*Editor’s Note: Pseudonyms are used in reference to Beauty for Ashes Scholarship recipients within this article, as their identities are protected for privacy.
“It’s been a transition, for sure,” said Jonathan Derby, the new executive director of the Center for Justice & Reconciliation (CJR) at Point Loma Nazarene University.
“Transition” has been a prominent theme in the turnover of the fall 2024 semester here at PLNU. Not only for the returning student body, in lieu of the university’s inauguration of a new president, but also for students who are taking the first step in pursuing higher education at PLNU.
Upon the start of this school year, three new student survivors of human trafficking have undertaken the journey of earning their degrees here at PLNU — a pursuit made possible by the Beauty for Ashes Scholarship (BFA), a program to fully fund and support the college education of trafficking survivors.
Over the past decade, eight Beauty for Ashes scholars have graduated from PLNU, one of whom just finished her degree in nursing this summer. After the enrollment of the three new survivor scholars, PLNU’s student body now includes seven survivors of human trafficking who are currently on track to graduate.
According to Derby, “[the Beauty for Ashes Scholarship] really connects with Point Loma Nazarene University’s ethos as far as reaching out to people who are marginalized and meeting them where they’re at.”
After graduating law school in 2005, Derby moved to India where he practiced law.
“I worked with IJM [International Justice Mission] in Mumbai which is focused on sex trafficking, prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation,” Derby said.
Functioning as part of a restorative justice ideology, the Beauty for Ashes scholarship empowers survivors of trafficking to achieve their goals.
“It was really through that work, that I saw justice by more than the conviction of the trafficker,” Derby said. “Justice is just as much, or more, about what that survivor needed to overcome the harm that they had experienced.”
For the past 10 years, BFA has not only cultivated supportive networks for survivors through their PLNU experience, but also invested in their futures after university.
“After graduation, the ripple effect that [survivors] individually can have on other people is really powerful,” Derby said.
The Program Director of the Beauty for Ashes Scholarship, Katie Hodson, recently launched the CJR’s Color the Future Campaign, a fundraiser contributing to the Beauty for Ashes Scholarship.
“One of the main ways we are partnering up with people this year is with churches,” Hodson said. “We have seven churches we partnered with that are also connected with each of the seven scholars. They are advocates for each scholar, fundraising money to go toward that specific scholar’s tuition, or also just being a support system — coming around them to pray for them.”
This year was the CJR’s first time pairing a scholar with a church in partnership with the Color the Future campaign. One of the survivor scholars, Desiree* (pseudonym), was partnered with Normal Heights United Church.
“Our church has always had a pretty strong connection with the CJR,” said Brent Ross, lead pastor of Normal Heights United Methodist Church. “We are a very justice-oriented church, so there’s just kind of a natural match that happens there.”
“We are committed to a couple of things,” Ross said, “raising $1,000 for their school bill this year [to support the scholarship], and weekly prayer.”
Desiree is ambitiously pursuing an education at PLNU with the support of the BFA scholarship and prayers from Normal Heights United.
“I am passionate about empowering women who have experienced disempowerment and experienced abuse and violence,” Hodson said.
Hodson explained how the CJR connects with survivors who may apply to receive the Beauty for Ashes Scholarship. The CJR has been cultivating partnerships with anti-human trafficking corporations all over the country, so that they can refer survivors to the BFA scholarship. The CJR has worked with survivor scholars who traveled to San Diego in order to finish their degree at PLNU.
“I think that education is a really unique way to empower people and show them that they can do what they set their mind to,” Hodson said. “Enrollment in university courses, with the help of Beauty for Ashes funding, often shows survivors that they do have the strength and knowledge and courage to do this.”
