forms of bondage throughout the world.

Anna Grimaldi Colomer was a founding member of the Puerto Rico for Committee for UNICEF and served as the executive director for many years. In 1996 she began Teaching for Tomorrow, an organization that sponsors educational, public awareness and philanthropic programs. She has been part of the global movement to end exploitative child labor and deeply involved in the cause of the Restavecs. She collaborates with Beyond Borders, The Jean Robert Cadet Foundation, Limye Lavi Foundation and The Matènwa Community Learning Center seeking solutions to end child servitude in Haiti. She is an NGO delegate at the United Nations for The Pacific Rim Institute for Development and Education and a member of the Haitian-Caribbean Civic Foundation.

Jennifer Dreher has 10 years of experience working on international human rights issues.  Currently, she is the senior director of the Anti-Trafficking Program at Safe Horizon in New York City. She oversees the program’s social and legal services, training, outreach and advocacy efforts, serving both men and women who represent more than 60 countries and all types of modern slavery. Dreher has coordinated efforts across the globe to provide health, legal and social services to survivors of violence and trafficking.  Before coming to Safe Horizon, Dreher managed programs for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Ecuador and the International Rescue Committee in Sierra Leone.  Dreher is an active member of the New York Anti-Trafficking Network, the Freedom Network (USA) and the Freedom Network Training Institute.

Faith Huckel is the executive director and co-founder of Restore. Prior to Restore, Faith was the volunteer manager at Hope for New York, a Christian nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the poor and the marginalized in New York City. Huckel has worked as a social worker in Philadelphia, where she assisted women and children in need, particularly women coming out of prostitution. She has also worked with individuals living with HIV/AIDS, who have mental health concerns, who are homeless or who struggle with drug addiction. Huckel received her master's degree in social work from Columbia University.

Siddharth Kara is a former investment banker and business executive with an MBA from Columbia University. He set aside his corporate career to pursue anti-slavery research, advocacy, writing and, more recently, a law degree. He currently serves on the board of directors of Free the Slaves, an organization dedicated to abolishing slavery worldwide. In 2005 he was invited to testify on contemporary slavery to the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Committee.

Patrick Radden Keefe is a writer who focuses on international security, immigration, espionage and the globalization of crime. He is a fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive policy think tank in New York City, and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and Slate. His books include Chatter: Uncovering the Echelon Surveillance Network and the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping, and The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream, which has just been published by Doubleday, and which the Washington Post has hailed as "a rich, beautifully told story, so suspenseful and with so many unexpected twists that in places it reads like a John le Carré novel."

Nicholas Kristof is an American journalist, author, op-ed columnist for the New York Times, and a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. Deeply involved in raising awareness for human trafficking, Kristoff has spent extensive time in Southeast Asia, investigating and reporting on sex slavery. His stories continue to give a voice to the voiceless victims of human trafficking.

New York City native and award-winning artist Jeremy Penn is a graduate of Pratt Institute. Penn’s recent exhibits include the Phillips Collection, which has exhibited his work worldwide. Penn was recently honored with first prize, Best Designs of 2009 by Design & Design for two of his paintings. He also received an honorable mention for recent works from the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, juried by Doug Alderfer. Penn regularly works in encaustics, building up countless layers of paint, each color layered carefully on top of one another, then strategically scraped away to create a sculpture-like painting. His work has been featured in Design & Design, Home Fashion and Accessory Merchandising magazines.

In 2003, as a writer on assignment in Sudan for Newsweek International, Ben Skinner met his first survivor of slavery. After that encounter, Skinner traveled the globe to find others.
Going undercover when necessary, Skinner infiltrated trafficking networks and slave quarries, urban child markets and illegal brothels. In the process, he became the first person in history to observe the sales of human beings on four continents. He is currently a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Kathleen Ann Thompson has dedicated her work primarily to the youth of Eastern Europe by performing, directing and mentoring teaching programs in dance and movement theater in these post-communist countries. Thompson is now the Artistic Director of Belleherst Productions, a company that is committed to crossing cultural, ethnic, age and socio-economic borders through communication with the arts. Thompson has directed and choreographed over 50 productions in the U.S., as well as in Europe. She is well known for her unique style of acting and physical theater techniques, having studied dance, mime and commedia dell’arte.