Betsy Bramon, a member of the William Jewell College class of 2007, was awarded the prestigious Zimmerman Award & Fellowship at the 2009 Free The Slaves Freedom Awards ceremony held recently at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Betsy, who designed her own major in Women’s and Gender Studies while at William Jewell, first encountered slavery during a study-abroad experience in Amsterdam, where she was researching the extent of sex trafficking in the city’s notorious red light district. (View the summer 2007 Achieve cover story on Betsy Bramon at http://www.jewell.edu/william_jewell/
gen/media/achieve/summer2007/.)
Betsy wants to pursue a doctorate focusing on slavery, economics and women. As a Zimmerman Fellow at Free The Slaves headquarters in Washington, D.C., she will focus on anti-slavery research and international partnerships.

The Freedom Awards pay tribute to people working on the frontlines to free slaves worldwide.“I want to be part of the vision that makes ending slavery possible,” she says.

After her initial encounter with slavery as a Jewell student in Amsterdam, she later moved to Cambodia, where she learned that many slavery survivors wind up dependent on shelters and social service programs. Though no longer enslaved, they’re not self-sufficient. Her goal was to build bridges that could help former slaves take that final step toward lifelong freedom. With the success of the Cambodian program, her goal is to duplicate the project elsewhere.

These experiences have shaped Betsy’s view of slavery worldwide. She sees slavery as a symptom of other social and economic problems. “When everything else goes wrong in the world, you get slavery,” she says. But she feels at its core the solution is actually simple. It involves listening to people, being resourceful, fostering teamwork and creating a sense of community: “I really hope that people can begin to look each other in the eye again, people who’ve been trafficked and people who have trafficked, and remember that we’re all human.”

Betsy credits her Jewell experience and the opportunity to pursue a selfd esigned major with broadening her view of the world and her place within it. “Jewell offers students a tremendous gift,” she says. “Many will find they are starkly challenged and changed, from the inside out, through this fusion of intellect, social consciousness, cross-cultural awareness, creativity and selfhood.

"Definitions are redrawn, self-identities are challenged, eyes are opened— this is the potential it holds, depending on how far students choose to take their academic experience.”

The Freedom Awards are funded by the John Templeton Foundation, which provides recipients with substantial financial support to continue their work. The program’s goal is to showcase the best antislavery work in the world today, to provide an international spotlight to keep activists safe on the ground, and to dramatically expand the reach and impact of grassroots anti-slavery programs.

Fellowships are awarded to young adults ages 21-30 who have demonstrated consistent determination, creativity and results in the anti-slavery movement, and who are committed to developing their careers to help rid the world of slavery. Fellows undertake substantive work during a yearlong salaried fellowship at Free the Slaves, including direct participation in research and work with grassroots partners and slave-free trade initiatives.