MAAP: Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program

Congratulations to the Class of 2012 graduates!
click here for videos of graduates and more

Marilyn Duran is a 22-year-old Latina from San Francisco. She has been actively organizing in her community, SF’s Mission District for the last eight years around issues of gentrification, environmental racism, youth leadership and voter education. She is a participant and leader in the Mutual Aid Cooperative, a community campaign that instills cooperatives through mutual aid and community action. She is an active member of People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights, PODER, a grassroots organization that organizes low-income communities to bring about social, economic and environmental justice.

Nhia Vang is a 23-year-old, Hmong American woman from Minnesota. She recently graduated from the University of Minnesota, Morris, where she studied Sociology and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. While in school, she worked at the Office of Community Engagement and she assisted with service-learning projects that met community needs and integrated course goals. Additionally, she was involved with campus and community events that created spaces for dialogue, awareness, and civic engagement. She strongly believes that social change rests in community building and consciousness-raising through praxis and collective dialogue. She enjoys discussing: feminist politics, the politics of difference and diversity, and ways of living consciously.

Yen Vu is a 22-year-old Vietnamese-American who recently graduated from the University of California, San Diego. While in school, she was actively involved in progressive student organizations geared towards social justice activism. She is also passionate in educational equity work and organizing youths. She often volunteers her time at local public schools and with community-based youth programs

Sho’mane is a 34 year old Black male who is has recently finished his Master’s Degree at the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University and is now pursuing his Ph.D in City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Sho’mane is an artist, writer, scholar, and community activist who resides in West Oakland’s Lower Bottoms community.  He is currently involved in organizing for tenant rights, against gentrification, and food deserts in his community

Diana Salazar is 20 years old and is from Salem, OR. She is currently studying Ethnic Studies and Planning, Public Policy and Management at the University of Oregon. Topics of interests include farm worker, immigrant and indigenous rights and she has done research an agriculture wealth with an emphasis on the Mid-Willamette Valley. Diana comes from an indigenous background, her parents are from Oaxaca, Mexico and she is currently learning Mixteco Baja.

Everardo (Lalo) Gonzalez is a 23-year-old Latino from East Palo Alto, CA.  He recently graduated from San Francisco State University and received his bachelors in Criminal Justice.  At school, Everardo was an organizer for Occupy SFSU and played an active role in helping organize a bookstore campaign to prevent a for-profit takeover of the current independent, non-profit bookstore.   He is also a member of Young Workers United, an organization dedicated to raising standards in the low-wage service sector in San Francisco and overall improving the quality of jobs for young and immigrant workers.

Leo Esclamado is 28 years old. He is a second generation Filipino American from Florida. He helped setup community development projects and environmental justice campaigns in the Gulf South after Hurricane Katrina with the Vietnamese American community. Currently, he's organizing newly arrived Filipino immigrants with the Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action. He is a recent graduate from the University of Michigan School of Social Work program. He is a food tourist and loves to cook and dance."

Adeline Nieto is a 21-year-old Asian and Latina student at Ithaca College, majoring in "Culture and Communication" and minoring in "Spanish" and "African Diaspora Studies." She is on The Committee for Inclusive Education, and they collectively fight for an Asian American Studies program at Ithaca College. Aside from pushing for a more developed ethnic studies program, they also host events and workshops to raise student awareness for an all-encompassing campus (i.e. tackling issues like privilege and the colorblind ideology). Adeline extended her interest in education by becoming a third grade teaching assistant as well as a college Spanish teaching assistant.

Jaki Salgado is a first generation Latina serving her third year at the University of Oregon. Her areas of focus are Planning, Public Policy and management with a minor in Spanish and non-profit. For the past two years she organized with The Oregon's Student Association/ Oregon students of Color Coalition; which has registered over 30,000 students to vote statewide. Jaki works closely with the Multicultural Center as well as M.E.Ch.A and other unions on campus to build solidarity and raise racial/political consciousness.

Deanna Gao identifies as a queer, gender non-conforming Chinese woman born in the US. She has most recently been living in Los Angeles where she has been actively involved with several different political organizations and collectives. Her longest ongoing involvement has been with Incite! Women and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color Against Violence, using a gender analysis to organize and build communities equipped to address violence organized by the state against and within our communities. She is deeply committed to principles of transformative organizing and believes that the liberation of our peoples begins with embodying our politics in our everyday practices.

Byron Aldredge is a 50-year-old African American who presently attends Merritt College in Oakland Ca studying Sociology. For the last year he has been involved with the Black Organizing Project and there campaign B.O.S.S. (bettering our school system) His passion is encouraging through both education and experience the disadvantaged people in his community, and to strengthen family, community, and the world by exposing injustices and challenging black men to take their place in as husbands fathers, leaders and men.

Ivonne Quiroz is a 27 year old Latina who recently graduated from San Francisco State University. She has been working with Occupy SFSU for the last 8 months to bring to light the growing inaccessibility of higher education to working class people. She is currently working on a campaign in order to keep the current campus bookstore as a non-profit so that books will continue to be affordable and accessible to all students. Before being active on campus, Ivonne volunteered as a patient advocate for Clinica Martin Baro, a fully student run, free clinic in the Mission District of San Francisco. CMB has been dedicated to social justice work within the healthcare scope and whose mission states that “La salud es un derecho.” 

 

 

Marilyn Duran	Nhia Vang	Yen Vu
Sho'mane	Diana Salazar	Everardo (Lalo) Gonzalez
Leo Esclamado	Adeline Nieto	Jaki Salgado
Deanna Gao	Byron Aldredge	Ivonne Quiroz