The Engage Network’s first Community of Practice launched in 2011. This year-long experiment was designed for leaders and students of distributive network organizing. The group shared learning, best practices, ideas, innovations, daily practice, aspirations and tools with one another while building deep and lasting relationships. This Community of Practice is continuing ongoing daily practice and “co-evolution”as a group. For more information on the extraordinary people in the 2011 Community of Practice, see below.
Adrienne Maree Brown
Facilitator Adrienne Maree Brown is an organizational healer, pleasure activist, facilitator, singer, doula-in-training and artist living in Detroit. She was the executive director of The Ruckus Society from 2006-2010, and now sits on their board. She was also a National Co-Coordinator for the 2010 US Social Forum. A co-founder of the League of Pissed Off/Young Voters and graduate of the Somatics and Social Justice Cohort, Rockwood’s Art of Leadership training, and Robert Gass’s Art of Change yearlong training, Adrienne is obsessed with learning and developing models for action, community strength, movement building and transformation. Adrienne is partnering with The Engage Network to facilitate the Community of Practice.
Sung E Bai
After 25 years of racial and economic justice and immigrant rights organizing, Sung E embraced food justice when she first enrolled her daughter, Deva X Ji Woo, in a local daycare. Upon seeing the lunch provided by the public school system, she realized that after 18 months of breastfeeding and pureeing whole and organic foods: my child is about to be institutionalized into the broken food system. Along with being the Executive Director of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities for over 11 years, and co-founding member of Domestic Workers United, she was an Ethnic Studies student activist, certified advocate for domestic violence survivors, and trainer for grassroots organizers. Currently working at Slow Food USA, she believes in the power of everyday people to transform the food and farming system, and dismantle systems of oppression through food. Sung E is a single mom, and disciple of engaged buddhism, martial arts, and social justice.
Taj James
Before founding Movement Strategy Center (MSC) in 2001, Taj James was the Director of Youth Policy and Development at Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, where he organized youth and parents around a range of community issues. Previously, he worked as the Western Regional Field Organizer for the Black Student Leadership Network, a project of the Children’s Defense Fund. Taj has served on the boards of many nonprofit and philanthropic institutions such as The Praxis Project, Youth United For Community Action, the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing, The California Fund for Youth Organizing and the Gay Straight Alliance Network. He has written extensively on the topics of movement building, organizational change, and the role of young people in social change. A graduate of Stanford University, Taj was a recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Fellowship and was named a “Local Hero” by the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Kerri Kelly
Kerri was drawn to the healing power of yoga in 1999 and has been teaching for over 7 years. Her purpose is to invest in the greatness of others and use her teaching to help individuals discover themselves and their potential to shine. She has been instrumental in catalyzing the San Francisco community around yoga and service and mentors local leaders on how to be purposeful and effective in their activism. Kerri has been an active member of Off the Mat, Into the World™ for over 3 years, facilitating local yoga in action groups and building community around yoga and activism. In 2009, she took on the role of Global Catalyst and has helped OTM develop a strategy and infrastructure to support its growth.
Navina Khanna
Navina is a community organizer committed to transforming the food system into one that is ecologically and socially just. She has spent over ten years working toward food systems reform as an educator, organizer, and advocate. Her work has included implementing programs to increase low-income families’ access to affordable, fresh, healthy foods; working and teaching on traditional and organic farms in India and the US; teaching youth about ecology and ecological restoration; and most recently, organizing community residents to develop a plan for citywide food systems reform with the HOPE Collaborative (Health for Oakland’s People and Environment). Navina has an MS in International Agricultural Development from UC Davis, where she developed curriculum for the first undergraduate major in sustainable agriculture and food systems at a Land-Grant University.
Jidan Koon
Jidan Koon is a consultant-practitioner seeking to support social justice organizations to do their work intentionally, joyfully, and sustainably. She brings a broad and diverse set of on the ground experience with organizing and institutional reform to her consulting practice that focuses on leading planning processes, facilitating convenings, training, and curriculum development. For the past four years, she has served a range of organizations including the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Ruckus Society, San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network, and Young People For. Whether mediating tough conflicts or facilitating a multi-organization retreat, Jidan excels at creating inclusive, collaborative environments.
Jenny Lee
Jenny Lee is a Co-Director of Allied Media Projects. As an organizer of the Allied Media Conference for the past 5 years, her focus has been: developing a model for how National convergences can have meaningful relationships with their host cities; building infrastructure for horizontal organizing; and innovating theories and practices of media-based organizing. Jenny also thinks about network-based organizing in the context of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, where she is a member of the National Collective. She owes pretty much everything she knows about organizing to her involvement with Detroit Summer, a 20 year old youth leadership organization in Detroit.
Michael Norman
Mike Norman is the Founder and CEO of SoChange.com, a web platform that helps consumers understand their collective spending power, and use it as a carrot to convince companies to be more socially and environmentally responsible. Prior to starting SoChange, Mike launched a youth program serving residents of Boston public housing developments and helped found ALIARSE, the first public-private CSR consortium in Latin America. He founded SoChange while working on master degrees in business administration and city planning at MIT, after finally coming to terms with the fact that his former kickboxing career was truly over.
Gibrán Rivera
Gibrán has devoted his life to the idea of democracy and to the work of emancipatory politics. Gibrán has led community engagement work at Roxbury’s La Alianza Hispana, served as Executive Director of Iniciativa – the Massachusetts Education Initiative for Latino Students, and has taken time away from the social sector to explore the life of a start-up entrepreneur. At Interaction Institute for Social Change, where Gibrán focuses on the application of network theory to the work of social change as a Senior Associate, he is committed to what he calls “this current paradigm shift” and to finding out what it really looks like to build “beloved community.” He serves as President of the Board of the Center for Nonprofits and Voting. Gibrán’s greatest life achievement is daring to love with all his heart and committing his everyday to meeting others at a deeper place.
Anasa Troutman
As an artist, producer, facilitator, strategist and activist-organizer Anasa Troutman continues to developing her personal mission to use intellect and art to create personal, community and global transformation. A Senior Fellow at the Movement Strategy Center, her current work is organizational cultural transformation and alignment and community building as a path to global transformation. Anasa began her career building the soul music scene in Atlanta, GA working with singers such as India Arie, writers and musicians and other artists. In the years since, Anasa has served in a variety of capacities including: a member of the National Coordinating Committee for the National Hip Hop Political Convention; a member organizer for the Institute for Policy Study’s Cities for Progress Program; organizer with the Progressive Majority’s Racial Justice Campaign and producer and leadership team member for the historic Highlander Center. No matter what her work, Anasa’s belief in the power of personal transformation and dedication to the power of art and culture are her guiding forces to building justice, equity and compassion.