The speaker talked about the emotional subject of social justice in mainly sexual abuse, domestic violence with human services that are offered right here in Ithaca. Laura Rodriguez De Simons works for an advocacy center that deals with these issues and provides some form of social justice. She talked about her path in pursuing her interests that ultimately led into this line of work. She was initially interested in learning how poverty arises as she pursued her degree in economics. After gaining some experience in the field with non-profit organizations, she was able to decide that she wanted to go into advocacy work in relation to poverty as a factor to sexual violence. It is these non-profit organizations that are able to provide the services without financial help. Laura gave the major advice of volunteering in advocacy non-profit organizations to see if the person is actually interested in the work. Especially, with sexual abuse work it is important to see if you can handle the work and be dedicated to it. The organizations love volunteers since they are dedicated to the cause. She suggested that students even work for hot line with domestic violence issues. Laura mentioned that she got a MBA due to its practical use and she uses it everyday when managing a team of 10 advocates as she does in the shelter in Tompkins County for sexual violence advocacy. We also got into an interesting discussion about the opiate problem in Ithaca and it was sad to hear how many clients of the advocacy center are struggling with opiate addiction and shows how big the opiate addiction issue is in Ithaca and Tomkins County.