About the Author, Sharon Slater

Sharon Slater has dedicated the past twenty years of her life to defending marriage, family and life. Whether it be in a remote village in Africa, addressing 1.5 million people at a pro-marriage rally in Spain, or opposing challenges to family values in the United States, Canada or at the United Nations, Sharon has taken a leading role in organizing support and always makes a difference.

Sharon is an internationally recognized leader in the effort to protect and promote the family and family values at the international, national and local level.  Many of Sharon’s unique experiences and what she has learned about the threats to families around the world are described in her new book, Stand for the Family.  This book also presents key talking points, essential research, and vital information to help defend marriage and the family at the international, national and local level.

Sharon’s success is largely due to her skills as a leader and manager, surrounding herself with good capable people who are also dedicated to protecting the family and family values.  She served as President of United Families International (UFI) from November 2001 until October 2006, where under her leadership, UFI grew from a small organization of about 1,000 members and supporters to reaching over 400,000 people in countries around the world.

In 1999, Sharon co-founded Family Watch International (FWI), a nonprofit organization in consultative status with the United Nations, and she currently serves as its president.  Among her other activities, Sharon writes a biweekly column for “The Family Watch,” a free e-newsletter with readers in over 100 countries around the world.

Over the past several years Sharon and her team of pro-family advocates have been especially effective in uncovering evidence (for an example click here) of how the UN system is being manipulated to influence national laws that promote abortion, prostitution, homosexuality, promiscuity and the sexualization of children.  She has led pro-family advocacy teams at the UN and has worked closely with UN delegates and leaders from a number of countries to defeat UN proposals undermining the family.  In Stand for the Family Sharon exposes this anti-family agenda and outlines what anyone concerned about the family can do to help stop it.  As a result of her wide experience at the international level, Sharon saw the need for a stronger pro-family voice, a worldwide network of responsible citizens and government and community leaders of multiple faiths, cultures and backgrounds coming together as one strong voice in support of the family.  She realized the power that such a voice could have in defending and promoting the family worldwide.

Sharon’s vision is now becoming a reality through a growing Internet-based international coalition to defend the family.  Thousands of people around the world have joined this coalition, pledging to support efforts to protect the family and family values by signing the “I Stand for the Family” petition online.  Her book, Stand for the Family is intended in part to be a gathering tool to awaken good people everywhere to the threats facing the family and invite them to join this international coalition.

In all of her activities to protect the family, Sharon, along with her husband Greg, has worked as an unpaid volunteer.  She has assigned all proceeds from her new book, Stand for the Family, to Family Watch International or its affiliates to support efforts to defend the family and family values.

Sharon’s extensive involvement in international adoption issues, including her own efforts to adopt three Mozambican AIDS orphans, also led her to develop FWI’s Families For Orphans project.  While president of United Families International, Sharon led the development of UFI’s “Stay Alive” HIV/AIDS prevention program which has now reached over 1,000,000 children, parents/caregivers, and teachers in 12 African countries with its proven effective abstinence-based education program.

Among her other efforts to promote and facilitate international adoption, in 2002 Sharon co-chaired the first International Conference on Family-Based Care for Orphans in Nairobi, Kenya.  In 2006, she organized and co-chaired the Best Interest of the Child Seminar, an intercultural exchange between government officials from the United States and Mozambique on orphan issues and adoption.

Sharon holds a Bachelors degree in Family Sciences, and before becoming involved in family issues, Sharon was a certified interpreter for the deaf and an instructor of American Sign Language at the university level.  In addition to American Sign Language, she is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and has had the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Argentina, Guatemala, China/Hong Kong, Thailand, Germany, United Kingdom, Scotland, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Mozambique, Swaziland, South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya.

She has also been active in defending marriage and the family in her local community and was selected to represent American Mothers, Inc as the 2007 Arizona Mother of the Year.  Of all her accomplishments, Sharon prizes most her role as a wife and mother.  Sharon and her husband Greg are the parents of seven children, four biological and three orphan siblings from Mozambique whose parents died of AIDS.  She and her family reside in Gilbert, Arizona.

Click here to sign the “I Stand for the Family” petition