Instagram: @RachelThomasWasHere
Facebook: RachelCThomas
Resume: View Rachel’s 2022 Resume
Standard Bio
Rachel C. Thomas, M. Ed is a graduate of UCLA, a presidential appointee to the United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, and a personal survivor of human trafficking. She has extensive experience teaching, training, curriculum writing, public speaking and mentoring. As director of Sowers Education Group, she and a team work tirelessly to sow seeds of human trafficking awareness and survivor empowerment. Rachel has educated and inspired a wide range of audiences including teens, social service providers, churches, teachers, college students, and law enforcement. She is the lead author of the nation's most widely used sex trafficking intervention curriculum Ending The Game (Journal Of Women and Criminal Justice, 2021) as well as The Cool Aunt Series, a sex trafficking prevention course for teens.
Since 2012, Rachel and the Sowers Team have reached over 150,000 live audience members and millions more through numerous media outlets including CNN, HLN, The T.D. Jakes Show, The New York Times Upfront Magazine and ABC’s Newsmakers. Rachel was honored by Congressman Ed Royce of California’s 39th district and Los Angeles Supervisor Don Knabe for her leadership and trafficking prevention efforts. www.RachelCThomas.com
Instagram: @RachelThomasWasHere
Facebook: @RachelCThomas
Short Bio
Rachel C. Thomas, M. Ed is a graduate of UCLA, a presidential appointee to the United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, and a personal survivor of human trafficking. She has extensive experience teaching, training, curriculum writing, public speaking and mentoring. As Director of Sowers Education Group since 2012, Rachel has reached over 150,000 live audience members and millions more through numerous media outlets including CNN, HLN, The T.D. Jakes Show, The New York Times Upfront Magazine, and ABC’s Newsmakers. Rachel is the lead author of the nation's most widely used Human Trafficking Intervention Curriculum-- Ending The Game (Journal Of Women and Criminal Justice, 2021) as well as The Cool Aunt Series, a sex trafficking prevention course for teens. www.RachelCThomas.com
Instagram: @RachelThomasWasHere
Facebook: @RachelCThomas
Survivor Story Bio
Former music video model and sex trafficking survivor Rachel Thomas is a dynamic educator who speaks from the heart and aims at the head. With a Masters in Education from UCLA and over 12 years’ experience in teaching and mentoring, Rachel founded Sowers Education Group to sow seeds of sex trafficking awareness and survivor empowerment.
Rachel was a junior at Emory University when she unknowingly met a trafficker: a professional and well-spoken ‘modeling agent’. He had business cards and a portfolio of contracts with beautiful models of all ethnicities. He groomed her with high-quality, all-expense paid photo shoots and legitimate modeling work in various music videos and magazines. Then, after he had collected a W9 form from Rachel (including her parents’ address and SSN), the relationship became dangerous. He began forcing her to have sex with buyers, threatening to kill her and her family if she didn’t obey. He became physically and psychologically abusive, ushering Rachel into the dark world of sex slavery. Thankfully, the police and FBI were eventually able to help Rachel, and the trafficker’s dozens of other victims, to escape this devastating situation. As Rachel continues to overcome and understand her experience, she is “turning a mess into a message” that will spread prevention and empower victims.
Since 2012, Rachel has reached over 150,000 live audience members and millions more through numerous media outlets including New Day Morning Show on CNN, Inside with Chris Cuomo: Anyone’s Daughter on HLN, The T.D. Jakes Show, The New York Times Upfront Magazine and ABC’s Newsmakers. She is the lead author of the nation's most widely used sex trafficking intervention curriculum Ending The Game (Journal Of Women and Criminal Justice, 2021) as well as The Cool Aunt Series, a sex trafficking prevention course for teens. Rachel has received numerous honors for her anti-trafficking work, including recognition from Congressman Ed Royce of California’s 39th district and Los Angeles Supervisor Don Knabe. Recently, Rachel was appointed to the United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking for a term of 2 years. www.RachelCThomas.com
Instagram: @RachelThomasWasHere
Facebook: @RachelCThomas
Sowers Education Group Organization Description (108 words)
Rachel C. Thomas founded Sowers Education Group in 2012 to sows seeds of human trafficking awareness and survivor empowerment. Since it's inception, Sowers has reached over 150,000 live audience members and millions more through media. Rachel and a team of 11 survivor-leaders aim to shatter stereotypes about where, how and to whom trafficking happens. Sowers’ curriculum, Ending The Game, is a first-of-its-kind intervention curriculum for survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. Ending The Game curriculum is being used by over 1,000 facilitators in 34 states and has helped many survivors break the bonds of attachment to traffickers and the lifestyle of commercial sexual exploitation. www.RachelCThomas.com
Instagram: @RachelThomasWasHere
Facebook: @RachelCThomas
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Ending The Game Curriculum Description
Ending The Game (Journal Of Women and Criminal Justice, 2021) is the nation's most widely used Sex Trafficking Intervention Curriculum groundbreaking survivor-written curriculum that helps sex trafficking victims reduce feelings of attachment to a trafficker and/or the lifestyle of commercial sexual exploitation. Ending The Game (ETG) educates and empowers sex trafficking victims by providing a structure and framework to uncover harmful psychological coercion (a.k.a. “The Game”) that victims may have been subjected to during their exploitation. By offering a curriculum that reveals the sequence of commonly-used, yet seldom-explained, mind control techniques used by traffickers, we aim to empower participants to acquire skills to “End The Game.” www.EndingTheGame.com
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Instagram: @EndingTheGame
Facebook: @ETGcurriculum
the cool aunt series Description
The Cool Aunt Series: Sex Trafficking Prevention for Teens is more than an online course, it's an experience. Using engaging and age-appropriate cinema, storytelling, lecture and questions, the series walks teens through the STREAMS of Influence-- the 7 risk factors that lead to sex trafficking: Survival, Trafficker, Recruiter, Environment, Abuse, Media, Solicitation. After the series, teens have the opportunity to self-assess their risk factors and get 1-on-1 help if needed. The Cool Aunt Experience has been called "powerful", "amazing", "fun", and "life-saving" by teens, caregivers, and anti-trafficking experts. www.TheCoolAuntSeries.com
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Instagram: @TheCoolAuntSeries
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