Our Team

Executive Co-Director, Operations 

Monica (she/her/hers) is a Latina that believes that it is critical to work across issues to create change in our communities. Monica’s passions include environmental, women’s, people of color, and LGBTQ issues. She feels extremely fortunate to pursue her passions for both people and the birds.  Monica believes in the power of of community and comes to Voices with years of experience in development and with deep commitments to uplifting the leadership and voices of Indigenous and communities of Color.  Before joining the team at Voices, Monica was at Headwaters Foundation for Justice for over 16 years where she oversaw grantmaking that supports organizations working for social, economic and racial justice issues.

Executive Co-Director, Communications

Gabriella Anaïs (she/her/hers) is an artist and cultural organizer, raised by mountains and ocean in Veracruz, México and later Milwaukee, WI. Her organizing is grounded in cultural strategy drawn from the healing circles of her childhood where she learned what it looks like to root community power in care, storytelling and food. Anaïs is also a writer who creates around the theme of ancestry, memory and home. In 2014 she started Border Voices to create space for performance poets of immigrant and refugee diasporas to use their art as an anchor for our collective healing. She loves spending time near the water, laughing with family and tending to her plants and garden.

Director of Community Engagement

Julia (she/her/hers)  has led the Education Equity work at Voices since 2007, using a healing and racial justice lens. She has helped Districts and Schools use co-created tools that put students and parents in the center of equity solutions. The narratives that come out of this work are very powerful. She is a racial justice trainer and coach. Julia is a grandmother of ten and education is her passion, which she brings to her work coordinating shared learning opportunities for the Education Equity Parent Fellowship.

Melissa (she/her/hers) brings her passion for social justice, economic empowerment, and climate equity to helping Voices increase our organizational capacity. Her communications and technical background paired with her in-depth experience in project management and operations have afforded her a well-rounded skill set. Her life approach is rooted in systems thinking, honoring the interconnection of all things. Raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Melissa is a proud Vietnamese-American with deep family values.

Racial Justice and Health Equity Organizer

Mónica (she/her/hers) grew up in Colombia, where she trained as a doctor of family medicine. From 2002-2013, she worked with Aqui Para Ti/ Here For You, a program funded by Eliminating Health Disparities Initiative. Since 2009, she has been one of the community members participating of efforts around health care data for equity in Minnesota. She is a 2011 graduate of the Voices for Racial Justice community organizing cohort. Mónica brings skills in policy, public health and community organizing to her work at Voices for Racial Justice.

 “If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” (Lila Watson and her group)

Ebony Young (she/her/hers) is a proud parent and community organizer from Saint Paul, raised historically in the Rondo community, where she is now raising her family.

She is a 2013 graduate from Century College with a Associates Degree in Criminal Justice and she is currently completing her Individualized Studies Degree from Metro State University. Ebony is dedicated to representing and educating underrepresented communities on the education system.

 My inspiration comes from my children and the children in my community to commit to the change and success for communities of color. I love spending time outside, reading and spending time with family.

Priscilla (she/ella) was born and raised in The Rio Grande Valley, a region on the Southern border of Texas. For two years, she worked in the oil and gas industry where she learned about and witnessed environmental injustices in the Latino community as a result of fracking. This led her to get an MA in Applied Anthropology at the University of North Texas to study, and later organize, with communities living just a few feet from oil and gas production. Her environmental justice work led her to Voices where she will continue to work on structural and institutional racism through policy. For fun, Priscilla loves to Zumba, soak up the sun on a beach, plant/garden, and attempt to make some of her grandma’s recipes.

katie robinson (all pronouns) is a student of love, trauma, and transformation. Their academic, artistic, and community work is curious about and present with individual and collective harm, such that our wounds may be understood outside of a modernist-colonial paradigm. As an abolitionist, they are a servant to transformation that occurs at the levels of the psyche, the nervous system, and the close relationship. katie’s academic work, as a PhD candidate studying Depth Psychology, with a specialization in Community Psychology, Liberation Psychology, Eco-Psychology and Indigenous Psychologies, has afforded them rigorous exposure to the harms of Western conceptions of mental health, as well as, in turn, a decolonial view of the psyche. Katie lives in Minneapolis with their partner, cat, and dog. (photo by Adja Gildersleve)

Jessie Lee-Bauder (she/her) lives by the words of a wise friend who said, “the revolution will be joyful, because it has to be.” Jessie moved to Minnesota in 2014 to attend Macalester College, where she studied Creative Writing, American Studies, and Environmental Studies. She was a 2018-19 Loft Literary Center Mentor Series Fellow, and has spent her career using storytelling to celebrate and support healthy communities, deep healing, and unbreakable solidarity. Jessie lives in Minneapolis and loves cooking and sharing meals, her cat, and walks in Powderhorn Park.

Nicole (She/ella) wakes up every day with the intention to build a society where human dignity and social justice become customary. She was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2019 with a degree in Global Studies with a concentration on Human Rights and Justice in Latin America. Her experience working with Latin American immigrant communities at James H. Binger Center for New Americans shaped her human rights interests to focus on immigrants’ rights. In 2018, she was awarded the Inna K. Meiman Human Rights Award provided by the Human Rights Program at UMN to recognize her human rights work. She is a community organizer for the Colombian community in Minnesota and a documentary producer in her free time. Her latest film: Día a Día, 2020: A Day at a Time. (Published in Twin Cities PBS: TPT): A film where Colombian immigrants in Minnesota reflect on how the struggles and joys of 2020 transformed how we celebrate culture, aid community, and attempt to thrive in overlapping crises. Her mother is her only hero, and cookie-dough ice cream is her greatest weakness. She is a feminist and loves playing soccer with friends.

Aida is a mother of 3, an east-African immigrant, educator, activist, and community organizer. Throughout the 20+ years of calling Worthington, Minnesota home, she has worked to ensure that marginalized communities have a voice and are heard on a decision-making level. From helping new immigrant families receive resources and support, to engaging in youth programming, and running for local office, she is a prominent community leader that centers authentic community engagement and racial equity in everything she does.