Amber Scorah
Canadian-American writer, speaker, entrepreneur and activist
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Amber Scorah is a Canadian-American writer, speaker, entrepreneur and activist.
Amber Scorah | |
|---|---|
| Born | Canada |
| Education | Harvard Divinity School, The City University of New York, CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies[1] |
| Website | www |
Early life
She grew up as a third-generation Jehovah's Witness in Vancouver, Canada with her parents and sister and rarely had contact with non-Jehovah's Witnesses. She forwent a formal education and career and instead went into the full-time volunteer preaching work immediately after graduating high school. When she was 22 years old she married a Jehovah's Witness elder and they moved to China to become missionaries.[2][3] Scorah began speaking out publicly about her life as a Jehovah's Witness in 2013,[3] and in 2019 published a memoir called Leaving the Witness.[4]
Education
In 2010, Scorah enrolled at the City University of New York and attended Hunter College. She took a break in 2015, then resumed her studies in spring 2019. She graduated from the CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies in 2020 with a concentration in English and the Psychology of Religion at Hunter College's program in religion.[1][5]
Advocacy
In 2015, Scorah's three-month-old son died unexpectedly on his first day of daycare in SoHo, New York. The daycare had been operating without a license and was shut down shortly after the incident. A staff member stated that she had noticed Karl kicking in his crib but she was told by a supervisor to ignore it because that's what babies do. He was found unresponsive with "blue lips" a short time later, and pronounced dead at the hospital.[6][7] Scorah had not felt ready to go back to work and leave him at daycare, and the incident drove her into activism.[8]
Scorah authored a viral[9] article for The New York Times' Motherlode blog about the incident, arguing that mandatory paid parental leave is necessary.[10] In February 2016, she attended New York City mayor Bill de Blasio's speech where he discussed his policy mandating 6 weeks' paid parental leave for non-union city employees. She called this policy change a "baby step."[11] In August 2016, Scorah delivered petitions to both the Trump and Clinton presidential campaigns pushing for federally mandated paid leave. Both politicians have spoken favorably of the concept. Donald Trump pitched a plan for how he could institute 6 weeks' paid parental leave. Scorah says this is progress but it's not enough.[12] In 2017 CNN correspondent Clare Sebastian named Amber as her "hero" for "...her bravery in turning such a tragic event into public and heartfelt campaign."[13] That same year Brooklyn Magazine named her one of their top "100 Influencers in Brooklyn Culture" for her parental leave advocacy.[14]
In 2020, Scorah co-founded Lioness, an organization that "help[s] people navigate the process of speaking out against workplace mistreatment."[15] She also founded Psst.org, a website where people can submit encrypted whisteblowing reports about their employers.[16]
Publications
Books
- Scorah, Amber (2019). Leaving the Witness: Exiting Religion And Finding A Life. Viking Press. ISBN 9780735222540.
Podcasts
- Scorah, Amber (2007–2009). Dear Amber (Podcast). ChinesePod.