We were lucky to catch up with Terri Markham recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Terri, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Nearly 11 years ago I was asked to serve on a support group for women in the s*x industry. I recall that was a tremendous, scary idea for me. But I took it one step at a time and before long I was frequenting strip clubs, brothels, and illicit massage businesses in order to build rapport with the women there. It was in those clubs, face to face with those women that I began to realize what human trafficking was. It was not just some far-off problem in third-world countries being run by organized crime lords, it was also right there, in my community, right under my nose. That experience shifted something in me, and I began to care and take action. For me that meant seeking out training opportunities and learning everything I possibly could about human trafficking in the United States. Fast forward to about 5 years ago when my life took another unexpected turn, and I ended up relocating to Wyoming. I wanted to immediately get connected doing anti-trafficking work, but I learned really quickly that not many people were doing the work here, I also realized quickly that I had moved to the very last state to enact any human trafficking legislation and there was a huge lack of awareness in general about it. This was what motivated me to do more and ultimately led to me finding a local survivor of trafficking and co-founding our nonprofit organization, Uprising, in 2019.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Terri Markham and I am the co-founder and executive director of Uprising, an anti-trafficking nonprofit organization in Uprising. I am also one of the founders of the Greater Rockies Immersive Training (GRIT) Conference. I have trained and educated thousands of community members, professionals, parents, and youth across the state of Wyoming. The main thing that I want people everywhere to know is that trafficking is 100% happening right in their own communities. Educating yourself on what to look for is crucial.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I met my co-founder, Alexandra, in 2018. At the time I was starting to educate about human trafficking in my community and someone who heard me speak told Alexandra that she should reach out to me. I was quite shocked to receive the call from her, she identified herself as someone who had lived experience, also an enormous amount of post-secondary education and experience in similar fields, and she was in the US on a visa that would not allow me to pay her, therefore she needed to only volunteer her time. I sort of thought that I was being punked. Turns out she was my total partner in crime and soon to be one of my closest friends. With her encouragement, we decided to start a nonprofit, which is no easy feat. To this day she continues to be an internal part of our team, even though she has relocated back home to Canada and has started her own anti-trafficking brand, The Laughing Survivor.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

One of the things that sets Uprising apart from other anti-trafficking nonprofits is our focus. We are not a victim-serving agency, meaning we are not the people you would come to for help if you were experiencing trafficking. Because of my and my co-founder’s years of experience with victim services, we knew that we needed to get more upstream. We desire to look at the root cause of the issue and try to address and stop trafficking before it happens. Therefore our main focuses are 1) demand reduction- because human trafficking is an issue of supply and demand, we would not have trafficking if we didn’t have people who wanted to purchase others for s*x or labor and 2) prevention- we feel we need to empower communities and especially youth with information on what leads to exploitation so that they can reduce the chances that they will ever be victimized in this way, or be a buyer contributing to demand.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.uprisingwyo.org
• Instagram: instagram.com/uprisingwyo
• Facebook: facebook.com/uprisingwyo
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/54355737
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDomponFgPMww3SSubrBe7g

Image Credits
Lauren Trantham, Ride My Road Tibby McDowell, Tibby Photography