Cariol Horne is a former police officer who is an advocate against police brutality. She is the author and namesake of Cariol’s Law. She is also advocating for the repeal of the Felony Murder Law as well as Prison reform.

Caroline Hansen is a wife, mother, advocate, and Long Island resident. Inspired by her husband, Kristian, who is serving a Life Without Parole sentence, she is dedicated to advancing parole justice, strengthening families, and promoting dignity for people impacted by the legal system. As Long Island Regional Organizer for Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP), Caroline works alongside directly impacted families, community members, and lawmakers to advance Fair & Timely Parole and Elder Parole through grassroots organizing, public education, and storytelling. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Social Work at SUNY Plattsburgh.

Eboney Mcclellan is a community advocacy organizer who is passionate about empowering young people through advocacy, civic engagement and leadership development. Their work focuses on helping communities build their collective power and create meaningful change on issues that impact their lives. Eboney is eager to expand their knowledge of public policy through the Advocacy Institute to become a stronger advocate.

Fabi Dávila is a senior program associate at the Vera Institute of Justice’s Advancing Universal Representation initiative, which works to expand publicly funded legal representation for people facing deportation. In this work, she partners with legal service providers, government partners, and community-based organizations across the country, including here in New York State through the CARE for Immigrant Families coalition. Before her current role, Fabi worked as a legal assistant for the detention representation program at the American Friends Service Committee, and as a paralegal at Immigration Equality, providing immigration legal assistance to LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants. Fabi holds a BA in French studies from Yale University.

Faiza (she/her) is the Climate & Labor Organizer for ALIGN, engaging labor unions in city and state climate campaigns to support an intersectional, inclusive climate justice movement. She co-coordinates the NYC-based Climate Works for All coalition and chairs the labor committee for the statewide NY Renews coalition.

Fatima Kalid is a dedicated Youth Leader with a passion for community engagement, leadership, and women’s empowerment. She is a Youth Coordinator with the Women’s Empowerment Coalition of NYC (WECNYC), an organization focused on empowering women, especially young women, to become the change they want to see in the future. Through her work, Fatima strives to create opportunities for young women to build confidence, strengthen their leadership skills, and use their voices to make a difference. She hopes to continue making a positive impact in her community while inspiring the next generation of women to become strong leaders and changemakers.

Originally from Guatemala, Genesis Ayala’s heritage shapes her perspective on social justice and fuels her dedication to advocating for workers rights and immigrant communities. She serves as an organizer and Immigrant Resource Liaison at the Workers Center of Central New York, where she connects immigrant workers with the resources, information, and support they need to navigate workplace rights and community services.

Joyceline is the Communications Director at Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE), where she leads communications for climate and energy justice campaigns across New York State, from the fight against new data centers and nuclear buildout to utility affordability and defending the Climate Act. She uses storytelling to make dense energy policy land with everyday people and to keep frontline, Black, and Indigenous communities at the center of the narrative. Outside of AGREE, she stays active in global youth advocacy as a Youth Impact Coordinator for the AFS Youth Assembly (Africa Region), a global youth leadership network, and a Youth Advisory Board Member at OK Today Global Mental Health Initiative.

Juan is a Lead Organizer at CASA (Community Action for Safe Apartments) who has been working in the tenant movement since 2022 and has been active in many social movements around NYC for many years prior. He was born in Colombia, a proud Queens kid, raised in Corona.

Lisle has served their community in a variety of capacities since graduating from the University of Rochester in 2016 with a dual degree in Public Health and Anthropology. They have served as an Americorps VISTA in the Rochester City School District, an intake coordinator for a Child Advocacy Center and a tenant organizer with the City-Wide Tenant Union of Rochester. With VOCAL-NY, they serve as the Western New York Organizer building power to end homelessness, the overdose crisis, mass incarceration, HIV and family policing.

Madison Byrne is the Policy & Community Advocate at the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative (RMAPI), where she leads the organization’s state, local, and federal policy agenda and advances advocacy efforts to reduce poverty and expand upward mobility. A committed Rochesterian, Madison first joined RMAPI as an AmeriCorps member through the University of Rochester before transitioning into a full-time role supporting community engagement, collective impact initiatives and civic development. She works to elevate resident voices, build organizing capacity, and foster partnerships that drive equitable systems change across the Rochester region. Madison is passionate about ensuring that people with lived experience help shape the policies and decisions that affect their communities.

Maimouna Dieye is the New York Chapter Director of African Communities Together (ACT), where she leads strategic growth, operations, and campaigns advancing economic empowerment, language justice, and immigrant leadership. With more than a decade of nonprofit leadership experience, she has spearheaded impactful programs and initiatives, including the launch of Afrilingual, the first African language services worker cooperative in the United States. Maimouna has also championed the campaign for fair licensing practices for African hair braiders in New York, helping elevate awareness of the barriers immigrant entrepreneurs face. She brings deep expertise in program management, organizational development, fundraising, and leadership development, and holds a degree in Psychology from Mount Holyoke College.

With a background in Geography and Food Studies, Micah Orieta serves as SOFSA’s Movement-Building Organizer. Their commitment to food sovereignty began after witnessing how local food networks sustained communities in their home island of Puerto Rico following Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017. They bring experience in movement communications, youth education, and coalition organizing to their work with SOFSA, helping bridge the stories and strategies that advance justice and resilience in Central New York’s food landscape. Micah approaches their work with curiosity, care, and a belief in the power of collective action to transform systems and strengthen community self-determination.

Nat Moghe (They/He) is a South Asian, queer, and transmasculine advocacy and coalition-building expert with 6+ years of experience advancing statewide campaigns, building community-centered policy infrastructure, and driving legislative and budget advocacy across New York and New Jersey. He is currently the Director of Advocacy & Programs for the New York Transgender Advocacy Group. Ever since he was little, Nat would always passionately advocate for LGBTQIA folks; he knew this is where he always wanted to be. Nat is passionate and dedicated to creating systems that empower marginalized communities, particularly TGNCNB folks and communities of color. Nat gained experience working as a workplace justice organizer, advocacy coordinator, and director on numerous boards of directors, including Trans Lifeline and Family Values @ Work. He is also dedicated to providing 1:1 community support to all Trans folks, helping with mutual aid funds and volunteering to provide peer transitional support nationwide. The creator of The T Advocate, Nat is dedicated to leading public-facing campaigns, facilitating coalition governance structures, delivering public testimony, advocating for transition care support via storytelling, and designing leadership development initiatives rooted in equity and community accountability. Their work spans transgender justice, AAPI equity, immigrant rights, workplace justice, and paid leave advocacy. He believes that uplifting our lived experiences liberates not only us individually, but our community as a whole.

Natasha A. Atkins, MSW, MA, is a nonprofit executive, award-winning social worker, and advocate working at the intersection of adolescent brain science, youth development, and systems change. She serves as Executive Director of STRONG Youth, Inc. and is the founder of Projekt 48, a neuroscience-informed prevention system for K–12 students. A recognized thought leader in adolescent mental health, Natasha has lectured at Barnard, Hunter, and Stony Brook on trauma and brain development. At the heart of her advocacy is a powerful reframe: Risk-taking in youth isn’t defiance—it’s the developing brain searching for belonging, identity, and power. Our responsibility is to guide that longing, not punish it.

Natasha found organizing accidently as she was finishing her undergraduate degree in Buffalo, New York. While interning at Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, she was recruited for a part-time canvassing position in a predominately Puerto Rican neighborhood about air quality concerns for The Clean Air Coalition of WNY. Organizing stole her heart after a rally where residents of the neighborhood carried a casket full of used asthma pumps to the foot of the Peace Bridge calling on then Gov. Cuomo to end his pursuit of expanding the international border crossing’s Duty Free.

Throughout the years her organizing has lived at the intersection of public health and economic inequality and has resulted in a $150,000 allocation of public funds for a Participatory Budgeting pilot in the city of Buffalo and the creation of an organization aimed at reducing the harms of the Buffalo Police Dept. that successfully disbanded a twenty- five officer unit notorious for constitutional violations.

Randalle Lewis is the Advocacy & Coalition Manager at the Health & Welfare Council of Long Island, where she leads regional maternal health initiatives aimed at expanding equitable access to doula care, strengthening Medicaid systems, and advancing meaningful hospital–community partnerships.

Her commitment to equity is deeply rooted in her previous work with Suffolk County, where she championed strategies that broadened access to civil service opportunities. Randalle played a key role in ensuring that information about civil service pathways was widely disseminated across underrepresented communities and worked to identify and remove structural barriers that limited participation in the civil service process. This systems‑level work continues to inform her approach to building fair, inclusive, and community‑centered health initiatives.

With a background in healthcare recruiting, Randalle brings a workforce and systems lens to strengthening maternal and behavioral health pipelines—prioritizing diversity, cultural responsiveness, and pathways that reflect the communities they serve.

As a new doula, wife, and mom of three, Randalle grounds her advocacy in lived experience. She works to ensure that policy, practice, and community voices move in alignment to improve outcomes for birthing people, families, and those most impacted by inequities in care.

Renette Bradley is a tenant organizer working with member-led non-profits across New York City. Grounded in the belief that housing is a human right, she builds power with directly impacted tenants to fight displacement, eviction, and unsafe living conditions. Renette believes New York, the richest city in the world, should be a place where everyone can live with dignity, and she centers directly impacted leaders to drive that change.

Sakina is a Hazara advocate dedicated to advancing equitable public policy and strengthening community-led solutions. Her work centers on ensuring that historically underrepresented communities have a voice in decisions that affect their lives. She is excited to deepen her leadership and advocacy through the Advocacy Leadership Accelerator.

My name is Sindy Rivera, and I’ve been a long time activist and leader since 1999. I participated in organizing the Welfare Rights and Fair Jobs Campaigns, the transitional jobs win in 2012, the creation of the POPS opportunity program, and public housing and tenant rights. Today the fight for justice continues with the Safety Net Activist/ Safety Net Project at Urban Justice center. We are fighting for housing justice, the expansion of City FEHPS, No More Crumbs campaign in response to federal cuts from the president last year, Stop the Sweeps campaign to stop the street sweeps on street homeless folks worldly belongings, welfare rights work around the SNAP and Medicaid (ABAWD). What I’ve learned is that the way to move policy and societal change is through people power!

Yangchen Chadotsang brings over 15 years of experience advancing housing equity, community development, immigrant justice, and economic empowerment. Her work has centered on supporting immigrant and working-class families in navigating systems, accessing resources, and building greater economic stability and opportunity.

Through leadership roles with organizations including Chhay CDC, Webster Bank, and Neighborhood Restore, Yangchen has supported first-time homebuyers, expanded financial empowerment programs, and built partnerships that strengthen community access and impact. Grounded in both professional expertise and lived understanding of immigrant communities, she is committed to advancing social justice, amplifying community voices, and advocating for equitable systems that create dignity, opportunity, and lasting change for immigrant and working-class communities.

Zeinab Eyega is the Executive Director of Sauti Yetu Center for African Women, a culturally specific human services organization dedicated to ending gender-based violence in Black immigrant communities and supporting survivors and their families throughout New York City.