Everything was going as planned for Jen Bedrossian. After graduating from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in classics in 2011, she participated in an archeological dig in Italy and landed a job at a museum in downtown Los Angeles. But after a while she realized she was lacking a creative outlet, as well as growing tired of the commute.

“I was trying to figure out something closer to home and I’ve always been creative, and started toying around with jewelry. At the same time I was attending a lot of groups and conferences that kept focusing on human trafficking,” Bedrossian says.

Last year, she merged the two ideas to launch UNCVRD, a jewelry company that assists survivors of human trafficking. Forty percent of all sales go to Gems Uncovered, a leading human trafficking organization and a member of the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force. For Bedrossian, it was important to donate such a high percentage in order to make a larger impact.

“I didn’t know what I could do to help with human trafficking and didn’t really know it was happening in Long Beach particularly. I decided jewelry is a way that I can give back,” Bedrossian says of finding her path.

She launched with the BEACON collection. Each handcrafted piece was named ‘light’ in the native languages of one of the top ten countries infamous for human trafficking. Within six months of starting the business, Bedrossian has transitioned to running UNCVRD full time and creates all the jewelry in the collections out of her home studio.

UNCVRD’s newest collection is inspired by great women in history such as the Grimke Sisters and Harriet Tubman and is available now at www.uncvrdjewelry.com.