JaMel Perkins

Activist and Philanthropist, Freedom Forward

"JaMel has been a champion of youth leaders for decades, particularly in empowering young women. In 2016, JaMel co-founded Freedom Forward in 2016, an organization working to transform the systemic forces in San Francisco that lead youth to experience commercial sexual exploitation. As part of this work, JaMel remains committed to the importance of youth leadership. Freedom Forward's first project was to launch its Forward Fellowship, which invests in youth leaders who have been impacted directly or indirectly by trafficking and want to shift the narratives and systems that affect the lives of youth impacted by trafficking and/or the underground street economy in San Francisco. Fellows pursue a year of healing-centered leadership workshops, serve as the Youth Advisory Board for the San Francisco Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking, and develop projects to effect their visions of change. "

JaMel Perkins has been a community volunteer and activist for the past 40 years. She has been an advocate for basic rights of safety, self-determination, and well-being of victims and survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking. She is co-founder of Freedom Forward, an organization created to make San Francisco a model city for preventing sexual exploitation of youth and providing support for survivors.

She serves on the Mayors Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking and the San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking. She is the past President of the board of the San Francisco Education Fund and Partners Ending Domestic Violence. 2018 she was honored by the United Nations San Francisco with their first ever Global Humanitarian Award.

"The impact I want to have is to amplify the voices of youth who are often ignored and to highlight the realities of exploitation in San Francisco. We co-founded Freedom Forward because we believe that no young person should experience exploitation anywhere in the world, especially not here in San Francisco."

JaMel Perkins