Ellen is PASSIONATE about human rights issues, including the movement to achieve gender balance in institutions, women in history, reducing violence against women, and childhood and adult sexual harassment.

Ellen particularly advocates nipping sexual harassment in the bud where it starts, in the home and on the playground, by empowering girls and women to speak up at the moment. As a self-defense advocate, Ellen writes about and teaches both women and kids physical self-protection skills. She completed the IMPACT empowerment-based Self-Defense Instructor Training, then joined the IMPACT Personal Safety board in its newly formed 501(c)(3) rebirth as a non-profit organization.

She attended the U.N.A. Non-Governmental Organizations Forum and the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 as both a delegate and a journalist. She also covered the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, in August 2001. She received a grant from the Better World Campaign to cover the U.N.’s 47th Commission on the Status of Women and has attended the U.N. C.S.W. for many years. Ms. Snortland was a part-time faculty member in the Communication Studies Department at California State University, Los Angeles.

Ellen has been inspired by and worked alongside many of the great activists of our time, Gloria Steinem, Dolores Huerta and Jesse Jackson to name a few.  Recognized as a leader in her community, Ms. Snortland was declared a “Woman of the Year” by Congressman Adam Schiff in 2012.