Our History
Past
Where it Began
Redeem’s founder and CEO, Jesse Rudy, began his career as an attorney in Washington, DC before joining International Justice Mission (IJM) to use his legal training to protect the poor from violence.
While leading IJM’s team in Uganda, Jesse launched a pilot program to stop land theft—and saw crime rates drop by 80%. More than 1,000 widows and orphans were restored to their homes, and nearly 100 land thieves were prosecuted.
Present
Justice in Action
Inspired by that success, Jesse founded Redeem in 2020 to take this model to scale. Even through a global pandemic, Redeem’s first Intervention Team in Gulu proved the model worked—restoring families, prosecuting offenders, and rebuilding safety.
Today, Redeem operates ten teams across Uganda. These team support hundreds of arrests and create thousands of restorations. Their work is driving down the land theft rates of over 2.7 million widows and orphans.
Future
Expanding Hope
In 2025, Redeem reached two major milestones – ten intervention teams protecting widows and orphans across Uganda and the launch of a pilot project in Zambia.
Looking to the future we desire to expand our intervention model to provide protection for widows and orphans across Africa.