Soroptimist Ruby Award Honoree
Read about it Here!
Conference Speakers
Updated May 17, 2010
 |
Jane Velez-Mitchell hosts "Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell," a topical event-driven show with a wide range of viewpoints. A veteran television news journalist, Velez-Mitchell reported for the nationally syndicated Warner Brothers/Telepictures show "Celebrity Justice" and regularly served as guest host for "Nancy Grace," another HLN program. As a commentator on high-profile cases, Velez-Mitchell has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other national cable television programs. During the Michael Jackson molestation trial, she appeared daily on "Nancy Grace" and was featured on CNN’s "Larry King Live" on several occasions, including the evening of the verdict. Her nonfiction book, "Secrets Can Be Murder: What America’s Most Sensational Crimes Tell Us About Ourselves," was published by Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster. The paperback version appeared in bookstores in June 2008. Velez-Mitchell previously spent more than a decade anchoring and reporting for KCAL-TV in Los Angeles. She also served as a reporter/anchor for eight years at WCBS-TV in New York City. Velez-Mitchell is the recipient of a Los Angeles Emmy Award and a New York Emmy Award. The KCAL-TV newscasts she co-anchored won three Southern California Golden Mike Awards and an Emmy. She also wrote, directed and produced "Dancing Through Life," an award-winning documentary. While working on "Celebrity Justice," Velez-Mitchell’s reporting earned the show two Genesis Awards from the Humane Society of the United States. Velez-Mitchell chronicles her lifelong battle with alcoholism, as well as her coming out as a lesbian and her discovery of a healthier, happier and more meaningful existence, in "iWant: My Journey From Addiction and Overconsumption to a Simpler Honest Life," which was released on October 5, 2009, and became a New York Times bestseller.
|
|
Bradley Myles currently serves as Polaris Project’s Executive Director and CEO. He has been working on combating the issue of human trafficking for the past eight years since 2002. In his current role at Polaris Project, he is responsible for over-seeing all the programmatic, financial, and operational areas of the organization, including leading the Executive Management Team and liaising with the Board of Directors. Mr. Myles works on all areas of Polaris Project’s comprehensive approach to fighting human trafficking, including over-seeing the direct victims services efforts of local offices in Washington, DC and New Jersey, supervising the policy team’s advocacy initiatives at the Federal and state levels, and providing strategic oversight for Polaris Project’s operation of the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline.
Mr. Myles has provided consultation, training, and technical assistance on anti-trafficking strategies to hundreds of audiences, including human trafficking task forces and coalitions across the nation, government agencies, Federal and local law enforcement, U.S. Members of Congress, media, service providers, and foreign delegations. He has also been a key advocate in bridging the national anti-trafficking program areas of multiple Federal government agencies in the U.S. Departments of State, Homeland Security, Justice, and Health and Human Services.
Mr. Myles serves as Polaris Project’s primary liaison to the Humanity United-funded national coalition entitled the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), the FBI Innocence Lost Federal Working Group, the U.S. Department of Justice National Advisory Group on trafficking, and the U.S. Department of Justice-funded Washington, DC Human Trafficking Task Force. His anti-trafficking efforts have been covered in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.
|
 |
Former U.S. Congresswoman Linda Smith, founder of Shared Hope International and author of the book RENTING LACY has dedicated her life to the eradication of sex trafficking both internationally, as well as domestically, through prevention, rescue and long-term restoration of victims of the commercial sex industry.
Linda Smith is a compelling, in-demand national and international speaker known for her profound dedication to generating awareness about the little known world of domestic minors who are ensnared in the American sex trafficking industry.
Linda Smith has a very extensive history in working with the U.S. Congress to implement legislation on domestic minor sex trafficking and has worked closely with the Department of Justice to expose, prevent and prosecute domestic minor sex traffickers, as well as buyers.
|
 |
Sheila Houston is the Director of the Late Night Outreach (LNO) program for New Horizons Ministries for many years. LNO works directly with girls involved in domestic trafficking and young men involved in pimping in the Seattle-area. Sheila trains and leads a team of men and women that go out to the streets late at night in order to meet trafficking victims in their environment. Sheila has provided training for other organizations & leaders working with trafficking victims internationally and throughout Washington State. Sheila is involved in many advocacy groups and has spoken to small and large groups on trafficking issues.
When asked how she got involved in this work, Sheila answers with her own story of being 16 and married to a man who convinced her to sell her body to prove she loved him. Sheila says her past allows her to understand the pain that the girls suffer and understand why so many of them think they are in love with their abuser/pimp. In addition, to her work her at New Horizons Ministries; Sheila is a pastor at Celebration Community Church and House of Oaks Ministries. Sheila has a B.A. in Organizational Behavior & Executive Master of Nonprofit Leadership (MNPL).
|
|
Alice Wells |
Sharon Fisher |
Sue Riney |
