Brenda Myers-Powell

Brenda is the founder of Ernestine’s Daughter, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to provide healing and support for women and girls currently or formerly in the sex trade; an appointed member of the US Department of State’s Advisory Council on Human Trafficking; and co-founder of Dreamcatcher Foundation, a survivor-founded, survivor-focused organization that seeks to end human trafficking in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs.

Having spent over twenty years working to end human trafficking, she and Center for Story & Witness co-founder Anne K. Ream are longstanding collaborators through their leadership roles at World Without Exploitation (the national coalition to end human trafficking), where they collaborated on the development of a first-of-its-kind trafficking survivor story archive, and the development of “The Ugly Truth,” a survivor-story focused global anti-trafficking campaign that contributed to changes in Illinois and federal anti-trafficking law.

The author of a critically praised memoir about her life in the sex trade, Leaving Breezy Street, Brenda knows that the stories of human trafficking survivors are critical to changing hearts and laws. But she is also a deep believer in the healing possibilities of narrative. Brenda says, “I want every person in the sex trade to be able to share her story – but in her own way, not the way she is told she has to or should. What I respect about Center for Story & Witness is that survivor voices are centered in a real way. Because that’s the only way to do it that leads to social justice and survivor healing.”