Meet the women who are traveling to Alabama on a Women's Human Rights Delegation to investigate human rights abuses in the wake of HB56, the nation's most draconian anti-immigrant law.
Wendy Cervantes serves as the Vice President of Immigration and Child Rights Policy for First Focus, a national children’s advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. In this role she is responsible for leading the organization’s work in cross-cutting federal policy areas that impact children of immigrants and their families including health, immigration, education, child welfare, family economics, and human rights.
Sammie Moshenberg is the Director of Washington Operations of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), leading NCJW’s advocacy efforts nationwide on coalitions concerned with judicial nominations, civil rights, reproductive rights, child care, and First Amendment issues. In 2008, Ms. Moshenberg was named one of Women’s Enews “21 Leaders for the 21st Century.” She is a recipient of NCJW’s Hannah G.
Ruth Ann Powers has led several studies of Regional and Conference Schools of Mission, has served as Dean of the Alabama-West Florida Conference School of Christian Mission Teams, and was Director of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries. In her local community, Ruth Ann founded and led a shelter for battered women, which eventually included rape crisis response and victim’s advocacy.
Miriam Yeung is the Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF).
Mary Hooks joined the Southerners On New Ground (SONG) team as a field organizer for the state of Alabama in March 2011. Her passion for helping people is reflected in her years of community service and mentoring. Since Mary has relocated to Atlanta, GA, she has found her niche in organizing with SONG, and singing with the Juicebox Jubilees, a queer choir, created to provide a safe space for folks to gather their voices together, sip a little wine, and sing songs that uplift, inspire, and liberate.
Marielena Hincapié is the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, the main organization dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of low-income immigrants in the U.S.
Mallika Dutt, founder of global human rights organization Breakthrough, is one of today’s most innovative, admired, and effective leaders in cultural transformation. Dutt has reinvented the delivery of social and behavioral change through a mix of stirring multimedia campaigns, smart social media, cutting-edge pop culture and authentic on- the-ground community engagement.
Loretta J. Ross is a founder and the National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective. Ross is also the founder and former Executive Director of the National Center for Human Rights Education (NCHRE), a human rights training and resource center for grassroots activists to address social injustices. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Foundation for African American Women, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, the Committee on Women, Population and the Environment, and SisterLove Women’s AIDS Project.
Kelsey Quigley is a Federal Policy Analyst at ZERO TO THREE: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families. Prior to working at ZERO TO THREE, Kelsey was a Hauser Human Rights Research Fellow at Harvard University, where she studied the co-occurrence of family homelessness and parent-child separations. During that time Kelsey also contributed to research on adolescent development and family structure in Burundian and Liberian refugee families and to an evaluation of the Child Witness to Violence Project at Boston Medical Center.
Judith Browne Dianis joined Advancement Project as its Co-Director at its inception in 1999. Under Dianis’ leadership, Advancement Project has been dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline in school districts throughout the country. Dianis furthers her commitment to racial equity as a founding Convener of the Forum for Education and Democracy. Dianis is a recipient of the distinguished Skadden Fellowship and she was named one of the “Thirty Women to Watch” by Essence Magazine.
Helly Lee is the Director of Policy for the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC). In this capacity, she oversees the organization’s overall policy work. Prior to joining SEARAC, Helly worked for the Healthy Asian Americans Project at the University of Michigan’s School of Nursing and as the Program Coordinator at Hmong National Development. Helly serves on the board of directors of Legacies of War, a national organization raising awareness about the history of the Vietnam War-era bombing in Laos.
Haeyoung Yoon is a staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project in New York City. Her primary areas of expertise are the labor and employment rights of low-wage and immigrant workers. Prior to joining NELP, she was Executive Director of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities and taught at the Immigrant Rights Clinic at the New York University School of Law.