Things Survivors Wish You Knew (A Dressember Podcast)

Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman is the Head of Programs at the Survivor Alliance and a subject matter expert on trauma-informed care, mental health, and behavioral psychology. 

Suamhirs uses his energy and expertise to create equitable and nuanced services for people who are disabled or otherwise marginalized or vulnerable. His ideas about equitable services invite us to shift the ways we think about factors that contribute to an individua...

Chris Ash is the Survivor Leadership Program Manager at CAST-LA, and Dunia Zelaya is a community leader who uses her experiences to connect with others and advocate for change. Both bring hope, energy, and graciously bold encouragement to our conversation about what a good model for trafficking rehabilitation services could look like. 

Chris and Dunia are leaders who have chosen to use their experience to inform aftercare practice...

Jessika Fuhrmaneck is a writer, public speaker, actor, and advocate for the support and recovery of women who have been exploited in the commercial sex trade. 

Jessika brings energy, boldness, and conviction to her work of helping hurting people get from where they are to where they want to be. Listen in as we hear from Jessika about what trauma-informed care, safe spaces, and financial and emotional stability could look like for ...

Hannah Blair combines her experience as a survivor of sex trafficking with her education and professional abilities to advance the fight against sexual exploitation. We'll discuss survivors' aftercare, preventing revictimization, what survivor leadership means, and how to avoid re-traumatizing survivors with good intentions.   

Hannah collaborated with Homeland Security to train law enforcement, served as a survivor consultant with...

We are delighted to talk with Lyresh Magee in this episode. Lyresh is a business owner, mentor, teacher, speaker, and hairstylist. In this episode, we'll hear from Lyresh about her first-hand experience with vulnerability to abuse and exploitation that comes with systemic poverty and prejudice toward black communities. 

Because abuse and exploitation are heavy topics, please practice self-care before, during, and after listening t...

Amy is a leading voice on the need for survivors of human trafficking to be included in more meaningful ways within the anti-trafficking movement through avenues such as employment and leadership. 

Amy currently works for Freedom Fund and is part of the Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAST) Initiative's Steering Group. She is bold and kind about what she wants for survivors. She has so much wisdom to share about sustained ...

Wade is a writer, author, speaker, and human trafficking consultant. He brings a wealth of knowledge about the added difficulties that those with LQBTQ+ identities have in finding exit pathways from human trafficking. Sometimes advocates have good intentions, but how do those intentions translate? Join us as we get into it about what it means to work from a place of being trauma-informed and bring marginalized voices to the table. 

Jessa Crisp is a teacher, mentor, writer, and co-founder of Bridge Hope. She speaks with boldness and hope to survivors of trafficking and their advocates. 

This episode contains some heavy material about familial trafficking. We want to ask you to take care of yourselves when deciding whether to listen. 

In keeping with Jessa's usual MO, the heaviness of our conversation is balanced with a lot of hope. Jessa has incredible tips ...

Things Survivors Wish You Knew is a podcast that will feature conversations with survivors of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. We’ll talk about what survivors wish the rest of us knew about the injustices of trafficking and exploitation, and about the larger anti-trafficking sector.

We’re here to pass the mic to survivors to share what they wish people knew about trafficking and exploitation. It’s going to be e...