Her Story
About Ava
I have been working in the anti-trafficking field for about 7 years, with my journey beginning after I was liberated from my trafficker 9 years ago. When I was first freed, I didn't even have a high school diploma, but I immediately got into advocacy for anti-trafficking efforts and became deeply involved in survivor leadership. My passion for learning led me to Columbia University, where I majored in psychology with a focus on the science of psychology and research implementation. While at Columbia, I worked in a lab called the Center for Justice, conducting evaluation research with marginalized populations including formerly incarcerated people and former gang members. This work was transformative for me because it showed me how tangible and applied my education could be in serving communities. I graduated from Columbia in May 2025 with multiple honors, and my path has come full circle as I now serve as the Executive Director of Savhera, a nonprofit organization where I was once the first U.S.-based survivor employee back in 2019 when it was still a for-profit. Today, I consider myself an expert in two main areas: human trafficking in the U.S., specifically sex trafficking, and impact and evaluation research within the field. In my current role, I handle everything from operations to fundraising to organizational structure as we build what we call a startup on a 7-year foundation. My journey has been marked by tenacity and perseverance, including completing my Columbia degree while pregnant with my first son and continuing my work even after losing my mother shortly after taking on the executive director role. I'm proud that I've never let the world's limitations stop me from moving forward.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Ava
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my tenacity and perseverance, and my refusal to let what the world tells me stop me. When I was pregnant and attending Columbia, people including my mentors told me I couldn't go to a school like that if I was going to have a baby, but I said nope, I'm going to do it because if it wasn't in God's plan, then this wouldn't have been what happened. When my mom passed away shortly after I signed on as executive director, I took time to heal and mourn properly, but I didn't let that emotional trauma derail me. It was an even more empowering moment of realizing I can get through this, and I'm not going to let these cul-de-sacs hold me back as I'm going down the road. When I look at what I've accomplished in the last 9 years since being liberated from my trafficker without even a high school diploma, I'm just proud of the tenacity and the perseverance to not allow what the world tells me to stop me. It's not necessarily one moment in my career, but more that there was always a level of tenacity that kept me moving forward.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think that your why is your propellant, but your what, how, who, where, and when is really your foundation. We all have experiences that we have gone through that really shape us as people, and the way in which we apply those experiences to our professions needs to be backed with a clear foundation so that we can lead as experts, not just as passionate people. Especially in the nonprofit sector, there's so much passion and so much heart, and sometimes that can outweigh expertise, or academics, or the knowledge backing what somebody is doing. For somebody who's interested in this field, I would say look at really becoming an expert, not necessarily in the throb of your heart, but in who the population is. For example, if you're interested in doing a nonprofit that's serving trafficking victims, before you even look for jobs, you should be researching what is human trafficking, what does it look like to help survivors, and all of the different pieces in which you would need to step into that type of industry. Definitely let that passion fuel you, but also let it be coupled with expertise, knowledge, and wisdom.
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