Freely In Hope
UI/Icon/MobileCreated with Sketch.
Icon Instagrams Icon InstagramCreated with Sketch. fih4Created with Sketch. Icon YouTube Icon YouTubeCreated with Sketch.

Consulting services for
organizational development
& social justice advocacy that
is trauma-informed, community-
driven, and survivor-led.

Consulting services for organizational development & social justice advocacy that is trauma-informed, community-driven, and survivor-led.

We believe survivors of sexual violence are powerful liberators that lead communities toward sustainable systems change. We partner with organizations, churches, and educational institutions to recenter the narrative toward anti-sexual violence and anti-oppression efforts.

contact us

Radically transform your organization to:

UPLIFT

Uplift the health and wellness of communities affected by trauma

HEAL

Heal centuries of violence and harm caused toward minoritized communities

ENGAGE

Engage the wisdom and solutions of survivors that create sustainable, equitable, and liberated systems where people can flourish

Contact us to learn more

A global reckoning of how racism and sexism have unjustly reinforced organizational systems.

To begin to undo the centuries of violence and multigenerational trauma caused within these structures, organizations must center the wisdom and expertise of minoritized communities. Racism and sexism are not isolated experiences. Many survivors of sexual violence and people of color have experienced harm within organizations due to systems that minimize their inherent dignity, expertise, and leadership.

If oppressive systems continue to perpetuate an oppressive narrative, efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion are perceived as a bandaid, at best. Organizations have an opportunity to acknowledge that the wounds in their internal systems need deep cleansing, healing, and transformation in order to authentically reflect values of equity, integrtiy, and reform externally.

let's work together

Custom-designed solutions for organizations
who want to shift oppressive systems toward
liberated practice in their communities.

Custom-designed solutions for organizations who want to shift oppressive systems toward liberated practice in their communities.

Freely in Hope offers a different approach — one that centers, honors, and leverages the stories, expertise, and wisdom of all survivors of violence. We believe that trauma-informed organizational advocacy will radically transform the way resources, power, and opportunity are leveraged and made available to minoritized communities, creating sustainable, equitable, and liberated systems within which people can flourish.

Working in Kenya, Zambia, and the United States, we platform the voices, solutions, and vision of survivors to lead in global anti-sexual violence movements.

Creative
Storytelling

Platforming survivor-advocacy initiatives through visual content creation, creative direction and production, writing, speaking, and performing arts.

Trauma-informed organizational advocacy

Promoting the internal health and wellness of anti-sexual violence organizations through values-driven practices, trauma-informed policies, and strengths-based leadership development.

Systems
Transformation

Designing community-driven curriculum, strategies, and frameworks that promote human dignity, specifically for minoritized communities, and lead toward collective liberation. 

Organizational solutions built for:

Anti-sexual violence organizations

Creating visual or written creative content for online or print publications; designing curriculum, program policies, and storytelling frameworks that uplift survivors.

Churches &
FAith-based groups

Training on anti-sexual violence policy, programs, and frameworks for children, teens, and leaders; designing faith-based curriculum on creating safe spaces for survivors, storytelling praxis, and trauma-informed communal care.

Academic
institutions

Teaching and keynote speaking on survivor-leadership, anti-oppressive development, trauma-informed advocacy, ethical storytelling, and community-based leadership. 

Fill 1Created with Sketch.

Freely in Hope delivered the most impactful and effectively designed curriculum of the more than 100 organizations I have had the privilege of working with as a grantmaker. They are led by, for, and with survivors, and have helped my organization create content and tell stories that inspire change.” 

Patrick B. Reyes, Ph.D.  
Sr. Director of Learning, Forum for Theological Exploration. Author of the award-winning book The Purpose Gap.

How We Can Collaborate

Discuss the unique opportunity to uplift the expertise of survivors in your work. This could be a community workshop,  educational curriculum, creative content for social media, or  leader training on best practices on building survivor-centered anti-sexual violence systems.

Next, we’ll send you a proposal outlining opportunities for collaboration with our survivor-leadership team.

When we’ve made a plan, we can start working together to collectively promote liberation in our world!

Contact our team today to explore opportunities!

SEE OUR WORK

Watch: “From Uplifting to Silencing the Survivor’s Voice.”

This project also has a downloadable guide

The purpose of this guide is to facilitate a series of healing conversations between survivors of sexual violence and advocates for survivors. We hope that you will use this guide to curate conversations among leadership and members to provide a shared understanding of the survivor’s experience and stronger protection policies within your church, organization, or community.

Want to see more of our work?

ARTICLE

“Here’s how your church can help survivors of domestic violence.”

Service Journalism, Award of Excellence (first place), Associated Church Press

Curriculum
& Visual Series

Explore the Butterfly Effect

Video Curriculum

Access the Course, Advocating with Survivors of Sexual Violence

Interview Series

My Open Letter to the Church

Meet Our Survivor-Leadership Committee

To lead the change, organizations working in anti-sexual violence and anti-oppression efforts have the opportunity to empower, uplift, and partner with Black, Indigenous, people of color, and survivors of sexual violence in creating and implementing strategic initiatives that shift and recenter the narrative.

Meet the survivor-leadership team behind the movement.
Fill 1Created with Sketch.

We worked with Freely in Hope to produce a video course on advocating with survivors of sexual violence. They took great care in crafting content to make sure it was trauma-informed and survivor-centered. They are really living out the principles of the course by incorporating survivor voices in the production process.”

JASON GILE, PHD
Executive Director
SeminaryNow

Fill 1Created with Sketch.

It has truly been a privilege to collaborate with Freely in Hope in our work to reduce gender-based violence, bring justice to survivors, and create a more just society. One of the things Sojourners has learned over the last 50 years of gender advocacy is that the stories that our communities, our local places, and our country tell greatly influence the structures, systems, policies, and laws that govern the way we do life together as communities and as a country.”

PAOLA FUENTES GLEGHORN
Immigration and Women and Girls Campaign Manager, Sojourners

Trauma-informed, community-driven, and survivor-led.

Let's co-create a world where all people can flourish.
join us

By providing resources and platforms for survivors of sexual violence to thrive and lead violence prevention and advocacy programming, we will create more just, sustainable, and resonant solutions that prevent child sexual abuse in all communities. This will create a redistribution of power, justice, and liberation for organizations, families, and communities at large.

Our Survivor-Leadership Committee is trained and formed in proven methodologies that transform systems:
  • Strengths-based training
  • Transformational leadership
  • Restorative narrative
  • Appreciative Inquiries
  • Social Change Communication
  • Black feminism
  • Equity-centered course design
  • Community-based activism
  • Public health theories of change
  • Liberation theology
  • Anti-oppressive and liberatory practice
  • Organizational systems reform
join us

Ready to transform your organization?

We look forward to collaborating! Contact us today to explore liberating solutions for your organization.

Nikole Lim

Nikole Lim is a speaker, educator, and consultant on leveraging dignity through the restorative art of storytelling. Nikole shifts paradigms on how stories are told by platforming voices of the oppressed—sharing stories of beauty arising out of seemingly broken situations. Her heart beats for young women whose voices are silenced by oppression and desires to see every person realize the transformative power of their own story. As our Founder and International Director, Nikole has been deeply transformed by the powerful, tenacious, and awe-inspiring examples of survivors. Their audacious dreams have informed her philosophy for a survivor-led approach to community transformation.

Nikole graduated with a degree in Film Production from Loyola Marymount University and is currently pursuing a masters in Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary. She is a native of the Bay Area and can often be found buying African fabric on the streets of Nairobi. Her vision is to equip survivors and advocates to lead in ending the cycle of sexual violence—believing that they will be the ones to bring us all into liberation. In it, her hope is that the world may be transformed by them—just as she has.

Jean Nangwala

Lead Storyteller

Jean Nangwala is a singer, speaker, survivor-advocate, and creative content producer. She was born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia. Her passion for social justice stems from her personal experience of injustice and witnessing the same inequality across the globe. She has an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies. During her undergraduate studies, Jean volunteered with a juvenile facility in Cape Town, survivors of sexual violence in Nairobi, and creatives using art for community transformation in Barcelona. She has also worked with The Salvation Army International Social Justice Commission in New York City. Partnering to End Human Trafficking in Connecticut and is currently working as the Lead Storyteller for Freely in Hope located in the Bay Area. Through her experiences, she has witnessed the gravity that broken systems can have on the lives of the vulnerable. Her passion is empowering women to come together and alleviate systems that perpetuate social injustice. She loves using art to inspire others to find liberation. To learn more, check out her YouTube Channel, Tales of a Black Girl.

Romal Tune

Romal uses purpose and passion to equip people to heal the wounds of their past. He bravely offers up his own journey as a case study of raw transparency and refreshing honesty. As a full-time speaker and author, Romal guides audiences through the process of identifying and embracing their unique destiny. Committed to living the six-word mission statement that defines his life— “I help hurting people find healing”—Romal’s platform and cross-sector relationships have positioned him as a global leader who guides individuals, organizations and institutions to recover from setbacks and achieve success by honoring the particularity of their unique stories. With an infectious style that has impressed thousands both nationally and international audiences, Romal moves people to action! Through compassion, and systemic change, he creates and environment that impacts the effectiveness of individuals, leaders, executives, and their teams.

Meera Seshadri

Meera Seshadri, MSPH, is an artist, researcher, and storyteller. She has spent more than a decade working as a health communications consultant at the intersections of gender equity, sexual and reproductive autonomy, and adolescent health promotion. Presently, she holds the role of Prevention Strategy Lead at Soteria Solutions, Research Designer at Start By Talking, LLC, and Global Health Equity Specialist at Freely In Hope. Meera believes passionately in the power of storytelling, using equity-centered design and public health theories of change to understand the impact of oppression and trauma on minoritized communities. An essential focus of her work has been to use community-based participatory research and social change communication to uncover and interrogate the structures, ideologies, and environments that either limit or facilitate resilience, autonomy, and opportunity and work collaboratively and in coalition with these communities to redesign systems. She has worked in multiple campus settings in the United States, including as a Survivor Advocate for Emory University’s Respect Program, Violence Prevention Speciailst for Georgetown University’s Health Education Services, and Associate Director for Harvard University’s Office of Sexual Assault Prevention & Response. She received her Master’s of Science in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in adolescent health and development and health communication, and her bachelor’s in global public health and development from The George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs.

Maryclare Beche

Maryclare Beche is passionate about creating safe spaces where survivors can share their stories with dignity. Beche is an experienced program designer and storyteller who has developed a curriculum for women in prostitution and co-developed a curriculum on art and healing used annually in Spain, Kenya, and the United States. She also runs a program in western Kenya that uses expressive art to educate children and teenagers on the reality and inhumanity of sexual violence and human trafficking. Beche earned a bachelor’s degree in communication and is currently studying for a master’s degree at McCormick Theological Seminary. Her hope is to see leaders of faith participate in conversations that foster safe spaces for survivors of trauma in a dignified way.

Rebecca Crook

Rebecca is committed to ensuring all leaders and learners have the skills, tools, and community they need to thrive in the 21st century. She has experience as an innovative educator, principal, trainer of education leaders, and Fulbright researcher in diverse contexts. Rebecca began her career as a bilingual Teach for America educator and supported the launch of Caliber Schools. As a founding principal for SPARK Schools’ first campus in an inner-city, she designed and facilitated over 250 hours of professional development for the network’s 100 teachers. She led innovations, created a social emotional learning curriculum and report card, supported her teachers to design models of parent engagement, and collaborated with her students to win the Design for Change South Africa competition. As Program Director of Dignitas, she designed and implemented a new model for coaching and training over 200 school leaders to improve low-fee private schools in Nairobi’s informal settlements. She has interviewed over 200 parents, students, and education leaders across Africa and India and documented learning in 35 schools across Southern Africa. When Rebecca is not designing and facilitating learning experiences, she shares visual stories of education leaders and life in Nairobi on Instagram @stickylittleleaves.

Janai Marshall

A homegrown resident of Washington D.C., Janai Marshall is an activist and visual artist. A therapist by trade, she sees no conflict between the expressive arts and mental health realms, crafting her artwork to speak to pushing back on negative media images and highlighting natural beauty. She aims to affirm and encourage you in your inherent worth and embolden you to maximize your potential. Using vivid colors and liberal metallics, she creates statement pieces that point the heart to seek higher perspectives by incorporating symbolic imagery, scripture, inspirational quotes, & lines from her original songs or spoken-word poetry.

It has truly been a privilege to collaborate with Freely in Hope in our work to reduce gender-based violence, bring justice to survivors, and create a more just society. One of the things Sojourners has learned over the last 50 years of gender advocacy is that the stories that our communities, our local places, and our country tell greatly influence the structures, systems, policies, and laws that govern the way we do life together as communities and as a country. Partnering with Freely in Hope has given us the opportunity to meet people who are survivors or close family members of survivors and to create spaces where they can share their stories with faith rooted advocates and faith leaders. These connections have helped to strengthen our work of ensuring that churches are safe spaces where people can come to find healing and justice after sexual assault. They have also complemented our efforts to connect survivors and their families to their elected officials, giving them the chance to bring those powerful stories to lawmakers and ask them to champion systems, laws, and policies that benefit our communities.

Skip to content