Aly Diaz (T’21) will work with Glory House Miami, an organization that provides services to survivors of sex trafficking. She will assist the organization in developing a text outreach program to communicate with survivors and inform them of the resources available. This will be instrumental in encouraging survivors to seek help, especially since the messages will be personalized rather than automated. During her time at Duke, Aly served as VP of Durham and Regional Affairs for Duke Student Government, where she worked to increase student involvement with the local community and advocate for students to engage in responsible civic engagement. She is VP of Define American, Duke’s immigrant student advocacy group, and works with Student Action with Farmworkers, a non-profit organization that empowers and advocates for farmworkers in North Carolina. Growing up in an immigrant community inspired her to increase traditionally underrepresented communities’ access and influence in public policy. Aly hopes to pursue a JD/MPP because it will give her the legal training to understand the complex rules, procedures, and statutes needed to bridge the gap between public policy and individuals left out of these spaces.
“My hometown of Miami ranks third nationwide in sex trafficking cases and I am thankful for this opportunity to use the skills I’ve learned at Duke to give back to my community,” states Aly, “during my time at Glory House Miami, I hope to build trusting relationships with survivors…which would allow me to better understand their trauma needs, and hopefully, in the future, implement a trauma-informed model in human trafficking courtrooms.