For Immediate Release: Monday, September 21, 2020

Contact:  Domenica Ghanem, [email protected], 609 457 5663

Community Change Launches Second Leadership Development Cohort for Systems Impacted Women of Color

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Community Change launched their second women’s fellowship on Monday, September 21, 2020. The twelve fellows are women of color who have been directly impacted by the prison industrial complex — a system that has expanded the incarceration and surveillance of mainly Black, Brown, indigenous and immigrant people for the political and economic profit of private corporations.

The fellows will gain tools and strategies to strengthen their capacity to shape policy decisions and understand how to attain and wield power at work, at home and in their communities by centering healing in the midst of transformative organizing. Starting on September 21th-25th fellows will attend virtual gatherings. They will also receive monthly somatic coaching sessions with Holiday Simmons, who provides a therapeutic healing modality rooted in movement theory, psychotherapy and bodywork. Two of the trainers will be alumnae of the inaugural cohort from last year. 

“In the fellowship we put winning campaigns, elections, policy on the same level as taking care of yourself we must heal we disrupt toxic behaviors and introduce ones that rooted in healing so that our leaders not only sustained but are here for the longevity to build healthy movements that win” says Aida Cuadrado Bozzo, senior facilitator of the program at Community Change. 

At Community Change we build power from the ground up and we are proud to introduce to you the Women’s Fellowship. We welcome forceful agents of change following in the legacies of our ancestral sisters and mothers and grandmothers and our women’s fellows 2020-2021 cohort.

Women’s Fellowship Fellows 2020-2021

Arisdelci Gonzalez, Phoenix, AZ, Living United for a Change in Arizona (LUCHA)

Elizabeth Ruiz Reyes, Vancouver, WA, OneAmerica

Genesis Shine, Columbus, OH, The Freedom BLOC

Laurie Palmer, Portland, OR, Residents Organizing for Change (ROC)

Marlené Mercado, Sacramento, CA, The People’s Revolution for Sacramento

Mia Francis, Hogansburg, NY, Independent First Nations

Robin D. Turner, Cleveland, OH, Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC)

Rosa Velázquez, Little Rock, AK, Arkansas United

Shamekia White, Plano, TX, Texas Organizing Project (TOP)

Veronica Torrez, Arizona, Puente Human Impact

Willette Benford, Chicago, IL,  Live Free Chicago

Rosemary Rivera, Albany, NY,  Citizens Action NY

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