Rising Stars: Meet Anisa Easterbrook

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anisa Easterbrook.

Hi Anisa, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Our CEO, Sarah, started its Penalty because she met 16-year-old Rose, on the streets of Recife, North East of Brazil, in 2013. At that time, she was CEO of Happy Child International, an organization I founded 25 years ago in Brazil to rescue, rehabilitate and reintegrate children in street situations. Since Rose was 11, she had been exploited on the streets.

When they met during a night walk Happy Child was conducting on the streets of a marginal neighborhood in Recife, Rose and many other young girls were out, working and looking for clients. As they talked, Rose explained that many of their clients came from all over the world, and, although she had resigned herself to a life of abuse and exploitation, she wanted others like her to be able to escape. At the time, Brazil was the focus of international attention with the World Cup commencing, and the high influx of people attending the event meant that vulnerable children and young people like Rose would be at an even greater risk of exploitation.

Sarah believed that the thousands gathering together could be used as a force for good, and so launched its Penalty to seize the opportunity that these major events offer, utilize our global passion for sport, and impact positive change.

To date, we have run it’s Penalty Campaign during 12 major sporting events, including the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the 2016 Rio Olympics & Paralympics, the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics & Paralympics, and four Super Bowls including the 2021 Super Bowl LV in Tampa – impacting an average of 180 million people worldwide per campaign.

Since our launch in 2014, its Penalty has grown and expanded considerably.

It’s a Penalty now focuses on four key strategic areas to end human trafficking, exploitation, and abuse. They run global awareness campaigns during major sporting events highlighting the telltale signs to look out for, and hotline numbers to make a report. Working in collaboration with the sports, travel & tourism industry, NGOs, and law enforcers; the campaigns are contextualized in the host cities and countries.

It’s a Penalty has so far run 16 campaigns during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Super Bowl, and the Commonwealth Games, reaching over 2.5 billion people. Alongside the campaigns, It’s a Penalty has three other programs including CommonProject, which advocates for legal reform to improve protection from sexual exploitation and abuse for children throughout the Commonwealth countries, Student Ambassador Network, which educates and raises university students in the UK to prevent human trafficking and exploitation and co-run Safe to Compete, a program that trains sports coaches and parents of children in Little Leagues in the USA to prevent abuse and exploitation.

I have had the privilege of being their Communications and Marketing Director for 2 years, traveling to different States & Cities from my home in London and around the world. I love working for It’s a Penalty because we have a huge impact reaching millions of people but are a very small team. Working in a small team means that I have had the opportunity to help shape campaigns and programs and input on a lot of organisational key decision-making.

The best part of my role is meeting so many different people from different walks of life.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Difficulties we faced in the beginning as an organization:

– Engaging partnerships with corporates because of the nature of what we do. Today it’s changing and it’s positive to be seen to be preventing human trafficking and modern slavery as an organization.
– Persevering with networking and engaging with key stakeholders from sporting governing bodies and the travel & tourism industry.
– Growing the team with people who complement each other with different skills and abilities.
– Working globally with a small team made possible through the new world of work … the internet! Also creating a model where partnerships with local NGOs in the host cities of the major sporting events who in effect represented us and made our work more effective.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I work as the Communications and Marketing Director. I feel proud that we have been able to tailor our awareness materials dependent on the context and culture they are used in. For example, we translate our materials into Spanish for our US campaigns. In the past, we also launched the first-ever human trafficking hotline in Japan during the Olympics & Paralympics and worked closely with on-the-ground local NGO – ZOE International. More recently, we have been working to tailor our campaigns to become digital and have been conscious of our carbon footprint. In being predominantly digital, we have been able to reach far more people.

For our Arizona campaign, I felt pleased we included a lot more women ambassadors and advocates, such as Collette V. Smith (NFL’s first black female coach) who spoke at our events and was included in our materials and our film. We also worked closely with the Women’s Football Alliance which lent us their players, including Lois Cooke!

Most importantly, we were able to partner with Where Hope Lives in Arizona, a survivor housing project and organization. We worked closely with their team, many of who are survivors, and had two speakers join our hotel staff training and our launch program. We intend on continuing to work closely with survivors, viewing them as experts by experience.

Do you have any advice for those just starting?
My advice would be to volunteer for organizations if you can, this does not have to be in the traditional sense, many organizations are looking for a wide caliber of people and services such as social media and marketing support, events management, helping people with CVs, etc. If you can offer any type of support, just drop an email to a campaign you are passionate about! This is a great way of getting to know the team and applying for a more permanent role.

I work in a creative role, and I’d say that if you are searching for a job in a creative field of work then there are plenty of free courses you can do online to take your skills to the next level.

Finally, I’d suggest networking as being your best friend for landing a role. Go to events, meet people, and always get their email to follow them up afterward! I truly believe a good 50% of getting a role is dependent on if the employer likes you as a person. Work on your people skills!

Contact Info:

• Website: itsapenalty.org
• Instagram: @its_apenalty
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsapenaltycampaign
• Twitter: @its_apenalty