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Monique “Mo” George or Mo (as she is often called) joined Picture The Homeless (PTH) as the Executive Director in January 2017. Mo formally worked with Community Voices Heard (CVH), as the NYC Chapter Director of Organizing. Mo worked to advance CVH’s NYC Chapter work, which ranges from the preservation of public housing, supporting the need for low-income housing and participatory budgeting.

Mo's over 25 years of organizing experience begun in college where she worked locally with NYPIRG on varies environmental issues. Upon graduation, Mo began working with SEIU Local 1199 and was there for close to 10 years. After leaving 1199, Mo moved on to become the Lead Organizer at the Empire State Pride Agenda, where she fought for the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. At Pride Agenda, Mo worked on various statewide campaigns including being on the lead team that developed the organizing strategies to win Marriage Equality across New York State. She also furthered the annual statewide lobby day, as it expanded from 400 to over 1000 participants. After moved on from Pride Agenda, Mo joined CVH to work on something near and dear to her, public housing.

As a proud product of public housing, she feels that her past work at CVH has help to preserve public housing, and the campaign has won over $700 million towards that preservation. Mo organizing work has led her from meetings at the White House, to becoming a Professional Fellow with the U.S. Department of State through their work with the Greater Lakes Consortium out of Toledo Ohio. This work has allowed her to travel across Eastern Europe to places such as Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, to teach community organizing as well as learn about challenges facing varies Eastern European communities.

Mo dedicated her leadership skills to her growth while working with various organizations such as Heritage of Pride (HOP) and FIERCE. Mo is honored to be one of the Co-Chairs and Festival Director Queens Pride. She holds her Bachelor’s degree in Black Studies and her Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) from Metropolitan College.

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Manuela Arciniegas is the Director of the Andrus Family Fund, a small family foundation with a grantmaking portfolio of $4 million supporting organizing, advocacy, and direct service work dedicated to serving youth ages 16-24 impacted by the juvenile justice, foster care, and other disruptive systems. Manuela manages AFF’s overall grantmaking portfolio of 65+ organizations addressing AFF’s grantmaking gun violence reduction, trauma-informed care, divesting from prisons, and the intersection between immigration and justice systems. She designed and managed the S.O.A.R. capacity building initiative at the Andrus Family Fund and launched the AFF Webinar Learning Sessions, which highlight our nation’s most innovative leaders promoting highly effective strategies that support youth impacted by the youth justice system, including African-American, Latinx, Native and LBGTQ youth. She is a the co-chair of the Funders for Justice/Neighborhood Funders’ Group, the Fund for Women and Girls of Color, the Youth First State Advocacy Fund, the Youth Engagement Fund Advisory Board, the Funder’s Collaborative on Youth Organizing Advisory Board, the New York City Youth Funders, and the New York City Capacity Building Funder’s Collaborative, and the Steering Committee for Funders for Criminal Justice Reform at Philanthropy New York.

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Mustafa was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York as a black Muslim. He moved to the Bronx in 2003 where he has lived for over fifteen years. He started his work in the Bronx leading environmental justice work with black and latinx youth in Van Cortlandt park. He then joined Sistas and Brothas United (SBU) as a youth organizer in 2001. There he was a lead organizer for multiple community and school based campaigns and eventually became the director; he stayed in SBU for a total of nine years. At SBU he worked with seven high schools in the Bronx, fought for greater student voice, challenged the NYPD to hold school safety accountable for creating prison like environments in our high schools, pushed for more guidance counselors, fought for student metrocards, organized alongside students throughout the Bronx and across NYC to stand up and be counted.

In April 2010, he joined the Alliance for Educational Justice (AEJ) as the National Campaign Organizer but was also a founding organizer and member of the leadership council that formed AEJ in 2008. There he worked on federal legislation to end the school to prison pipeline and worked with black and latinx youth in over 30 states across the country. In 2014, he joined the staff of the Gay Straight Alliance Network as the Director of National programs based in Oakland, California. He continues to work tirelessly to build an ongoing national movement of Trans, Queer, and Gender non conforming youth leaders to reinvent America's schools in multiple states across the US. He uses the tools he's learned from movement building with youth and communities of color who face multiple intersections of oppression through building intentional disciplined movements. He was excited to join FIERCE in 2016 first as the board co chair then in his current role as the Executive Director. FIERCE builds the collective power of LGBTQ youth of color who fight to end youth homelessness, to end state violence from the police and prison system, and create safe and supportive learning environments that are free from bullying and stigma. FIERCE is an organization he looked up to when he came out in the late 1990's and works with their membership to build the next generation of our movement's leaders. He builds and inspires powerful community led solutions through a combo of political education, radical vision, direct organizing tactics, compassionate agitation, creative cultural expression, and the warrior wisdom gifted him by his ancestors.

Ericka is an active member of the WEL Community who is committed to supporting the expansion of WEL and guiding future members throughout out their transformation process. Ericka believes WEL offers a blueprint to our collective liberation and hopes to encourage other BIWOC to envision newer more loving and authentic ways of being in relationship with one another and our communities.

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Simran Noor is an interdependent consultant and coach focused on strategy development, institutional change/organizational development and movement building with a focus on developing processes and setting clear outcomes to achieve racial justice. She brings over ten years of experience working directly with impacted communities, developing policy and strategy, leading organizational change processes and serving as staff within the philanthropic sector.

Since starting NOOR Consulting in February of 2018, she has supported several women of color coaching clients from organizations like Center for Community Change and the Surdna Foundation. She has led equity and justice organizational change efforts for organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Fund and Enterprise Community Partners and facilitated numerous meetings for coalitions like It Takes Roots, EMPLOY Youth Collaborative in New Orleans, Career Rise in Atlanta. She has supported the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Atlanta Civic Site and various foundations through grantee convening and strategy support (including Community Food Funders, Doris Duke, Jessie Smith Noyes, Kresge, MS, Nathan Cummings and the Neighborhood Funders’ Group). She has facilitated events for business social impact programs including Sir Kensington’s and Adidas.

Prior to launching her own operation, Simran was Senior Fellow at the new Race Forward. The new Race Forward is the union of two leading racial justice non-profit organizations: Race Forward and Center for Social Inclusion (CSI).

Previously, Simran served as CSI’s Vice President of Policy & Programs, a key senior level manager who worked directly with the President and Senior Vice President, providing programmatic leadership through the management and coordination of all program staff, strategy development, program management, organizational networking, alliance building, and relationship management. In this role, Simran’s primary responsibilities included programmatic strategy, planning, implementation, staffing, and evaluation. During her tenor as Vice President, she also served as a Deputy Director of the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) where she supported the team in developing strategies and tactics to support local and regional government to achieve racial equity.

Simran also led CSI’s program team who, in turn, ensure the delivery and impact of CSI’s programs. In her past work at CSI as Coordinator of Advocacy and Director of Policy & Strategy, Simran designed and facilitated dozens of workshops in collaboration with national and local community and government groups focused on applying a structural race analysis as well as specific policy issues including transparency and accountability, transportation, food and health equity. During her time at CSI, Simran worked directly with local and national advocates across the country including in Detroit, New York City, and Seattle.

Prior to joining CSI, Simran served as Program Manager at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation where she worked with the Food, Health & Well-being, Racial Equity, and Civic & Community Engagement portfolios. She also served as Program Assistant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, where she supported the Policy Research and KIDS COUNT teams. Simran is deeply committed to youth development, having worked in organizational development and as frontline staff for the Holistic Life Foundation, a Baltimore-based yoga and mindfulness program, and as a language arts and community engagement teacher for middle school students through the Middle Grades Partnership.

Simran has written and commented for a variety of media including the Detroit Free Press, The Times-Picayune, The Hill, Aljazeera America and City Limits Magazine. She also has been a featured panelist on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry. Simran is also a regular speaker on issues of racial equity—frequently featured at conferences and public meetings.

Simran holds a dual bachelor’s degree in American Studies and Political Science from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a dual master’s degree in Public Administration and Social Policy from the University of Pennsylvania. She currently also serves as a board member for Building Movement Project and South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).

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Associate Director of Organizing at Make the Road New York, Julissa Bisono has more than 15 years of experience in supporting immigrant communities through community organizing and delivery of essential survival services. At Make the Road New York, she began her trajectory supporting community members in search of adult educational opportunities and often supported their kids as a social justice mentor and tutor. Soon after, Julissa helped to coordinate civic engagement efforts to register and activate thousands of first-generation immigrant voters in Queens. Next, Julissa transitioned into Senior Workplace Justice Organizer and used her talents to build a broad low-wage worker base committed to protecting worker wages and ending wage theft. Than Ms Bisono serve as Lead Organizer at Make the Road New York and providing organizing and technical support to BASTA! and Padres en Accion, the housing rights and education rights committees focused on protecting people’s homes and creating equitable schools. Ms. Bisono also coordinates their non-partisan voter registration voter campaigns. Julissa is a graduate of the Activate! A Community Organizing Fellowship and the recipient of the 2008 Mario Savio Activist Award. She is very proud to have spent half her life working in the community and borough that she calls home.

Queens Coordinator for Make the Road Action Ms. Bisono for the last 5 years has been electoral and grassroots organizing to advance progressive political and policy changes to build black and brown community power.

Wanda Salaman is known to many as the MOM of the South Bronx, serving as executive director of Mothers on the Move/ Madres en Movimiento (MOM) since 2002. Wanda’s vision for empowering Bronx residents was born at the age of ten when she arrived to the South Bronx from Carolina, Puerto Rico in 1975 when the Bronx was “burning” so she organized the girls on the block to clean up and reclaim an abandoned lot and form a baseball diamond and the first girls’ baseball team in the neighborhood. As she grew up, so did her community organizing and her reputation as a strong afrolatina woman not be underestimated, winning the Diario La Prensa Latina of the Year Award in 2000, a City Council Proclamation of Recognition. Through door-to-door organizing, research and issue based campaigns, she counseled tenants, homeowners about legal rights and neighborhood revitalization, building a strong base with the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition, the Crotona Community Coalition and the Fordham Bedford Organizing Project. Through her vision, leadership and direct organizing she has transformed MOM into a multi-issue hub developing community leadership on environmental, housing, economic justice.

Natasha Capers is the mother of two boys ages 16 and 14 who are poised to be the next generation of black liberation leaders, they are a native of Brownsville, Brooklyn, and the Director of the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ). Having attended public school in District 23 and attended Thomas Jefferson High School, they know first hand the problems and the promise of NYC public schools, especially those in under-resourced communities. Natasha has served as School Leadership Team Chair, Parent Association President and Vice President for the District 23 Community Education Council.

Natasha began their work with CEJ when their children's school was placed on the NYC Department of Education's list for closure. After a successful campaign to prevent the closure of that school, they became a dedicated CEJ parent leader and then took on the role as the Coordinator.

The NYC Coalition for Educational Justice unapologetically organizes in Black, Brown and immigrant communities, and uses parent voices and power to advance research-based strategies to improve academic outcomes for students. CEJ’s current campaign is focused on pushing NYC to adopt Culturally Responsive Education, including cultural competency trainings for teachers and school staff, diverse curriculum and a DOE Office of Culturally Responsive Education.

They have helped to lead the fight for culturally responsive education and curriculum in NY City, State and Nationally. Their work with CEJ lead to the $23 million investment in implicit bias trainings for all NYC Dept of Education educators and staff.

It is clear to them that the path to our collective liberation is through organizing, collective community building, healing for the generational effects of white supremacy, actively envisioning our freedom futures and embodied joy.

Through their work with CEJ, Natasha gives parents the tools to use their power and wisdom to transform a school system that has historically underserved Black and Brown children.

KG is well-seasoned in the cultivation of transformative team culture and human eco-systems. They have 10+ years in organizational development, strategic planning, organizing, coaching and supervision, and project management. Their brain works like a constellation map, a multidimensional web if you will. Their commitment to generative emergence draws out the juiciness in individual people who are engaged in collective work.

KG is currently the Managing Director of Transformative Change. Previously, they’ve worked with coalitions and communities on addressing housing justice, immigrant rights, educational inequities, environmental racism, language justice, and the practice of cultivating community belonging. As the founder of Nepantla Navigations LCC, Krista also provides consulting, coaching, facilitation, and training services for organizations and individuals.

They are currently in the 5th cohort of the Warriors for Embodied Liberation program. They are also deep in MNDFL’s intensive mindfulness teacher certification program.

KG is an artist, writer, weaver, alchemist, bruja, mama, singer, gender non-binary mixed race/mestizx (brown/white), and nepantlera. Born and raised in Colorado, they now reside in northern CO with their growing family and chosen family of plants, animals and humans alike.

As a young black womyn growing up in a quickly gentrifying community, experiencing systemic and institutional oppression, like so many of my peers, I found myself drowning. I was lucky enough to find a home in the Youth Power Project (YPP) of MRNY where I was able to begin my re-education and reintegration into my community that I had been living in, but also felt hidden from. YPP was and still remains my family where I learned key principles and values essential to any leader – trust, compassion, honesty, accountability, self-love and sustainability. All exactly in that order.

As a member of MRNY, I found myself working collaboratively with my peers and organizers to coordinate local, citywide, and national youth organizing events through the Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC) and the Alliance for Educational Justice (AEJ). A few years later, I had the amazing opportunity to become part of the YPP team as an organizer on staff. MRNY at the time was the coordinating anchor organization of AEJ. I took on the role of event planning and logistics for AEJ national convenings at 19 years old. MRNY saw leadership and skills that I didn’t even realize were being cultivated in myself at the time. With each convening wanting to meet the needs of all the communities that I would be serving I was committed to making sure that each convening, meeting, training, action, youth networking event was better than the last and it was. This was one of the many moments during my organizing career where I remember feeling, seeing, and embracing joy from a job well done. While wearing my coordinating and logistics hat, I also still had to show up as an organizer and support the young people.

The extension of trust, compassion, honesty, and accountability that was given to me as a youth leader was critical to my successful experience as an organizer. I also realized the importance of cultivating self love and learning to be more sustainable if I was going to continue to want to serve my community for the long haul. I had the opportunity to further my professional development by participating in an 11 week intensive training: Leaders for Embodied Organizing (LEO), with Rusia Mohiuddin from Universal Partnership. LEO was the integration of somatics & organizing skills. It was exactly what I needed. I came back from the training ready, grounded, and understanding just exactly how I wanted to continue to work with young people from various socio economic and health backgrounds within in my community.

2017, I spent it assisting a new local organization in the South Bronx build out their youth program, bring on a permanent staff for the Youth Team, assist in their year long development plan, and assisted in the creation and facilitation of their first ever youth summer program where stipends were raised through a grassroots effort. Even as I have since transitioned out of my role the relationship with the leaders & staff brought on continue to live on.

During this time I was also a student-apprentice of Warrior’s for Embodied Liberation (WEL). WEL is an apprenticeship program developed and lead by Universal Partnership's principle, Rusia Mohiuddin. WEL is a 2-year training program in which the students learn and practice the core methodologies for embodied training and coaching. as a part of their studies, students explore, learn, and develop pieces on our understanding of many things related to change work. One of the first points of entry, into understand the work UP does, is human nature. what is human behavior and how does change happen? It has been and continues to be a privilege to share space with mentors & peers that seek to change the world with integrity, resilience, humor, & love at the center. It is the breath of fresh air & understanding that I have been seeking.

Organizing is a small world and I have had the honor to meet & share space with former Picture the Homeless members (PTH) during my leadership as young organizer. After taking a much needed break and through intentional reflection I felt ready to come back into the organizing movement and I feel lucky to have found another home with Picture the Homeless (PTH). There is already so much richness and authenticity! I am looking forward to sitting, listening, building & creating lasting impactful change with PTH members and staff.

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Eli Cuna currently serves as Campaign Director for the Center for Civic Policy (CCP) and Senior Advisor for the NM Dream Team (NMDT). Her focus is on movement building organizing and political strategy in southwest, southern and central communities in both a c(3) and c(4) capacity. As one of the Dream Team’s co-founders, Eli has been a crucial asset in developing what started as a student group at the University of New Mexico into the statewide political youth powerhouse with several electoral and policy wins under their belt it is today.
Prior to moving back down in New Mexico, Eli served as United We Dream’s National Field Director for four years. There, she worked to develop UWD’s field and political strategy and implementation plans for the Texas, New Mexico, Florida, and California branches during a time of massive mobilizations and incredible resistance. Eli also has helped in the development of the field infrastructure for UWD c3 and UWDA c4 civic engagement.
During this time she developed a strong organizing curriculum centered in healing, love and joy which are now core values that the NMDT/UWD leadership pipeline centers around. Elis also played a major role in growing the civic engagement capacity for both United We Dream and our sister organization United We Dream Action. While these are just two examples, the victories and transformations she was able to achieve during her time with UWD are numerous and amazing.
Her work in social justice began when she made the decision to come out as undocumented back in 2004 and participated in her first class walk out at Capital High School in Santa Fe to voice the need for access to college education for undocumented youth in New Mexico. Ever since, Eli’s organizing practice is rooted in racial justice, intersectionality and indigenous epistemology.
Currently she is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Civic Policy (CCP) and Funders Youth Collective Organizing (FYCO) and holds two B.A. degrees and a M.P.A from the University of New Mexico.

Maria is the Co-Director of Ma Mukti, a progressive non profit organization created to honor and uphold the memory and continue the great work of her beloved mother. Additionally, Maria is a freelance artist working predominantly in wax works.
From 2000 to 2016, she was employed with the NYC Administration for Children’s Services. Maria also taught Pre-Kindergarten and volunteered as an art teacher with the Mary Mitchell & Family Center.
Maria is also a freelance artist, working primarily with candle wax and oil pastels. Her artwork reflects her life experiences; eastern culture, western living. She is a South Asian created by a diplomat father and Member of Parliament mother from Bangladesh.

(she/her) Andrea Colon is a first generation U.S citizen with roots in Guatemala and Puerto Rico. She attends Baruch College and is majoring in Economics with a minor in Law & Policy. Andrea brings 5 years of community organizing experience, having worked with youth in Far Rockaway, NYC on different issues such as dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, criminal legal reform, and food sovereignty. As a womanist, she understands the intersectionality, both racial and gender, that exists in these oppressive systems. As the the Co-Executive Director of Sis & Non-Cis, Andrea is committed to healing, affirming and protecting young girls, women, and gender non-conforming youth of color who are mostly impacted by racism and cis-hetero normative ableist patriarchy.

Nia Morgan is a community organizer and youth educator with a focus on education and racial justice. With a background in international human rights, they organize with youth in high school around issues that most impact them as a facilitator for the Liberation Program at the Brotherhood Sister Sol. Nia has supported youth organizers in their work since graduating from Columbia Law School in 2019.

Their activism is grounded in their belief in the rights and dignity of every person. Nia chose to support local advocacy after graduation for the impact on lived experiences and the agency of the impacted community. They approach their work with an abolitionist stance and from a place of being an expert in their own experience being black, queer, and neurodivergent.

Outside of work, they love to write, read, and play the odd video game. Nia lives in New Jersey and also holds a Master and Bachelor of Arts in History from Tulane University.

Sandra Lobo currently serves as the Executive Director of the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC), a member-led organization that unites diverse people and institutions to fight for racial justice and economic democracy through intergenerational organizing. A first generation immigrant and resident of the Bronx for over 30 years, Sandra has worked to develop leadership of color, creating long term organizational sustainability, and building community shared wealth and ownership and collective governance over local assets through an anti-racist lens. Before this role, Sandra was trained in anti-oppression organizing and leadership development incorporating a restorative justice framework and served as Director of the Center for Service and Justice at Fordham University for 17 years, shifting the focus of the Center’s work from a charity to a justice model. Sandra has served on several board of directors, including the Simon Bolivar Foundation, Robert Sterling Foundation Advisory Council and is currently Vice President at the Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative. Sandra has a Masters in Social Work with a focus on Community Organizing and a BA in Urban Studies from Fordham University. She lives, works and worships in the Bronx raising her two children, Amelia and Tiago.

Crystal Reyes is a first generation Latina living in the Bronx, she brings her commitment to unapologetically trust herself and take risks for the sake of being joyful and feeling fulfilled through embodying and supporting leadership development of people in the Bronx.

Julie Colon is a passionate community leader born and raised in the South Bronx. She has been organizing around the decommodification of housing and tenants rights for the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition for the last 3 years.

Dariella Rodriguez is a mother of two teens and works as the Director of Community Development at THE POINT CDC. She graduated from Bronx CUNY schools and has been an organizer deeply committed to support community in the struggle against the racist oppressive systems.

Yadira has been part of the United We Dream since first becoming involved in the “We Can’t Wait Campaign” campaign back in 2014, where she became a member of the badass honey badgers squad that led a lot of transformative escalation through direct actions that in many ways defined our role in the movement during those years. Yadira cut her community organizing teeth as a housing organizer in New York City, within the NYC Housing Justice for all coalition and went on to found Astoria Tenants’ Union. During her time there she was a critical voice in the intersection of housing and immigrant rights, organized rent strikes and played a role in the historic and successful #CancelRent push during the height of the pandemic. She does crossfit and loves to cook for family.

ANTOINETTE COOPER is a writer, TEDx speaker, and founder of the nonprofit Black Exhale, a sacred space for the liberated Black bodies to breathe, heal, and be resourced. Her forthcoming poetry collection, UNRULY, set to release in 2025, documents the historical and present-day violences inflicted upon the Black female body, while also illuminating paths to embodied reclamation.
Committed to healing collective trauma through the arts, ancestral wisdom, and medical humanities, Antoinette is currently participating in a rigorous training program to become a Certified Collective Trauma Facilitator under the mentorship of Thomas Hübl, renowned author of "Healing Collective Trauma." She is also engaged in the Trauma-Sensitive Training with the HeartMath Institute. Antoinette's writings have been recognized with a literary grant from the Café Royal Cultural Foundation and have been featured in esteemed publications such as The Amistad Literary Arts Journal, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and Poetry Foundation.
She has participated in artist residencies with BLKSPACE and was awarded an artist fellowship with Twenty Summers. Beyond the page, she’s also supported “Wild Darlings Sing the Blues,” a documentary film following a Black women’s collective return to a former Southern slave plantation for healing ceremonies. With a Cornell B.A. and a Columbia MFA, Antoinette brings academic rigor to her creative and healing work. She serves on the board of Narrative Medicine at CUNY School of Medicine, championing the integration of narrative and the humanities in healthcare. Her teaching experience spans institutions such as Columbia University, CUNY School of Medicine, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also facilitated transformative writing workshops at the Eileen Fisher Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and Rikers Island Correctional Facility. Explore Antoinette's world of healing, creativity, and empowerment at www.antoinettecooper.com or www.blackexhale.org.

Flor Khan is a writer and poet from Los Angeles, California. Her commitment to social justice and organizing first began in San Francisco, California, where she worked as a community organizer, advocating for marginalized communities affected by gentrification. While completing her M.A. in Education at San Francisco State University, she taught college-preparatory courses in Oakland, providing mentorship and emotional support to help prepare first-generation high school students for higher education.
Flor has taught in a wide range of non-traditional educational settings, working primarily with incarcerated youth, refugees, and students with special needs. She recently returned from five years abroad in Berlin, Germany, where she founded a community organization for asylum seekers, implementing cross-cultural strategies to integrate models of support for migrant women from Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Flor is interested in using creative arts and movement therapies as platforms for social change.

Angeles Solis is the Lead Organizer of the Workplace Justice Team at Make the Road New York. Angeles co-founded the Fund Excluded Workers Coalition and led major escalations to pass a $2.1 billion relief fund for undocumented workers. Angeles leads hard hitting campaigns against wage theft and labor abuse at the city and state level and helped coordinate the citywide fight to block Amazon HQ2 in Queens. Over the past decade, Angeles has spearheaded campaigns to improve conditions for workers in Amazon warehouses, garment factories, campuses, restaurants and more. She has been recognized as an Edna Berger Marks Awardee, 2021 NYC Rising Labor Star, Bertha 2021 Fellow, CORO Alumni, Emergent Strategy Institute Fellow, and is a member of the Workers Rights Consortium Board and Cornell ILR Worker Institute Advisory Council. She is originally from a small town in Eastern Washington, and enjoys putting chile on everything.

Divine Soona Gertrude Ndombo is a Cameroonian-Congolese immigrant and self-proclaimed Harlemite. Her introduction to social justice began in an afterschool program at her middle school called GirlsTalk/GuysTalk. With its center on community building and youth empowerment, it planted a seed of love for social justice that has only grown over the past 10 years. While her work has primarily been in education justice, she returns to her roots within migrant justice and is passionate about addressing the disparities of black migrants within the education system. Outside of these endeavors, she is also a proud first-daughter immigrant of three siblings, an avid baker, an entrepreneur, and a singer-songwriter.

Life-Long Lover and Leader of the Bronx, I was surrounded by organizing since the age of five. I got involved as a young person on school issues and I have been a long time member of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition for the past 20 years. I have organized on a range of issues including, Education, Environmental Justice, and Community development specifically around the Kings-bridge Armory. I am currently attending Lehman College, and I work as Bronx Community as a Junior Advisor, as well as for Montefiore Einstein as the Study Coordinator for their Anti-Racism Community Collaborative in Healthcare (ARCCH) Program.

Maria Bautista is currently the Lead Trainer at The Education Justice Research and organizing collaborative at NYU Metro Center. There she is currently expanding the Education Warriors training program she started in NYS to serve and support Education Organizing across the country. Her work also includes coaching and mentoring key staff from ed justice organizations. Maria was the Campaigns Director at the Alliance for Quality (AQE). She worked at AQE for over 8 years, developing and leading campaigns that shifted and challenged power dynamics in NYS in order to win big for NYS students. Maria has been organizing for over 15 years, always working from a lens of racial justice and empowering and building community towards collective goals. One of Maria’s greatest accomplishments as the Campaigns Director was helping drive, organize and support the campaign and fight for full funding for public schools, ultimately resulting in the NYS legislature agreeing to pay out $4 billion owed to NYS students as a result of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a lawsuit filed in 1993 challenging the disparities in educational opportunities for children in NYC. Previous to AQE, Maria worked as a community liaison for the city council, focusing on education justice issues and access to affordable housing.Maria has a Masters in Social work with a focus in community organizing and taught Intro to community organizing at the Silberman School for Social Work. Maria also developed and led Education Warriors, a parent leadership development program. The program has graduated three cohorts of parents and community leaders that have deeply impacted the landscape of education justice in NYC and NYS.

Katherine is the Chief of Staff at the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition, a member-led organization that unites diverse peoples and institutions to fight for racial justice and economic democracy through intergenerational organizing. As an urban planner, Katherine's career has focused on advancing participatory planning and equitable development projects alongside local leaders and institutions in the Bronx and most recently, Mount Vernon, NY. Katherine earned her Bachelor’s degree from Brown University in Urban Studies and completed her Master’s in City Planning at MIT.

Asma Elhuni is the Lead Organizer for Race Forward’s Honest Education, Action & Leadership (H.E.A.L.) Together initiative. She helped launch the initiative, supported by a career rooted in organizing around issues of immigrant rights, racial justice, economic justice, educational justice, and fighting xenophobia, Islamophobia, and state-sanctioned violence. Before joining Race Forward, Asma served as the Movement Politics Director for Rights and Democracy (RAD) in New Hampshire. During this time, she organized with movement champion elected officials, helped impacted communities have access to the decision-making tables, and conducted training and political education on a variety of topics. A proud Muslim and African-Arab immigrant born in Libya, Asma has run several campaigns to ensure that Muslim communities are treated equitably. She strives for anti-colonial spiritual practices that require radical love and collaboration to get to collective liberation—we will never be free until we all are free.