CONFERENCE PLANNING COMMITTEE
Consisting of EDGE members and movement representatives, the Conference Planning Committee meets virtually to plan and organize different aspects of our annual conference. Specifically, the CPC informs the work related to session design, conference framing, and movement participation at the EDGE Conference.
Alejandra Henriquez
Communications Strategic Coordinator
UAF-LAC
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Colombian feminist and designer. Passionate about art, the defense of human rights, and forms of ancestral caring, she likes to travel and learn about different cultures so she can share her knowledge with others, and learn, at the same time, how to promote change. Since childhood, she has identified with and felt connected to the land and its ancestors, the Wayuu indigenous people of La Guajira in the north of Colombia, who have taught her respect for life and its very diversity. She is organized, cheerful, creative, and with a sense of curiosity.
Alejandra Martin
Senior Program Officer, Land, Water, Climate Justice and Civil and Political Rights
American Jewish World Service (AJWS)
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​Alejandra Martin brings over 20 years of experience working with a range of organisations: from grassroots community-based organizations and social movements to governments and corporations, all the while centering the voices of marginalized peoples in their struggles for social and environmental justice. She has previously worked with the Rights and Resources Initiative, Forest Trends, Business for Social Responsibility, the Brazilian Institute for Education and Sustainable Business (IBENS), UNDP, and the Mexican Ministry of Environment.
Alejandro Jaimes Bahamón
Outreach assistant
Corporación Sihyta
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​Alejandro Jaimes is a college student and socio-environmental activist from Bogotá, Colombia. He is part of Corporación Sihyta and the community conservation process of El Burro Wetland, seeking to protect water bodies, ensure local climate adaptation, address biodiversity loss in the city, and influence climate policy-building focused on just transitions. He is also a facilitator at the Colombian Platform for Children and Youth, member of World's Youth for Climate Justice LATAM, part of the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition, member of the Migrant Colombia Film Festival initiative, and he's the Regional Coordinator for Latin America at the Alliance of Non-Governmental Radical Youth. He advocates for enhanced tools for environmental democracies to resolve social conflicts and improve governance and public participation in environmental discussions.
charles long
Deputy Director of Fund Management
​Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)
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charles ryan long is a Chicago based multi-disciplinary artist, activist and Black liberationist. He is currently the Deputy Director of Fund Management at the Movement for Black Lives(M4BL), he has worked for over 20 years in varying capacities and localities to bring a more just world for people and planet into being. He is the treasurer on the board of A.C.R.E Residency, a board member of the BlackOUT Collective, Borealis Philanthropies, Frailty Myths, and on the America’s Steering Group of EDGE Funders.
Golsana Begdum
Head of Dr. Martens Foundation
Dr. Martens Foundation
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​Golsana is the Head of the Dr. Martens Foundation and has been with the Foundation for over 2 years. She has worked for over 15 years with Trusts and Foundation trying to ensure that her input into grant making and management is equitable, relational and embedded in good practice. She has championed racial justice in all her roles, supporting and developing networks to ensure that the global majority have a seat at the table.
Mara Clarke
Co-founder
Supporting Abortions for Everyone - SAFE and Abortion Without Borders
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Mara started her abortion activism by hosting people forced to travel to NYC to obtain second trimester abortions in her one room studio. In 2009 she started the first abortion fund in Europe and now that there are more but not enough European abortion funds for the need, has co-founded a pan European charity that will provide funding, infrastructure support, training and more to emerging and existing grassroots abortion support groups. Mara is a migrant, a disabled woman, and an intersectional feminist who is often powered by rage, generally happy to help, and known to talk too much.
Olga Tarasov
Vice President, Inquiry & Insights ​Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
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Rosalee González
Co-Coordinator, North America Region
Continental Network of Indigenous Women of the Americas (Enlace Continental de Mujeres Indigenas de las Americas - ECMIA)
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Dr. Rosalee Gonzalez has 25 years of international experience promoting and protecting Indigenous peoples', women's, and human rights. She's an elected leader of the Continental Network of Indigenous Women of the Americas and a Co-Founder of Indigenous Women Rise, pivotal in the 2017 Women's March in the US. Dr. Gonzalez's academic background is informed by her leadership in the global indigenous peoples' movement and is the Director for International Advocacy at FPW at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Sebastian Frias
Program Officer
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
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Sebastian Frias is a program officer for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan, focusing on Mexico. Based in Mexico City, he supports systemic changes and economic development in the Highlands of Chiapas and the Yucatan Peninsula. He leads national and regional strategies to improve family economic security through entrepreneurship, ecosystem development, and capacity building. Sebastian specializes in multi-sectoral and private-public partnerships to propel equitable communities.
Simón Castaño Cuadro
Co-Director
Posá Suto
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Afrocaribean and free-spirit being who loves working for and with the black queer communities. True believer of languaje justice as a tool for emancipation. Lover of music and ancestral medicine as healing routes for all.
Uma Mishra
Interim Executive Director
FRIDA
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Uma Mishra-Newbery is a global social justice and women’s rights leader, anti-racist and somatic facilitator and coach, former Executive Director of Women’s March Global, the initiator of the Racial Equity Index, a former organizational development and racial equity senior consultant with The Better Org, and the Interim Executive Director of FRIDA - The Young Feminist Fund.
Vanessa Thomas
Philanthropic Advocacy
Black Feminist Fund
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​Dedicated to power shifting philanthropy, justice, and everything Black. Vanessa has spent her career disrupting philanthropy norms, from single story African narratives in communications, and pervasive anti-Black racism, to the way and who donors fund. She currently works at The Black Feminist Fund, leading philanthropic advocacy and before this led Global Programmes at Decolonizing Wealth Project. Vanessa currently serves as a Trustee at Forward and the Baobab Foundation, and is the Co-Founder of Diasporic Development. Understanding that no one is free, until we are all free, Vanessa sees Black liberation as a pathway to freedom for all!