Advocate Hollie Smith joins The Exodus Road’s U.S. Board of Directors

As a longtime supporter of counter-trafficking efforts, Hollie Smith brings eyewitness experience and a commitment to the vulnerable to The Exodus Road.

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, UNITED STATES, April 25, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- The Exodus Road¹ has announced the addition of Hollie Smith to their United States Board of Directors. Smith is a passionate advocate and humanitarian with a long history of supporting anti-trafficking work.

“I believe that every person has inherent dignity and worth. Seeing exploitation firsthand is heartbreaking, especially as a mom of two daughters.” Smith explains. “The Exodus Road is doing beautiful, hard, redemptive work every day, and I am so honored to be a small part of it.”

Smith’s background includes work in international relief and development, an expression of her profound passion for helping vulnerable women and children. This work led Smith to her first encounter with human trafficking decades ago during a visit to Thailand². She felt compelled to do whatever was within her ability to empower a different life for the women being exploited.

Smith has been a faithful and generous supporter of the work of The Exodus Road. She traveled to see The Exodus Road’s operations in Thailand and the Philippines³ firsthand in 2022. In Thailand, Smith spent time with the young women survivors at Freedom Home, the nonprofit’s aftercare home for survivors and their dependents.

Coming full circle, Smith’s passion for those being trafficked will now play an integral role in helping push The Exodus Road forward as she joins the board. She brings deep emotional intelligence, insight born of witnessing the problem, and a voice for every-day advocates.

“I’m so thankful for the ways Hollie has engaged with the work of The Exodus Road in recent years,” longtime board member Steve Leigh said. “As an advocate for human rights, she is consistently making the world a better place. Her heart for vulnerable women and children continues to be a gift to this community, and I’m excited about the thoughtful perspective she will bring to our board of directors.”

In addition to Smith, The Exodus Road is welcoming financial expert Ted Rusinoff and nonprofit leader Alece Ronzino to serve on the U.S. board. They are joining a unique and dynamic community of experts that includes corporate-strategy consultant Steve Leigh, country singer Craig Morgan, activist Edwin Desamour, humanitarian photographer Nate Griffin, Neema Development founder Sarah Ray, CEO of Living Opera Soula Parassidis, and Laura Parker (co-founder of The Exodus Road).

Smith lives in the Seattle area with her husband and two daughters. In her free-time, she loves traveling and experiencing new cultures, reading a good book, and spending time with friends over a shared meal or coffee.

About The Exodus Road

The Exodus Road is a global nonprofit disrupting the darkness of modern-day slavery by partnering with law enforcement to fight human-trafficking crime, equipping communities to protect the vulnerable and empowering survivors as they walk into freedom. Working side-by-side with local staff, NGO partners and law enforcement around the world, The Exodus Road fights to liberate trafficked individuals, arrest traffickers and provide restorative care for survivors. Since its founding in 2012, the organization has assisted police in the rescue of 2,000 survivors and the arrests of more than 1,000 offenders, numbers that grow almost daily. The Exodus Road’s approach to freedom incorporates intervention, training and education, and aftercare efforts.

In September 2021, The Exodus Road launched TraffickWatch Academy: U.S., a free, online, multimedia training module that unpacks the complexities of human trafficking and educates viewers with methods for identifying signs of trafficking and how to intervene. The organization is also launching a similar training throughout Brazil designed specifically for law enforcement partners. In November, the nonprofit opened Freedom Home in Thailand to house survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The Exodus Road combats human trafficking in the U.S., Thailand, the Philippines, India, Brazil and in another Latin American country, undisclosed for security reasons.

For additional information or to make a donation to help stop trafficking, please visit The Exodus Road’s website at https://theexodusroad.com/, and check them out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Mackenzie Spillane
The Exodus Road
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¹ http://theexodusroad.com/
² https://theexodusroad.com/human-trafficking-in-thailand/
³ https://theexodusroad.com/human-trafficking-in-the-philippines/