Wandjell Bellari is no stranger to the work of advocating for citizens who are incarcerated and for children impacted by parental incarceration. Her personal story began at 8 years old when both of her parents were in prison at the same time. Because of this Wandjell's greatest desire is to reach the 5.4 million children impacted by parental incarceration in the United States. 

 

In 2015 at the age of 19, she lobbied the FCC in Washington, D.C. to reduce the rates of phone calls from prisons - and the FCC made this change by capping phone rates from federal correctional facilities at $0.21/minute.  After that success, she took her advocacy work back to Illinois & petitioned the Illinois General Assembly to reduce the rates of phone calls from prisons. In 2016, House Bill 6200 was passed, reducing the phone call rates from prisons to less than $0.07/minute making Illinois one of the states with the lowest rates in the U.S.

 

On July 4th, 2020, Wandjell launched The Freedom Child Foundation. The Freedom Child Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides resources and support to adolescents in the United States between the ages of 5 to 17 who have one or both parents in prison. Two pillars of TFCF's focus include providing resources for children to stay in touch with their incarcerated parents and providing therapy to children with incarcerated parents to learn to cope with that traumatic experience.

 

Wandjell is entirely motivated to break the cycle of incarceration in families like hers. She advocates for women, loves family, and does freelance modeling. She enjoys attending church events and exploring Houston's emerging culture with her husband Marty.