2001 jam alumni bios
Meet The 2001 Youth Jam Participants (A Partial List)


Alli Starr, 33 - San Francisco, CA USA
Art & Revolution
Alli is a co-founder of Art & Revolution and The Cultural Links Program, which houses Art in Action road shows and the Dance Collective Danza Sin Fronteras. Art & Revolution is a multi-city movement of artist-activists who revitalize political protest throughout the United States using street theatre, dance, music, and giant puppetry. A former professional dancer, she has performed and taught dance, theatre and political song to activists across the country since 1994. She is currently organizing a fall road show addressing global and local links in struggles for justice, which will travel through the southwest with 7 arts activists and youth leaders.

Dudu Rombauer, 22 - Sao Paulo, Brazil
Dudu helped start the Youth Workshop program of the Alliance for a Responsible, United and Plural World, an international network to bring together young social activists working in different fields. He studies International Relations and Psychosociodrama and works with social and cultural movements as a networker, consultant and facilitator. Dudu is now starting a non-profit organization called Sintonia to expand networking possibilities between social and environmental activists world wide.

Elaine Alexie, 22 - Fort McPherson, NWT, Canada
Gwich’in Renewable Resource Board
Elaine is a representative working from the Gwich’in Renewable Resource Board. She participates actively in slide show tours and lobbying efforts to the lower USA to help save and protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska from oil development. The Arctic Refuge is the calving ground to the Porcupine caribou herd. Her people highly subsist and depend on this caribou herd for their cultural survival. She also works back home with Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society where she helps bring awareness to conserve and protect endangered areas in Canada’s Northern Arctic.

Eman Desonky, 23 - Oakland CA
Global Exchange
Eman is program coordinator of Global Exchange’s Palestine Campaign. Born in Chicago and educated in the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Palestine, her human rights work is inspired by her life experience and almost ten years of community organizing with the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition and Arab Women’s Solidarity Association. Eman’s work at Global Exchange strives to educate North Americans of the problematic role the U.S. plays in the crisis in the Middle East, and build grassroots solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for justice.

Ernest Rugwizangoga, 26 - Rwanda / USA
Boston Youth Organizing Project (BYOP)
Ernest was born in Rwanda and grew up Catholic, believing that love, justice and peace come from a higher spirit. He is a survivor of genocide, and lived for three months in a concentration camp. He has been working for ten years as an activist and volunteer organizer. As a new immigrant to the United States, Ernest works with Boston Youth Organizing Project (BYOP), a faith-based organization to develop young people’s strengths around issues they face in Metro Boston.

Evon Peter, 25 - Arctic Village, AK, USA
Neetsail Gwich’in Tribe
Evon is the Chief of the Neetsail Gwich’in of the Arctic Village. He works with his people on a social and spiritual level by following traditional beliefs. He is the Alaska Co-Chair of the Gwich’in Council Int’l, which represents 13 tribes of the Gwich’in Nation in Alaska and Canada. Evon is a speaker and advocate of indigenous human rights and global social and environmental change.

Gita Drury, 27 - New York, NY
Active Element Foundation
AEF is an organization that builds relationships between youth organizers, donors, scholars, and artists through grant making, networking, technical assistance, and hip hop culture. She also organizes young philanthropic donors, helping to initiate the conference "Making Money Make Change.” While working at the Blessing Way Foundation, she co-founded Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex, a national conference and campaign to challenge the exponential growth of the prison industry.

Jade-Netanya Ullmann, 26 - New York City
Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
Jade has been involved with building coalitions against police brutality through her work with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. She is the Subscription Manager for Heeb Magazine, a radical publication created by young Jewish activists. In the past she was the Area Coordinator for two national groups, Students for a Free Tibet and the Student Environmental Action Coalition. Jade-Netanya has a BA in Contemplative Psychology from The Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.

Jamie Schweser, 28 - New Orleans, LA
Direct Action Donor Circle
Jamie is the Organizer and Facilitator of Direct Action Donor Circle (DADC), a national donor circle of young people with wealth who are working together to fund direct action and work for social justice. He also organized and facilitates Cheddar for Change, a cross class activist funding board in New Orleans. In his spare time he works with Louisiana prison activists, tutors kids and runs an independent book publishing company.

Jasper Bakyayita, 28 - Uganda
Rescue Mission
Jasper is the coordinator of Rescue Mission Uganda, an NGO creating awareness on issues like environmental management, using art, sports and debates in schools. For the past few years, Rescue Mission volunteers have traveled the Central Uganda regions exchanging information with students, local council officials, and natural resource managers. They are fighting/lobbying for legislation to penalize oil companies spilling waste oil products in their waters. They have participated in several international forums intended to bring about change for the younger people.

Jee Kim, 26 - Brooklyn, NY, USA
Active Element Foundation (AEF)
Jee is a writer and editor currently working with the Active Element Foundation (AEF) on their “Future 500” directory of progressive youth leadership organizations. A Korean immigrant, Jee was raised in Philadelphia and went on to study at Columbia and Oxford. He worked as Senior Editor of Stress Magazine, a politically charged hip-hop publication dedicated to the representation of the urban experience through first-person narratives with columns dedicated to prison inmates, activists, and high school youth.

Jonah Wittkamper, 26 - Brazil / New York, NY, USA
Global Youth Action Network (GYAN)
Jonah is the South American Regional Director of the Global Youth Action Network which hosts youthlink.org, an initiative that encourages collaboration among youth and youth-led organizations and provides a comprehensive package of youth solutions, recognition, and financial support enabling local to global partnership. In 1999, he founded Sadhana Solutions, a company that matches web design projects in New York City with young technologists in developing countries, empowering them to be philanthropists and leaders in their own communities.

Julia Butterfly Hill, 27 - San Francisco, CA USA
Circle of Life Foundation
Julia gained international recognition for living in a redwood tree for over two years, consequently saving the tree and surrounding grove and bringing global attention to the deforestation in Northern California and is now continuing to educate people all over the world.

Karen Gorecki, 24 - Canada
Sierra Youth Coalition
Currently, Karen Gorecki is the National Coordinator for the Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC) a Canadian national youth led environmental organization. She (almost) has her Marine Biology/ Environmental Studies degree and has worked in many areas related to environmental issues: researching environmental impacts of trade agreements, helping to organize direct actions, analyzing environmental laws, and facilitating youth empowerment skill building workshops. Her focus right now is exposing linkages between people’s actions and the world around them while connecting them to solutions through SYC campaigns such as the BET and programs such as Sustainable Campuses.

Katchie Shakti Egger, Oakland, USA
Yoga Sangha
After 17 years of studying and teaching yoga and various forms of dance and movement around the world, Katchie is preparing to open her own Yoga Center in the Bay Area. The focus of this project is to build bridges between the spiritual community and the activist world as well as to create awareness around environmental issues and social justice.

Kavitha Rao, 27 - Rhinebeck, NY
Common FireFoundation (CFF) Kavitha co-founded CFF to support sustainable living and nurture a life-long commitment to service, social justice, and environmental responsibility. CFF hopes to establish land-based sustainable community centers that are open to youth programs and activist retreats. Kavitha writes on issues like biodiversity, political prisoners, and globalization to audiences who would otherwise have no access to such information.

Kevin Bynes, Decatur, GA
YouthPride
Kevin has been Program Manager for YouthPride for two years, and is committed to ending social ills and oppression on all levels. YouthPride works to improve the lives of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender youth through advocacy, education, support services and youth activities. Kevin focuses on challenging racism and other forms of oppression while supporting Black Queer Youth in Atlanta and nationwide.

Kimmie Weeks, 20 - Liberia / USA
United Nations Young Ambassador Corps
Kimmie is Founder of the Young Environmental Ambassador Corps, an organization working for change around the world. He fled his home in Liberia in 1998 after troops of the government sought to assassinate him for a report he had published on the training of child soldiers. He has since been granted political asylum in the United States where he continues to work on human rights issues. Kimmie is also Liberia’s representative to the UN International Children’s Assembly, and an Ambassador of the United Nations Manifesto for Peace.

Lis Hirano, 27 - Sao Paulo, Brazil
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Lis has worked as a Program Junior Associate at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation at the Latin America and the Caribbean Regional office based in Brazil since 1997. The foundation empowers people through providing resources and education to improve their quality of life, supports projects that face the cycle of poverty by promoting youth participation and activism.

Loren Finkelstein, 26 - San Francisco, CA
Freedom Rising
At the age of 16, Loren began her organizing career campaigning with the Public Interest Research Group to strengthen the National Clean Water Act. In 1997, Loren was hired as Program Director of Free the Planet!, a national network of high school and college students taking action to protect the environment. In her three years on staff, she helped run seven national environmental campaigns, published a monthly newsletter, and organized and facilitated conferences and trainings. Today, she is co-founder of Freedom Rising, a collective of artists and grassroots organizers working to stop corporate globalization and to bring about global liberation.

Mahea Campbell, 24 - New York, NY
Beldon Fund
Mahea works with the Beldon Fund, a private foundation focused on environmental advocacy. She works to strengthen the Environmental Justice (EJ) movement by connecting youth working on EJ issues with philanthropic resources. She has worked with many progressive funding organizations including Vanguard Public Foundation, The Tides Foundation and the Threshold Foundation, and is committed to exploring redistribution of wealth in the U.S.

Maximiliano Benitez, 21 - Chicago, IL
Sleeping Giant
Max works with Sleeping Giant, a multimedia documentary project exploring the links between Chicago’s hip-hop and activist communities. The project will take form as an online resource, and also a feature length film highlighting interviews with Chicago’s hip-hop heavyweights, key youth organizers and the young people they impact. In the summer of 2000 Max traveled with the American Story Project, a cross-country documentary tour to explore the oral histories of peoples’ political experiences.

Njoki Gitahi, 18 - Wakefield, RI
Sierra Student Coalition (SSC)
Njoki is National Membership Director of SSC and Chair of SSC’s Training Committee. She has been working with SSC for three years to help and train students on campuses across the country become the most effective, responsible activists that they can be, by directing resources to where they are needed most. She is driven by her innate desire to help people and build a world of justice and peace.

Osmar Filho, 30 - Sao Paulo, Brazil
Consulta Popular
Coordinator of Consulta Popular in Campinas County, Sao Paulo, Brazil. His major task is to connect social movements, NGOs and citizens to create social change. In the last few months, he has been working with university student groups interested in helping the landless peasants movement (MST). He is also an environmental studies student with a concentration in sustainable agriculture. He is a Capoeirist and a poet.

Puma Quispe Singona, 21 - Cusco, Peru
Medicine Man
Puma was hit by ball lightening as a child, a sign that he was chosen by the spirits to become a medicine man. He is now learning and practicing global healing, herbal medicine and pre-natal care. Puma is also a founder of the Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Youth Alliance (INIYA).

Ramiro Vargas, 26 - Pastaza, Ecuador
Fundacion Achuar Ecologica Kapawi (FAEK)
Ramiro is a leading member of one of Ecuador’s most remote indigenous tribes, the Achuar. He is a youth activist at the RIDEJ (Youth Integration and Development Network of Ecuador) and Co-Founder and Coordinator of FAEK (Kapuwi Ecological Achuar Foundation).


Rania Masri, 29 - Lebanon / Raleigh, NC
Iraq Action Coalition (IAC) & Al-Awd Palestine Right to Return Coalition
Rania is the Founder and Coordinator of the Iraq Action Coalition (IAC – http://www.iraqaction.org), an informational network that distributes news on the effects of 10 years of sanctions on the people of Iraq. She also works with Education for Peace in Iraq Center (http://www.saveageneration.org). Rania speaks at events throughout the United States and Canada, on the radio, and on television. Her articles on the situation in Iraq have been published internationally. Rania also works for the restoration of justice for the Palestinians, through the Al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition.

Rudy Valles, 24 - Denver, CO
GRASP
Rudy is the Director of a gang intervention and prevention program called Gang Rescue And Support Project (GRASP). GRASP was started ten years ago by youth who were in the depths of gang warfare going on as an effort to do something positive for their peers. Rudy conducts weekly groups, organizes a free tattoo removal program for youth under age 21, and speaks at schools and detention centers to impart better understanding of young people caught up in gang culture.

Samm Ardito, 20 - Philadelphia, PA
Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU)
After interning with KWRU for a year, Samm is now a core member of the newly formed Hip Hop War Council (HHWC). As a project of KWRU, the HHWC works with the arts and the hip hop movement to organize working class youth in the fight against poverty in Philadelphia and around the world. She is passionate about replicating the HHWC model nationwide to aid the movement to end poverty.

Shalini Kantayya, 24 - India/ New York City
Raise Youth Empowerment
Shalini is an independent filmmaker, media educator and committed to creating media by and about people who historically lack access to its resources. She is currently on a 2000-2001 William D. Fulbright Fellowship to make a documentary film about political street theater in different regions of India. She has co-founded RAISE, a collective of NYC based artists working in different mediums to create workshops/programs to empower youth through creative expression.

Shawnta Smith, 18 - New York
Sister Outsider
Sister Outsider is a collective organization that employs self-supporting young women to develop social justice projects and earn living wages in Brooklyn, New York. Shawnta is a founding board member of FIERCE, the only queer (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transsexual) youth activist organization in NYC, and founding member of YA-YA Network, networking NYC based youth organizations. Her upcoming project is “Investment Activism,” a new wave of self-sufficient fundraising and economic development training for activists and poor communities. Shawnta lives poor in Brooklyn, NY, in a small apartment with her future wife, Chino.

Taina Del Valle, 23 - Philadelphia, PA
The Self-Education Foundation (SEF)
Taina works with a program of SEF called BUILD (Building Uncompromising Inspirational Lives Directly), which works to assist youth in Philadelphia in their own self-education and organizing ventures through resource allocation and grants. She is passionate about promoting self-education as an effective way for youth to achieve their goals and fulfill their dreams, and wants to build more programs in Philadelphia that work towards this vision. Taina is also a poet, singer and teacher.

Valentina Campos, 28 -La Paz, Bolivia
Tierra Viva
Valentina is the Artistic Director of Tierra Viva, a small group of women from Titicaca Lake who work with artists to find alternative ways to assist and empower indigenous communities, especially women, and confront the destructive forces of globalization by using creativity and traditional local resources. She is working on a series of paintings for a show in New Mexico and Spain to gain support for the organization. Valentina sees art as a path to reconcile women’s inner spiritual world, with the reclamation of the wounded planet.

Victor del Rosal, 24 - Mexico City, Mexico
Jovenes Empresarios por Mexico
Victor, a native of Colima, Mexico, is founder and Director of Jovenes Empresarios por Mexico Civil Association (JEMAC), helping disadvantaged young people get started in business through access to financing, mentoring and professional support. JEMAC is member of Youth Business International presided by HRH the Prince of Wales, UK. Victor is Advisor to the Youth Employment Summit 2002, and highly committed to the socio-economic development of Mexico.

Warren Moon, 24 - Brooklyn
Environmental Defense, Student Action Network
Warren works as the partner’s coordinator for Actionnetwork.org. Actionnetwork.org has over 800,000 on-line activists and over 45 partners. Action Network utilizes the Internet to allow people to send faxes or e-mails to elected officials or any target. He is currently working to bring this technology to more students and empower the younger generation with the Internet and on-line activism.


The Youth Jam Facilitators

Malaika Edwards, 25 - USA
The People’s Grocery
Malaika also holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Oberlin College. She has traveled the world studying grassroots activism. She has worked in the areas of education, local alternatives to the global economy, ecological design, and regional planning. She serves on the board of Institute for Deep Ecology, has founded Trade Local, and is past Executive Director of YES!. Her most recent endeavor is founding The People’s Grocery.

Tad Hargrave, 25 - Canada
YES!
Tad is the Founder and Coordinator of the YES!’s Youth Jams. He has been a full time activist since he was 19 when he founded The Leadership Tour! which provides powerful resources for revolutionary school spirit through day long workshops across Alberta. Tad’s vision is to have Jams happening in every country around the world every year. He is an accomplished magician, musician, storyteller, and comedian.

Aqeela Sherrills, 31 - Watts, CA
Community Self Determination Institute (CSDI)
Aqeela is Executive Director of CSDI, which creates innovative, cost effective ways of solving individual & community problems. In 1992, Aqeela led a "Gang Truce" with his brother that catalyzed other peace treaties across the country. Three years after the peace treaty, gang homicides were down 47%, and 15 new businesses had entered Watts. CSDI now employs over 50 people developing community in Watts.

Ocean Robbins, 27 - USA
Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!)
At 7, Ocean organized a peace rally in his elementary school, and at 14, he was facilitating youth summits in Moscow. At 16, Ocean founded YES!. He is co-author of Choices for Our Future, has spoken in person to more than 200,000 high school students, & has facilitated 28 week-long camps for young activists from 35 countries. Ocean has served as a board member for Friends of the Earth, The Tide Turning Coalition, & and EarthSave.

Coumba Toure, 27 - Senegal
Institute for Popular Education (IPE)
Coumba works for women’s empowerment through popular education. She has facilitated hundreds of educational workshops and speaks regularly at college campuses and conferences internationally. She works with the IPE where she is coordinator of the Youth Leadership Program, and she has also worked with 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement to organize numerous exchanges between African-American youth from the Southern United States and African youth from throughout West Africa.