2015 Human Rights Institute Participants & Guest Facilitators

Aleta Alston-Touré

Aleta Alston-Toure’ is a homeschooling mother of two that bears witness as a vessel for social change through community organizing and activism. Her energies through the strategic movement building grassroots business New Jim Crow Movement empowers communities of color, especially mothers of color and their children. Free Marissa Now (FMN) is one of their major projects through her local Jacksonville organizing work since Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Marissa Alexander and Jacksonville 19. She uses the methodology of popular education and liberation education in community development through the arts.

Through her visionary leadership she has come up with the slogan “I am Troy Davis!” which is one of the most movement mobilizing initiatives nationwide. She is a organizer in Jacksonville for Black Lives Matter through Ferguson Actions. She worked on six Blackside Documentary Films including Eyes On The Prize (WGBH/PBS-TV.) She was also a Ford Fellow in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Community Fellows Program.

Lenka Belkova

Lenka Belkova is a Policy Associate at Women’s Intercultural Network, a non-governmental organization in a consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. She received her BA in Sociology and Master’s in Humanities from San Francisco State University and her second Master’s in International Cultural Policy from University of Warwick, UK. After studies and prepared to work in the civic sector, she gained her first experience in community organizing while interning at San Francisco Planning and Urban Research, a non-profit public policy think tank. There she assisted Transportation Policy Director with community outreach and policy advocacy for improved public transit system in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA. As a long time resident of San Francisco, Lenka’s meaningful community engagement continued with her involvement in a neighborhood economic revitalization initiative. She dedicated her time and enthusiasm to support a public arts programing in one of local underserved neighborhoods. With the same verve, Lenka keeps working toward the realization of gender equality and justice in our communities using human rights tools in policy development. Lenka regularly writes and publishes in varied magazines and newspapers in Czech as well as in English on topics including grassroots arts and civic engagement, arts and social change, and gender justice. She was born in the Czech Republic and lives in the USA since 2000.

Natalie A. Collier

Natalie A. Collier is the director of youth initiatives for the Children’s Defense Fund – Southern Regional Office and the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Social and Economic Justice., where she is responsible for all the office’s youth activities and programs. She is dedicated to seeing young people learn life lessons quicker than she did, as she looks to help them recognize their strengths and lead with them while growing from their weaknesses.

Before working in the world of non-profits, Collier made her living for several years as a writer, editor and stylist. When she chose to leave that world, it was a shift in focus but not passion. She wanted to spend less time reporting about people who were making a difference and join them.

Rather professionally or personally, her true fervor is always obvious: serving people. She is a Millsaps College alumna, has studied at Reformed Theological Seminary and Poynter University, and has had fellowships at Northwestern University and with the National Juvenile Justice Network, among other board appointments and guest lectureships.

Amanda Lucía Garcés

Amanda Lucía Garcés began working in organizing and immigrant rights in New Jersey, where she lived for more than a decade after immigrating from Colombia, and where she organized day laborers to fight anti-immigrant initiatives and wage theft.
Prior to becoming a mother and consultant in Tucson, Arizona, Amanda worked as the campaign coordinator for Enlace’s Prison Divestment Campaign and spent six years with the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA) in Los Angeles as an organizer and administrator. At IDEPSCA, Amanda co-founded the Mobile Voices Project, or VozMob, a digital storytelling platform by and for immigrant and low-wage workers to create and disseminate stories about their lives and communities directly from cell phones. Mobile Voices was recipient of the 2010 World Summit Award Mobile Content in the category M-Inclusion and Empowerment.

Brittany Gray

Brittany Gray is a 29 year old scholar activist. While completing her Doctorate of Political Science, she still finds time to continue to fight for social justice. Brittany currently works on issues such as labor, politics, race, education, economic justice, criminal justice, mass incarceration, hunger, and poverty along with anything that aligns itself within the scope of human rights. Brittany is a Regional Organizer for Bread for the World, servicing Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. She does not hesitate to offer her skill set to the community in which she lives as is evident in her committed community involvement. Participating in various organizations and programs, working full-time and focusing on studies has always intensified her attitude towards hard work and desire for excellence.

Upon moving to Jackson, MS and becoming a member of Cooperation Jackson, Brittany has done advocacy work in Georgia, New York, Ohio, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri, and Tennessee; along with missionary work in Haiti and Morocco. After moving to Jackson, Brittany has hit the ground running. She is heavily involved with the Human Rights Institute of the City of Jackson, Moral MS Movement, and AFSC in which she recently returned from a Global Peace Indaba in Cape Town, South Africa. Brittany has served on the executive committee of Atlanta’s Jobs with Justice, is a member of Atlanta’s Women’s 9 to 5, and the organizing committee of Moral Monday Georgia to name a few.

Brittany advocates for people of all races, genders, ethnicities, and social classes through research and practice. Brittany’s mission to draw on continuing spiritual insights, and working with people of many backgrounds, as they nurture into seeds of change and respect for human life that transform social relations and systems strongly correlates with her personal values.

Cory Greene

Born and raised in Corona Queens, New York, Cory Greene is a scholar-activist with a passion for both theory and practice. Cory Greene is Community Relations/Training Manager with the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions (CNUS), an independent research, training and advocacy Human Justice think tank, formerly at Medgar Evers College in the City University of New York, founded and developed by academic professionals with prior experience within the criminal punishment system. It is the first of its kind in the country.

Cory served seven years in prison, from age 21-28. During that time he was part of a collective who shared and examined their collective experiences as youth in inner city communities in an effort to better understand those experiences and to develop a viable theory of social change based upon them. The work of the collective culminated in “How Our Lives Linked Altogether” (H.O.L.L.A!), a youth leadership and development program for urban youth in NYC. Cory serves as the Director of H.O.L.L.A!.

Cory has earned his Associate degree in Liberal Arts Deaf Studies from LaGuardia Community College, Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Psychology from New York University and currently is a second year doctoral candidate in Critical Social Personality Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Cory currently serves as research associate on numerous participatory action research (PAR) projects with Michelle Fine and the Public Science Project at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Michael Kinnison

Michael is an “accidental” human rights practitioner in the sense that he did not set out on a career focused on human rights. Michael considers himself a student of human rights, equity and justice issues—not an expert and recognizes his privilege and the opportunities it has provided him. He knows he can never truly understand the experience of all those in community he serves but believes he can be an effective ally in their struggle.

A number of key experiences have fostered an interest in supporting marginalized people and working towards a more just world. Growing up in the south, Michael became well versed in racist attitudes, some of which were reflected in his own family. He volunteered in some of the poorest communities in north Florida where living conditions and infant mortality rivaled those in the “developing” world. He worked in coastal fishing communities alongside fisherman in a dying industry with few economic alternatives. These experiences put a face on poverty and impacted him profoundly.

Sumbal Mahmud

Sumbal Mahmud is a member of The Collation on Racial and Ethnic Justice (COREJ), a Presidential committee of the American Bar Association (ABA). Previous to that, she was a liaison to The Council for Racial & Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline — also a committee of the ABA. Ms. Mahmud was Vice President of Membership of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) from 2010-2012. Prior to holding this position, she was NAPABA’s Central Regional Governor. In total she has served on the NAPABA Board of Directors for five years. Ms. Mahmud began her involvement with NAPABA on the local affiliate level. She was a law student member of NAPABA-Minnesota, served for five years on the Board of NAPABA-MN, and eventually led the organization as President. Ms. Mahmud has made over 2,000 public appearances on issues relating to Muslim-Americans. She is a CLE presenter on Islamic law and has been spokesperson for the rights of Muslims in America post-9/11. Ms. Mahmud has taught as an adjunct visiting professor of law in The Netherlands and in Pakistan. Ms. Mahmud has worked as Associate Corporate Council of Best Buy, Inc.; as the Executive Director of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago; as a staff member at the Minnesota Senate; and as an Associate at the law firm of Heins, Mills and Olsen. She is fluent in English and conversational in Urdu and Punjabi. She lives in San Diego, CA, and is co-owner of Talent Portal LLC.

Adofo Minka

Adofo Minka is an attorney, human rights activist, and a founding member of Cooperation Jackson, an emerging network of worker-owned cooperatives and other democratically owned interprised based in Jackson, MS. He is one of the lead organizers of Cooperation Jackson’s Human Rights Institute, a coalition of allied organizations in Jackson that are pushing to have the city of Jackson establish a Human Rights Charter and Commission to recognize, respect, and protect the human rights of the residents of Jackson. Minka is also a criminal defense attorney in Mississippi with a practice based in Jackson the represents indigent defendants charged with various crimes. He is a native of St. Louis, MO where he graduated law school from Saint Louis University.

Chris Nunes

Chris Nunes grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and moved to Eugene, Oregon in 2005. His family is from Goa, India, a Portuguese colony, but his parents both grew up in different parts of Africa. This provided a diverse cultural background and upbringing, and also resulted in social obstacles in the still segregated school system in the South. When Chris moved to Oregon, he learned the racial dynamics are different here due to the state’s history with Exclusion laws. Chris is a driven professional managing the Loan Center at Oregon Community Credit Union, but he also holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Film from Georgia State University, and is still very passionate about the representation of minority and female characters in mainstream film and media. Chris is the loving father of two daughters and currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Eugene Human Rights Commission, an advisory body to the Eugene City Council which also sponsors various community events focused on diversity and social justice. As Vice Chair of the HRC, Chris meets quarterly with the Mayor and City Manager to ensure City policies and decisions are in alignment with a self-proclaimed Human Rights City.

Laura J. Ramírez

Laura J. Ramírez is a Educational Policy Studies Doctoral Candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-founder of Justice in Ayotzinapa Chicago Committee. She has been involved in the fight to preserve public education in Chicago since 2004, including the 2011 43 day sit-in to save the Whittier Fieldhouse, known as “La Casita”. She has also taught in several high schools in Chicago as well as taught critical education courses at universities in the Chicagoland area. Additionally, she participated in Chicago’s city council ordinance ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2009. She has also organized urban youth of color around issues of human rights in schools. Currently her work focuses on documenting human rights abuses in Mexico by working directly with people, particularly women and students who are directly affected by state violence and repression. Her ultimate goal is to create a transnational solidarity movement for peace and people-driven justice in the United States and in Mexico by forging supportive and transformative collaborations.

Gina Bennett Womack

Gina Womack is the director and co-founder of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC), a statewide membership-based organization dedicated to creating a better life for all of Louisiana’s youth, especially those who are involved, or at risk of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. Ms. Womack worked with allies and parents to close the country’s most notorious youth prison the “Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth” and ushered in juvenile justice reform in Louisiana. Since then FFLIC has worked to pass additional legislation and reforms that enhances the lives of children in Louisiana and we continue to fight for justice for all children and derail the school to prison pipeline.
Ms. Womack has worked on children issues for over 25 years in Louisiana and her efforts have been featured in both national and local print media, radio, and reports. She has appeared on many panels speaking on issues around Juvenile Justice, School to Prison Pipeline, and the need for real Family and Community Involvement.

2015 Facilitators

Radhika Balakrishnan

Radhika Balakrishnan, Faculty Director, Center for Women’s Global Leadership, and Professor,Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University, has a Ph.D. in Economics from Rutgers University. Previously, she was Professor of Economics and International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College. She has worked at the Ford Foundation as a program officer in the Asia Regional Program. She is currently on the Board of the Center for Constitutional Rights and was the Chair of the Board of the US Human Rights Network from 2008 to 2012. She is the co-editor with Diane Elson of Economic Policy and Human Rights: Holding Governments to Account (Zed Books, 2011). She is the author of Why MES with Human Rights: Integrating Macro Economic Strategies with Human Rights(Marymount Manhattan College, 2005). She edited The Hidden Assembly Line: Gender Dynamics of Subcontracted Work in a Global Economy (Kumarian Press, 2001), co-editedGood Sex: Feminist Perspectives from the World’s Religions, with Patricia Jung and Mary Hunt (Rutgers University Press, 2000), and also authored numerous articles that have appeared in books and journals. Professor Balakrishnan’s work focuses on gender and development, gender and the global economy, human rights and economic and social rights. Her research and advocacy work has sought to change the lens through which macroeconomic policy is interpreted and critiqued by applying international human rights norms to assess macroeconomic policy.

Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele

Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele is the Senior Community Organizer at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He is a community organizer and educator from Central Brooklyn. From 1994 – 1998 Lumumba served as programming coordinator at the Franklin H. Williams Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCC). During his tenure at CCC, he also co-found Azabache, an organizers training conference and workshop series for young activists. All the while as a Black Studies Major at City College of NY/CUNY, he went on to receive his Masters in Human Service from Lincoln University in 1998. As a member and organizer with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Mr. Akinwole-Bandele helped establish its campaign to counter police abuse and misconduct. He also co-founded the world renowned Black August Hip Hop Project. Black August raises awareness and support for political prisoners in the United States. From 2002 to 2007 Lumumba served as a counselor and lecturer at Medgar Evers College/CUNY. Lumumba currently serves as an adjunct lecturer teaching Community Organizing at Lehman College/CUNY.

Krishanti Dharmaraj

Krishanti Dharmaraj is the Founder of Dignity Index, a human rights measurement tool utilized to ensure equity and inclusion to reduce discrimination and violence. She is also the lead staff for the International Action Network for Gender Equity and Law. Previously, Krishanti was the Western Regional Spokesperson for Amnesty International USA.

With Krishanti’s leadership San Francisco became the first city in the U.S. to pass legislation implementing an international human rights treaty (the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women [CEDAW]) to eliminate discrimination against women. She also coordinated and led a 35 member international delegation to the UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination Xenophobia and related intolerance (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa. She represented the United States at the UN Expert Group Meeting on Race and Gender-based Discrimination, held in Zagreb, Croatia, and the International Expert Group Meeting on CEDAW, held in Bellagio, Italy.

She is also the co-founder of the Women’s Institute for Leadership Development, (WILD for Human Rights) at the Berkley Law @ University of California, Berkley, the Sri Lanka Children’s fund, and initiated the U.S. Human Rights Network with a current membership of over 500 organizations and individuals across the nation.

Krishanti has received numerous awards and lectured extensively in the U.S. and abroad. She has co-authored “Making Connections – Human Rights in the U.S.” and “Making Rights Real – Implementing Human Rights Standards in the United States”.

Krishanti has served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International, Women, Law and Development and Center for Asian Pacific Women. Currently she is a Trustee of the North East Women’s Network in Sri Lanka and is on the Advisory Boards of South Asia Democracy Watch and Machik, an organization enhancing the wellbeing of those living in Tibet.

Ejim Dike

Ejim Dike is Executive Director of the US Human Rights Network. Ms. Dike has worked on social policy issues for over fifteen years and in the domestic human rights arena for the past ten years. Her human rights work focuses on addressing poverty and discrimination using a human rights framework. Previously, she was Director of the Human Rights Project at the Urban Justice Center. Under her leadership, the Human Rights Project launched an annual report card on the human rights record of New York City Council members; coordinated a shadow report on racial discrimination with 30 local groups for submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD); organized a New York City visit by the UN Special Expert on Racism; and developed a toolkit on and coordinated participation for social justice activists in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process.

She has been cited in articles appearing in Harper’s Magazine (by Naomi Klein), The Daily News, Gotham Gazette, and City Limits. Ejim has contributed to articles published by the Center for American Progress and the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute. She has co-chaired the CERD Taskforce, a joint project of the US Human Rights Network and the Human Rights at Home Campaign. Ms. Dike worked for several years on programs aimed at increasing access to employment in low-income neighborhoods. She received her undergraduate degree from Berea College and a Masters of Urban Planning from the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University.

Ebony Noelle Golden

Creativity is conjuring, is root work, is making a way out of no way, is the practice of radical expressiveness that incites, inspires, and instigates, liberation, NOW! Ebony Noelle Golden, a native Houstonian, is a performance artist, public practitioner, and strategist who works at the intersection of art, culture and public education with individuals and organizations seeking to initiate community-powered creative strategy, performance, and liberatory learning experiences for progressive social change.

Golden is known and respected for her ability to blend cultural strategy, creative innovation and community-centered design to address the most pressing quality-of-life issues including: environmental justice, youth development, women’s empowerment, education equity, and the holistic sustainability of families and neighborhoods.

Working nationally, Ebony is the CEO of the cultural arts direct action group, Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC. Through BDAC, Ebony has built and sustained cultural initiatives in partnership with the City of New York, The Laundromat Project, Highlander Center for Research and Education, Camille A. Brown and Dancers, Alternate Roots, The National Black Theater, and Brooklyn Museum, among others.

BDAC’s current public practice initiatives include: an intensive arts-in-action internship apprenticeship, GrowGreen, a climate justice and cultural activism project; Freedom in Time of Ferguson, a youth incarceration project; and, 125th and Freedom, a street performance and public practice project that re-imagines 125th street as Tubman’s Underground Railroad to freedom.

Ebony Golden earned a B.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Texas A & M University, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing-Poetry from American University, and an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. www.bettysdaughterarts.com.

Stephanie V. McKee

A performer, choreographer, educator and facilitator Ms. McKee has traveled, performed and taught in various cities in the U.S. and abroad.

Ms. McKee is the Artistic Director of Junebug Productions Inc., the organizational successor to the Free Southern Theater (FST), which was formed in 1963 to be a cultural arm of the Civil Rights Movement and was a major influence in the Black Theater Movement. She is also the Co-Director of the Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute in New Orleans. Ms. Mckee is a member of Alternate Roots and a former member of the steering committee for HOME, New Orleans? a community-based, arts-focused network of organizations merging art-making, education and community work.

In 2007, she was awarded The Academy of Educational Development/ New Voices Fellowship an award for emerging leaders.

Stephanie is former founding Director of the 7th Ward Neighborhood Center, a part of Neighborhood Housing Services which seeks to revitalize communities by increasing the number of homeowners and transforming vacant or substandard properties into sustainable homeownership as well as improving quality of life of residents through targeted community and leadership development, education, and collaboration. As director, Ms. McKee managed the community center and developed new programs. She also worked to identify and promote community-based leadership to improve economic and social conditions and build relationships and networks with a variety of stakeholders.

As an artist, Stephanie believes that art is for everyone and is deeply committed to creating art that substantively reflects disparate conditions, as a powerful tool for change.

Angelo Pinto

Angelo R. Pinto is Campaign Manager for the Juvenile Justice Project at the Correctional Association of New York. Angelo oversees the CA’s Raise the Age Campaign, which seeks to increase New York State’s age of criminal responsibility, end the practice of housing children in adult jails and prisons, and ensure that children in the justice system receive appropriate rehabilitative services.

Prior to joining the CA, Angelo served as Program Manager at the Arthur Ashe Institute where he designed and implemented community interventions in barbershops and beauty salons for formerly incarcerated men and community members to access re-entry information and services. He also served as a Legal Coordinator on Riker’s Island where he taught a legal research course to incarcerated adolescents and adults. In addition, he facilitated a leadership training program for youth on Rikers as part of the CA’s Juvenile Justice Project. He received a J.D. from the City University of New York Law School and a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice and Sociology from Clark Atlanta University.

Joanne Smith

“We must cause strategic disruption that changes society’s moral compass around trafficking, sexual assault, violence against girls, women and gender nonconforming people of color. This commitment to ending gender based violence and the devaluing of human rights is lifelong and I’m honored to fight with survivors, allies, and friends as we say NO MORE.”

Joanne N. Smith, founder and executive director is responsible for moving Girls for Gender Equity (GGE) closer to its mission through strategic planning, development, and leadership cultivation. Ms. Smith is a Haitian-American social worker born in New York City. She founded GGE in 2001 with the support of the Open Society Foundation to end gender-based violence and promote gender, race and class equality.

Joanne completed post-graduate training at Ackerman Institute for the Family, providing therapy to families, supporting the family/school collaborative and linking families to community resources. Joanne is an alumna of Hunter Graduate School of Social Work and Columbia Institute for Nonprofit Management. She has co-authored her first book published by Feminist Press, Hey Shorty: A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools and on the Streets, 2011. Girls for Gender Equity’s work to combat sexual harassment in schools is featured in the 2014 documentary about Anita: Speak Truth to Power.

A staunch human rights advocate Smith has been honored by a number of prestigious organizations, including the Choice USA, Stonewall Democratic Club, and the Union Square Award in recognition of her leadership and dedication to reproductive, LGBTQ, civil rights and ending gender based violence. She is part of the first Move to End Violence cohort—a 10-year initiative designed by NoVo Foundation to strengthen the collective capacity to end violence against girls and women in the United States. Currently Smith is a Young Leader of the French-American Foundation and is a 2014 OpEd Project/Ford Public Voices fellow. She resides in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn.

Cynthia Soohoo

Cynthia Soohoo is the Director of the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic at CUNY Law School. Prior to coming to CUNY, she was the Director of the U.S. Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. In addition to managing U.S. litigation and state advocacy work, she spearheaded and supervised the development of the Center’s U.S. human rights advocacy and fact-finding work and the growth of its Law School Initiative.

From 2001-2007, Ms. Soohoo was the Director of the Bringing Human Rights Home Project, Human Rights Institute, Columbia Law School, and a supervising attorney for the law school’s Human Rights Clinic. She has worked on U.S. human rights issues before U.N. human rights bodies, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, and in domestic courts.

Ms. Soohoo practiced law at the firm Covington & Burling for six years and was co-counsel in the landmark Alien Tort Statute case, Doe v. Karadzic. She was a founding board member for the U.S. Human Rights Network and served as co-chair of the American Constitutional Society’s Working Group on International Law and the Constitution. She is the author of several articles on human rights advocacy in the United States and co-editor and contributor to BRINGING HUMAN RIGHTS HOME, a three-volume book on human rights in the United States, which received the 2008 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award.

Ms. Soohoo is a cum laude graduate of Williams College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was an editor of the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. She is a former law clerk to the Hon. Gerard L. Goettel, U.S.D.J., S.D.N.Y.

Ishita Srivastava

Ishita Srivastava is the Multimedia Producer at Breakthrough, an innovative global human rights organization using the power of pop culture, media and community mobilization to transform public attitudes and advance dignity, equality and justice. Ishita led Breakthrough’s Restore Fairness campaign and then their campaign for immigrant women’s rights, #ImHere. She has also directed and produced numerous videos for those campaigns and other Breakthrough projects. She recently produced, directed and edited two short films, Mansimran and Checkpoint Nation? Building Community Across Borders for Restore Fairness and produced a fiction short film, #ImHere: THE CALL.

As a documentary filmmaker, Ishita is interested in harnessing the power of non-fiction storytelling to raise awareness about political and cultural issues. Her first documentary film, Desigirls, examines the intersection of gender, sexuality and immigrant culture through the experiences of two queer Indian women in New York City.

Ishita grew up in New Delhi, India, and completed a BA in English Literature at St. Stephens College in Delhi. She also completed a BA in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College (London) and a Masters degree in Cinema Studies and Culture and Media at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

JoAnn Kamuf Ward

JoAnn Kamuf Ward is the Associate Director of the Human Rights in the U.S. project at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute and a teacher in the Law School’s Human Rights Clinic. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, where she now lives with her husband and two daughters. Ms. Ward focuses on promoting the use of a human rights standards and strategies to address inequality and social injustice within US borders. Her work aims to strengthen awareness of human rights and to build domestic mechanisms to monitor, promote, and implement human rights. This includes research and writing, as well as advocacy to improve access to basic rights in New York City, at the federal level, and at the United Nations, in coalition with a broad range of advocates.

Yolande M.S. Tomlinson

Yolande M. S. Tomlinson, Ph.D., is a black feminist scholar and writer, human rights activist, radical mom of two feminists-in-training, and gardener. Dr. Tomlinson is currently in the process of launching two projects, the non-profit Organization for Human Rights and Democracy, which engages in multi-issue, grassroots, radical, intersectional organizing to transform communities and the world using Metro-Atlanta as the model. She is also developing a cooperative school rooted in a human rights, community-centered model of radical education. She has worked with a variety of organizations on human rights issues related to race, gender, sexuality, environmental & climate justice, immigration, and community organizing.

Most recently, Dr. Tomlinson served as the national education coordinator for the US Human Rights Network. In that role, she supported USHRN members and partners in building and strengthening their capacity in human rights education, organizing, and advocacy. Before that she was the project coordinator and community liaison for the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference’s national Working Group on the Civil Rights and Black LGBT Rights Movements.

For her extensive work in mentorship and community building at Emory University, Dr. Tomlinson was recognized by the university with its Community Builders’ award and the Transforming Community Project Champions’ award. Dr. Tomlinson sits on the board of directors for the Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions and serves as the human rights advisor for the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance. She also writes and publishes as an independent scholar on issues of gender, race, violence, culture and human rights. Her most recent essay on re-imagining black women’s role in community transformation can be found in the edited anthology, Womanist and Black Feminist Responses to Tyler Perry’s Productions(2014). She also co-authored the report Invisible Betrayal: Police Violence and the Rapes of Black Women in the United States, which was submitted to as part of the 2014 United Nations’ review of the U.S. Government’s compliance with the International Convention Against Torture treaty. Dr. Tomlinson holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in American Studies and certificate in Women’s Studies from Emory University.

2014 HRI Cohort

2014 Human Rights Institute Participants

Our 2014 Human Rights Institute, co-sponsored by the US Human Rights Network, brought together a group of fellows and facilitators from diverse issue areas and geographic locations.

We enjoyed a rich and exciting three days with these passionate advocates who are all dedicated to promoting cultural, economic and social justice:

Aisha Nyandoro

Aisha is the founding Executive Director of Springboard to Opportunities; a nonprofit organization focused on helping residents of affordable housing advance themselves in life, school, and work (www.springboardto.org). Nyandoro has more than a decade of experience developing, implementing, and evaluating programs aimed at improving the quality of life for individuals with limited resources.

Prior to joining Springboard to Opportunities, Aisha served as a Program Officer with the Foundation for the Mid South. During her tenure she strengthened the Foundation’s community development portfolio by executing a plan focused on five specific strategies aimed at transforming communities. Additionally, she led the Foundation’s place based initiative – Community of Opportunities.

Under her leadership she helped community leaders’leverage over $20 million in federal and private funding. In addition, she established statewide, regional, and national public-private partnerships to leverage resources and assist the Foundation in achieving its mission and goals. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Tennessee State University, a M.A. in Community Psychology and Urban Affairs and a Ph.D. in Community Psychology from Michigan State University. When not working to transform impoverished communities, she is mommy to the best toddler in the world.

Benita Lovett-Rivera

Benita Lovett-Rivera is a single able-disabled mom, human rights-education activist and graphic artist. Born in Harlem to the tabooed marriage of interracial parents, she was reared in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the Civil Rights era. As a pregnant 11th grader in 1970, she sleepwalked through the coercive signing away of her first born into an illegal, private adoption, and haunted by powerlessness, awakened into young womanhood during the Black Power movement and first wave of Feminism. Dropping out of college after 3 years, Benita married, had a daughter, and divorced.

She spent many years in corporate America’s male dominated, print industry halting any creative expression before turning to self-employment. As a social entrepreneur committed seeing the Black/Brown community’s ability to be self-sufficient, she briefly re-married, had a son, and returned to single-motherhood. While operating a small home-based design and marketing firm for socially conscious, companies of color, a hit and run taxi forever destroyed her ability to walk without assistive devises. She returned to college and volunteer community work to reinvent a new life and earned several prestigious creative writing awards and fellowships on a yet-to-be completed Ph.D. track.

For the last two decades, Benita has focused on social justice art to uplift her beloved community, learning about human rights through the lens of poverty, motherhood and our nation’s oppressive system of educating children. She was awarded an Open Society Institute’s Community Fellowship for “The New Vision,” an East Harlem based creative literacy and entrepreneurial project she designed and ran for young Latinas from 2000-2002. Her work in support of changing public education policy since then has been featured in books, numerous reports and in an archived, traveling exhibit at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture entitled, “Courage: The Black Struggle for a Quality Education in NYC.” This pro-bono, human rights project was created on behalf of iCOPE’s (Independent Commission On Public Education) sponsorship of a seminal participatory research project known as a Youth Researchers for a New Education System (YRNES).

Benita’s education activism has included tangible work to advance Education As A Human Right with: the Parent Commission on School Governance and Mayoral Control; the Independent Commission on Public Education; Coalition for Public Education/Coalicíon por la Educacíon Pública; Coalition for Gender Equity in Schools; the BlackWomen’s Blue Print; and the National Black Education Agenda. Her recent work includes the planning and design of A Black Education Congress (October 2013, Chicago), and the visual material for ABEN (A Black Education Network) where Benita is both an Advisory Board member, and leader in the Parent Engagement Praxis Team. Just completed for the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (SDPC) in collaboration with attorney, Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness) is the design of a 76-page, Human Rights Report to the United Nations entitled, “Bearing Witness: A Nation In Chains” (February, 2014). Citing specific Human Rights Articles, the report details SDP Conference findings and recommendations from Justice Commission Hearings conducted in nine states to document human rights violations in the mass incarceration of Black and Brown people in America.

Benita co-founded and is the director of the Mothers’ Agenda NY, aka “The MANY” – a human rights based, women’s and mothers grassroots group organizing to raise the civic voices of all women against oppressive policies, patriarchal controls and societal injustices; while simultaneously elevating the moral authority of mothers of color.

Camilo Romero

Camilo A. Romero is the older brother of two forgiving sisters raised in California with family remaining in Colombia. He is National Vice President of the National Lawyers Guild and served as legal directorfor Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, California. Camilo received his B.A. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and published two honors theses, one on the politics of salsa music.

As an undergraduate student, he funded his own way through school and was a Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholar. Camilo received his J.D. from New York University School of Law. As a law student, he was elected director for the National Latina/o Law Student Association and volunteered as a debate coach for high school youth. Camilo is committed to a career as an international human rights advocate and an organizer working on labor and immigrant rights. He has worked as a union organizer for the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores (SINALTRAINAL) in Colombia and as legal adviser with a human rights firm. Camilo also founded BlackBrown Projects in New York, which fosters dialogue and mentorship to improve relations between African-American and Latino communities. He currently serves on the executive boards of NYU’s Alumni Association (BLAPA) and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellows’ Association.

Crista Noel

Crista Eja Noel was born and raised on the south side of Chicago, Illinois. Her family migrated from Tennessee in the late 1890’s and has been in Chicago ever since. Both her parents studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and both were employed by the public school system. She has two older siblings, her brother is a musician, and her sister is a lawyer.

Crista graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Education and Social Policy. She went on to work for Fortune 10 and 500 companies until she was attacked by a police officer in Westchester, Illinois on January 1, 2009. This attack occurred approximately 12 hours after Oscar Grant was mortally wounded in a Bart train station in Oakland California. After being maliciously prosecuted by the officer, and still traumatized by the attack, she studied the criminal justice system and researched police violence against women.

During this time she met Beverly Wilson Ellison Sr. and they founded Women’s All Points Bulletin (WAPB), a non-profit organization created by women for women who have been victimized by violence during policing encounters. Crista is a Certified Practitioner of Oversight by the National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE), a graduate of Illinois Attorney General’s Victims Assistance Academy (IVAA), an alumni of the Evanston Police Civilian Policing Academy, and she is certified by the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault (ICASA). Her goal is to eradicate violence against women, specifically in relation to assaults by law enforcement personnel.

Ho Nguyen

Ho Nguyen is the Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator with Pro-Choice Resources, based out of Minneapolis, MN, implementing an advocacy program that educates and mobilizes citizens on policies that effect Medicaid funding of abortion care. She has been actively engaged in anti-racist work and social justice strategies for the over a decade. Before entering the reproductive health/rights/justice movement, her background was in housing, homelessness, and poverty, working to ensure that all people and families had access to safe and affordable housing.

During her formative years as an undergraduate at Hamline University, she was presented with awards recognizing her work in racial justice activism as well as her leadership within her student body. She went on to receive an award recognizing her work in community organizing, working closely with communities of color and low-income communities on tenant and housing rights.

She is a queer, cisgender, first generation-Vietnamese American, born to refugee parents fleeing a war torn country. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Public Policy and Leadership from the University of St. Thomas. She believes in raising social consciousness in herself and others through dialogue and self-reflection. She knows that in order to create systematic changes; we must also dismantle the prevailing narratives that coexist with it.

Lakshmi Sridaran

Lakshmi Sridaran serves as the Policy Director for the Praxis Project. She was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. Lakshmi has varied community organizing, urban planning, and advocacy experiences from around the country, but primarily focused in the South. Most recently, she concluded six years of work in New Orleans, starting as a community development specialist with Bright Moments public relations firm and national research institute, PolicyLink, to produce joint research findings on improving federal contracting opportunities for Disadvantaged Business Enterprises. Her latest position was as Director of Programs for Neighborhoods Partnership Network. Much of her work there was focused on building neighborhood organizational capacity among the over 100 NPN members, helping shape local policy issues among neighborhoods and linking them to state and federal policy efforts. She helped initiate resident participation in the New Orleans city budgeting process, producing two widely distributed residents’ guides to understanding and evaluating the city budget.

Lakshmi comes to this work with a deep commitment to racial and economic justice inspired by her organizing background in the labor movement in California, where she completed her undergraduate degree in Ethnic Studies at U.C. Berkeley. Lakshmi also has a master’s degree in Urban Studies and Planning from M.I.T. specializing in post-disaster planning. There she had the opportunity to assist and document community rebuilding efforts in New Orleans; Tambo de Mora, Peru; and Tamil Nadu, India leading to a comparative analysis for her master’s thesis.

Linda Chanakira

Linda has over five years experience working in the human rights field as a Human Rights Advocacy Coordinator at a civil society organization called Zimbabwe United Nations Association. She has also served as the gender and woman affairs leader at Global Youth foundation Zimbabwe for two years, working tirelessly as a volunteer for women’s and children’s rights. Linda is the founder of the Clean Cook Campaign Zimbabwe program. This program works to eliminate the effects of smoke on women while cooking by introducing an affordable stove with a chimney that reduces the risk of smoke related illness. In Africa, smoke related diseases are the third highest killer after HIV/AIDS and cancer. This program has been welcomed by women as they quickly enjoy smoke free cooking.

Working as an advocate for human rights is a passion for Linda, especially in a country with so many gross human rights violations. However, she refuses to allow that to keep her from being an agent of change. She has advocated for children’s education and voter education and worked as a monitor during the last Zimbabwe general presidential and parliamentary election. Additionally, she has assisted numerous dispersed families, taking people who were injured via political violence to the hospital. Linda donates baby clothes to disadvantaged women and personally visits children’s homes donating food and clothes on a regular basis.

Magaly Urdiales

Magaly has been working with people from her community all her life, as a passionate teacher in her home country of Peru. She developed her organizing skills working with rural communities since 1998, helping them to organize around their agricultural problems. She also worked with a non-profit organization named “Solidaridad” and Action Aid (from Spain), leading the Reflect Action program in the north parts of Peru. This work allowed her to discover her advocacy skills.

In 2006 she came to the U.S. and started new challenges. She started working for the Western North Carolina Workers Center Mujeres Luchadoras Program in 2011. This program and this organization opened the doors not only to work with women in her community, but also to demonstrate her leadership and organizing skills developing activities that help her promote community organizing as well as create a safe space for a women’s dialogue. As an immigrant woman it is a challenge for her to open up new horizons in this country and to have opportunities to develop as a person and to exercise leadership in a culture different from her own. There are few opportunities for immigrant women to have a position that not only provide economic compensation but also allow her to lead as a woman. In addition to her work with Western North Carolina Workers Center she leads a pilot project called Media Education for Community Action and is part of a Regional Peer Network Central Committee sponsored and promoted by the Center for Participatory Change.

Mitty Owens

Mitty has more than twenty years of experience addressing issues of economic security and the empowerment of marginalized communities locally, nationally, and internationally. Following early years in youth and student organizing, he worked on affordable housing and community revitalization, micro-enterprise development (domestically and in Zimbabwe), support for credit unions, and national policies aimed at enabling low-income Americans to save and generate financial assets. In his various roles – with non-profits, the Ford Foundation, NYC’s Office of Financial Empowerment, as an instructor at NYU’s public policy school, and in his own consulting practice “Community Impact” – he has played leadership roles in the development of policy, program and strategic planning, training and evaluation, organizational and board development, and fundraising.

Mitty has served on a number of local and national economic development and social justice boards, including Global Exchange, the Fifth Avenue Committee, Grassroots Leadership, the Funding Exchange, and the Yale Dwight Hall Center for Public Service and Social Justice. He is a graduate of Yale University, holds an M.S. in Community Economic Development, and was a Kellogg Fellow (under which he explored the connection of arts and activism). Mitty and his activist 9 year old daughter Naia are proud residents of the People’s Republic of Brooklyn.

Salimah Hankins

Salimah Hankins is the Director of Human Rights and Cultural Competency at Black Women’s Blueprint (BWB), a national black feminist human rights organization based in Brooklyn. In this capacity, Salimah directs the Black Women’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Sexual Assault (BWTRC) which seeks truth, justice, healing and reconciliation for black women who are survivors of sexual assault.

She has worked in the area of civil and human rights for over seven years and has recently published an article in Poverty and Race on the importance of using a human rights framework to address issues that have typically been within the purview of civil rights. In December of 2013, Salimah produced a comprehensive human rights status report for the US Human Rights Network which explored the human rights implications of thirteen distinct policy areas including, environmental and climate justice, housing, education, and violence against women.

She has worked as a civil rights attorney for the Fair Housing Justice Center and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Maryland advocating for the rights of low-income clients of color. She has also served as legislative aide to a Massachusetts state senator, pro bono counsel at CAIR National and was a prisoners’ rights law clerk at Stern, Shapiro, Weissberg & Garin, a prominent civil rights law firm in Boston. She is a 2010 graduate of Suffolk University Law School and has a B.A. with honors in Political Science from Northeastern University in Boston. Originally from New Orleans, Salimah has called Boston, Baltimore and Brooklyn home.

2014 Facilitators

Chandra Bhatnagar

Chandra Bhatnagar is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Human Rights Program. His practice centers on the intersection of racial justice and immigration, with specific focus on the rights of low-wage immigrant workers, undocumented workers, and guestworkers. He is also involved in litigation and advocacy regarding the use of international and foreign law in U.S. courts and the domestic implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). Bhatnagar is the principal author of The Persistence of Racial and Ethnic Profiling in the United States (2009), a report submitted to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Prior to joining the ACLU, Bhatnagar was a Staff Attorney and Skadden Fellow with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, where he directed the South Asian Workers’ Project for Human Rights, a community-based project providing legal services to low-wage workers from South Asia. Previously, he was the Assistant Director of Columbia University’s “Bringing Human Rights Home Project,” where he worked to improve conditions affecting post 9-11 detainees and efforts to organize a coalition of human rights defenders in the U.S. Bhatnagar has also worked internationally, partnering with a leading NGO in India in applying human rights standards to their anti-child labor/bonded labor campaigns, and domestically with the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he did immigrants’ rights and anti-police brutality organizing, and served as the interim director of the Ella Baker Summer Intern Program. He received a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and an LL.M. with a focus in international human rights from Columbia Law School.

Cynthia Soohoo

Diego Iniguez-Lopez

Diego Iniguez-Lopez is the new Robert L. Carter Fellow at The Opportunity Agenda. He has experience with landlord/tenant law at Make the Road New York; immigration law, particularly applications for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival Status, at the American Friends Service Committee; and disability benefits at Essex-Newark Legal Services.

Diego was a Kinoy-Stavis Fellow and worked in the Constitutional Litigation Clinic of Rutgers School of Law-Newark. As a Fellow, Diego participated in impact litigation aimed at expanding voting rights in New Jersey; represented voters who were denied the right to vote and obtained judicial orders for them to exercise their constitutional right; and contributed to a series of amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding corporate liability for human rights abuses overseas. He also served as the Production Editor and Editorial Staff of the Women’s Rights Law Reporter and is a proud member of the New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

Prior to joining the legal field, Diego co-produced and co-hosted a progressive grassroots radio show; conducted media outreach for Latin American solidarity efforts; and performed as a spoken word/rap artist. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park and his Juris Doctor from Rutgers School of Law-Newark.

Ejim Dike

Eva-Marie Malone

Eva-Marie Malone coordinates The Opportunity Agenda’s involvement in the growth of a collaborative communications and field strategy among domestic civil rights and housing organizations seeking to promote fair housing, equitable land use, community development, and regional equity with the goal of reframing the debate on Home Opportunity issues, moving public policy and popular discourse, and improving the lives of millions of Americans. She also develops and implements the organization’s communications strategy on Economic Opportunity. As a Communications Associate, Eva-Marie provided strategic media relations and communications support for work done by The Opportunity Agenda focusing on an equitable economic recovery.

As a strategic communicator trained in the law, Eva-Marie’s experience has included developing communications systems at the Pro Bono Institute, launching an online communications consultancy specializing in legal non-profits, writing for The New Jersey Lawyer, and online marketing for American Immigration Lawyers Association. Eva-Marie has a B.A. from Wheaton College and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Ishita Srivastava

JoAnn Kamuf Ward

JoAnn Kamuf Ward is the Associate Director of the Human Rights in the U.S. project at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute and a teacher in the Law School’s Human Rights Clinic. Ms. Ward focuses on promoting the use of a human rights framework to address inequality and social injustice domestically. She develops strategies to strengthen domestic mechanisms for monitoring, promoting and implementing human rights. This includes research, writing and advocacy to improve access to basic rights in local, federal and international fora. She pursues these goals as a member of the Human Rights at Home Campaign, as well as assisting with the Institute’s treaty implementation initiative and the Bringing Human Rights Home Lawyers’ Network.

Ms. Ward also engages in strategic litigation in domestic courts and at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). She is currently co-counsel in an IACHR case a challenging juvenile life without parole and working to implement the landmark Jessica Lenahan (Gonzalez) decision, which underscores the essential role of the U.S. government in protecting women and girls from domestic violence. Ms. Ward gained experience in both federal and state court practice representing sovereign and private clients in the general litigation group at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. She has represented individual pro-bono clients, including several women seeking asylum from West Africa and an individual detained at Guantanamo Bay. At MFY Legal Services, Inc., Ms. Ward represented individuals facing eviction. Ms. Ward received her J.D., magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, from Fordham University School of Law in 2006.

Krishanti Dharmaraj

Mary Gerisch

After spending many years as a trial attorney working for legal aid and various appellate defenders’ offices, Mary established her own trial practice in the area of civil liberties law, from which she retired 10 years ago. Currently, Mary is the President of the Vermont Worker’s Center. She is also an organizer and active volunteer or board member for many organizations including: the Bennington Organizing Committee, the Greater Bennington Interfaith Council, The Bennington Food and Fuel Fund, the Kitchen Cupboard (A Vermont Food Bank Distribution Center), St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, and others.

Mary is a Poverty Scholar with the Poverty Initiative operating out of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and is the Vermont Workers’ Center representative to the Poverty Initiative. She participated in the UPR process in Geneva, Switzerland as a member of the national delegation representing NGOs (non-governmental organizations) on behalf of the Vermont Workers Center “Healthcare is a Human Right” campaign and in subsequent civil society proceedings.

Mary is the Christian Advisor in Vermont for Kids4Peace, a program which brings together youth ages 10-13 from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions from both Vermont and the Middle East, allowing them to learn and respect each other’s cultures in the hope of encouraging peace in the Middle East.

Paloma McGregor

Paloma McGregor is the daughter of a fisherman and a public school teacher, a first generation American and a former newspaper reporter. Those facts shape her vision as a choreographer, writer, teacher and co-founder of Angela’s Pulse, which creates collaborative performance work rooted in building community and telling undertold stories. Paloma has won significant support for her work, including: 2012-13 Kennedy Center fellowship; 2012-13 iLAND grant; 2010 QuAD residency; 2010 Fund for New Work grant; 2009 Voice & Vision residency.

Paloma’s choreography has been presented throughout New York, including at The Kitchen, Harlem Stage, EXIT Art, SummerStages, the Brecht Forum, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Dixon Place and Bronx Academy of Art and Dance, as well as at UCLA, Yale University, The Dance Place in Washington, DC, Cleveland Public Theatre and the McKenna Museum in New Orleans. She is currently developing a new project, Building a Better Fishtrap, about water, memory and home, which will explore cultural retentions, intergenerational exchange and environmental interactions.

Paloma has toured nationally and internationally as a dancer, most significantly with Urban Bush Women and Liz Lerman/Dance Exchange, and has taught workshops and master classes around the world. A former newspaper reporter and editor, she specializes in workshops on developing connections between dance and text and community-building through the arts. Paloma earned her BS in Journalism (Florida A&M University) and her MFA in Dance (Case Western Reverse University).

Yolande M.S. Tomlinson

Yolande M. S. Tomlinson, Ph.D., is the national education coordinator for the US Human Rights Network. In this role, she supports USHRN members and partners to build and strengthen their capacity in human rights education, organizing, and advocacy. Yolande has worked with a variety of organizations on human rights issues related to race, gender, sexuality, green jobs, and community development. For her extensive work in mentorship and community building at Emory University, Yolande was recognized by the university with its Community Builders’ award and the Transforming Community Project Champions’ award. Most recently, she served as the project coordinator and community liaison for the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference’s national Working Group on the Civil Rights and Black LGBT Rights Movements. Yolande received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in American Studies and a certificate in Women’s Studies from Emory University.