Denée Jackson (she/her)
Beginning in college, I found myself deeply and urgently immersed in racial justice equity work, which informed all of my career choices and a lot of how I spend my time and live my life. I identify as an abolitionist and transformative justice practitioner and really try to ground in truth and love in everything that I do. I lean into this work imperfectly: I believe in a vulnerable and brave commitment to centering the most marginalized communities which requires the space to learn from mistakes and collaboratively remain accountable to them. My approach is gentle, direct, and always with care.
I’m from Connecticut where I attended UConn for my bachelors in Communications and Africana Studies and my masters in Higher Education and Student Affairs. I came to Tucson in July 2019 to work on an initiative to increase retention rates for men of color at a university. And most recently, starting …& Liberation has been one of the greatest joys (and challenges) of my life. I love creating magic learning moments with partners in the community, co-creating liberatory practices in our little microcosms that make ripples into larger society.
Consulting areas: racial equity, LGBTQ+ equity, gender equity, organizational structure and alignment, conflict and healing
Joshua Hamilton (he/him)
I identify as a Black man, and my understanding of Blackness is constructed through a Black feminist lens that centers care and love at the core of my work. In my third year of college, I had the experience of leading a student organization that provided mentorship and academic support to marginalized students living in the local community. Since then, I’ve been able to deconstruct how we do “feel good work” and complicate it with folks that I work with during workshops and presentations. In addition to doing my personal work to unlearn patriarchy, I’ve been able to facilitate gender work with men of color in a university setting. Conducting this work has led me to become an abolitionist, and informs my beliefs toward creating alternatives to structures that center punitive and punishment responses. We are all impacted by patriarchy, as well as the other various isms, so working to interrogate and dismantle these spaces creates a better world for all of us. My approach when providing trainings and workshops involves utilizing one on one settings, small teams, and large organizational spaces to uplift and liberate those living on the margins of society.
I am originally from Texas where I attended the University of North Texas for my bachelors in kinesiology. I also hold a master’s degree in Higher Education from Arizona State University and I am currently finishing up a Doctorate in Educational leadership from Northern Arizona University.
Consulting areas: men & masculinity, racial equity, transformative justice, community accountability and organizational leadership
Kristen Godfrey (she/they)
“Empires crumble, capitalism is not inevitable, gender is not biology, whiteness is not immutable, prisons are not inescapable, and borders are not natural.” Harsha Walia
This quote expresses how I see the world–that poor people, working class people, Black, Brown and Indigenous people, disabled people, undocumented people, and queer and trans people have the power to create a liberated world centered on the self-determination of oppressed peoples. I enjoy facilitating dialogue-based conversations, supporting people interested in moving left and building a united front built on solidarity. In my trainings, we construct a transnational material analysis together to articulate the relationships and responsibilities that come from a world centered on exploitation and commodification. I am a Black, non-binary community organizer and social worker living on stolen Tohono O’odham and Yoeme ancestral and traditional lands. I have worked alongside LGBTQ+ young people in after-school programs and community resource centers for nine years, and I have been developing LGBTQ+ liberation, anti-racism, and solidarity trainings for six years. I organize locally and nationally on issues including abortion access, LGBTQ+ liberation, aboltion, police violence and settler colonialism, and I remain hopeful that together, we are creating a new world.
Stephanie Noriega (she/her)
I am a desert dweller, a fourth generation Tucsonan with ancestral roots from the Chihuahua and Coahuila, Mexico. Raised a brown girl from the southside of Tucson, my studies relocated me to Tempe where I studied social work at Arizona State University. Later, I found my first political home in New York while getting my masters of social work at Hunter College and organizing alongside other radical healers of color. Now, after working fourteen years in the non profit field & four years in higher education, I am returning back to my roots of living radically into my movement dreams.
I believe in the power of community, movement building and liberated relationships. I believe in humanity. I believe in justice and that justice is deeply personal. I believe in healing & restoration. I believe in the natural world and as an indigenous person, I am committed to restoring that balance. I bring these values and weave them into a tapestry of practices to support groups, and individuals moving through and healing from internalized oppression, grief and trauma. I use years of cultivated skills and experience in system based thinking, building diverse and inclusive ecosystems, frameworks of harm reduction, emergent strategy and healing justice. I specialize in organizing, capacity building, workshops and facilitated processes to build alternative systems that focus on being in right relationship with each other and creating possibilities of living into your most liberated dream.
Workshops and projects this year include: Radical Hope as a Practice; Healing from Racialized Trauma, Towards Abolition: Reclaiming Our Humanity, Creating Liberated Movements using elements of Emergent Strategy.
prentiss wolfe (they/them)
I am queer, nonbinary, transgender, white, neurodivergent, of Jewish ancestry, and a survivor, rooted in abolition and liberation. I have lived on Tohono O’odham land, called Tucson, Arizona, near the US/Mexico border, for 20 years. My experience as a workshop co-facilitator, community organizer, somatic trauma healing practitioner, and community videographer and photographer is woven into all i do.
My approach is warm, trauma centered and rooted in community power. I center people who are queer, nonbinary, transgender, Two Spirit, Intersex, LGBTQIA, disabled, neurodivergent, Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian Pacific Islander, migrant, undocumented, and survivors of domestic and sexual abuse.
As an outsider observer child, i connected with nature, and rejected the myths in history textbooks. I craved a crew to co-interrupt abuses i experienced and witnessed.
Currently i co-create microcosms of aligned joy, resistance, and interdependence, and address harms – interpersonal and systemic. For three decades i have been part of social, racial, environmental justice and Indigenous Land Back, pro-migrant, liberation movements.
If you work with me, get ready to explore collective power, transformative justice, gender, queerness, embodied whole self, and unseating white supremacist-abelist-patriarchy
Consulting areas: systems of oppression and racism, queer & LGBTQIA2S liberation, gender, transformative justice, survivor support, somatic trauma work, self-accountability