GRANT-MAKING PANEL
Shenaaz Janmohamed
Shenaaz Janmohamed (she/they) is a queer Shia Muslim, a nonbinary femme parent, and a healing practitioner, cultural worker and organizer. For the past fifteen years, Shenaaz has worked at the intersections of mental health, gendered violence, islamophobia and the surveillance of bodies through survivor advocacy, community organizing and trauma recovery. Raised with a strong Shia political identity, Shenaaz learned about the multiplicity and nuance of Muslim cultures through experiences of erasure, resistance and ritual. It is from this lineage that she struggles to expand who in seen and included in the Muslim experience, centering the most impacted and targeted. In 2020 Shenaaz was selected as part of the fifth and final cohort of Move to End Violence Movement Makers, and was a 2009 American Muslim Civic Leaders Institute national fellow.
Chris Kimmenez
Rev. Dr. Chris Kimmenez is an ordained Baptist minister, faith community organizer, chaplain, psychologist, educator, nonprofit executive and medically retired marine combat veteran residing in Philadelphia, PA. After a car accident, struggling with addiction, physical disability, PTSD, and a criminal record, he entered recovery in 1995 and ministry in 1996. After serving as a senior pastor for 17 years, and retiring from Lombard Central Presbyterian Church, he currently serves as the Associate Pastor for Social Justice at The Peoples Baptist Church in West Philadelphia under the pastorate of the Rev. Eric Jadolyn Goode. He also serves as Founder of the Pastor’s & Preacher’s Support Network serving over 600 pastors worldwide, President of Recovery Christian Centers Urban Community Development Corporation providing leadership consulting and recovery support, Overseer of Administration of Maturing Harvest Fellowship, Chair of the Pennsylvania Reentry Council Restorative Justice Committee, Executive Director for Healing Communities PA, a faith based grassroots justice transformation network, Chaplain of Delaware Valley Stand Down, a homeless veteran initiative, a contract Mental Health First Aid Instructor, Trauma Instructor and member of the Faith & Spiritual Affairs Advisory Board with the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disabilities, and a member of the Philadelphia FIGHT Faith Leaders Network. He is a JustLeadershipUSA Leading with Conviction 2018 Fellow. He holds a B.S. in Human Resources, a M.S. in Health Education, and PsyD and is pursuing a D. Min. He married the Rev. Paula Burnett-Kimmenez having 6 children (1 deceased) and 16 grandchildren.
María Cristina Moroles
Maria Cristina Moroles (she/her) is a Two-Spirit, working-class, Indigenous and Mexican-American womoon born in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1953. She is the founder and president of Arco Iris Earth Care Project, a conservation organization that stewards 400 acres of Ozark Wilderness according to indigenous earth care principles.
She is also the matriarchal steward of Santuario Arco Iris, her residence and a 100-acre off-grid community that practices indigenous land stewardship. It includes a permaculture center, an organic garden, a natural healing clinic with an intern and apprenticeship program, ceremonial grounds, and the Arco Iris Earth Care Project headquarters.
Sra. Moroles is a curandera (a traditional indigenous healer), a state-licensed Master Massage Therapist, an herbalist, and a ceremonial leader. For many years, she has opened her home, Santuario Arco Iris, to displaced womyn and children of color and Two-Spirit peoples who need safe healing spaces and seek to learn indigenous environmental ethics. For the last five years, Maria has been writing her memoirs and teaching. Her book is scheduled to be published through the University of Arkansas Press in fall 2023.
Milton X. Trujillo
Milton X. Trujillo (he/him) is a chronically ill artist, community worker and illegalized person who for now holds DACA, who migrated 23 years ago from Quito, Ecuador, as a result of displacement and was raised in Corona and Jackson Heights. He survives here to create, organize and dream big dreams of radical collective autonomy and solidarity in his communities.
His community work as well as cultural work is to engage local community members with the intention to first and foremost fight isolation and alienation, as well as creating and sustaining spaces that welcome intimacy, popular, political and alternative educational models for reflection and action.
He is currently a community fellow at the New School Mellon Initiative for Inclusive Faculty Excellence Fellowship and works as a freelance filmmaker and Spanish-English interpreter.
Marq Mitchell
As a child of formerly incarcerated parents, Marq’s life’s trajectory was forever impacted by both the child welfare system and the school-to-prison pipeline. Through his lived experience with the criminal legal system, Marq developed a breadth of understanding around the challenges that people who are justice-involved face; a dearth of resources, stigma, disenfranchisement, and collateral consequences that make it nearly impossible to access employment, housing, and education. Although he overcame these barriers and created a second chance at life, he is driven by the reality that, for many, there is simply no ‘second chance.’
Marq serves as a messenger of hope for fellow justice-involved people, for whom safety and freedom are often out of reach, but creativity and resilience are necessary for survival. He is a bold visionary who embodies both the innovation and grit needed to end mass incarceration. Through CCI, Marq continues to build a community of systems-impacted advocates equipped to fight for new policies and radical systems change in South Florida.
Prior to founding CCI, Marq spent years volunteering for local organizations, working to reduce recidivism by providing advocacy and support for at-risk youth and other underserved subpopulations involved with the criminal legal system. He continues to serve on a plethora of local and statewide advocacy boards and initiatives relating to ending mass incarceration. Marq is a 2022 Echoing Green Fellow, a 2022 Voqal Fellow, and a 2021 Roddenberry Fellow. In 2021, he received the Radical Partners’ Neighborhood Hero Award and The Sentencing Projects’ Race and Justice Award, and he was named Broward Young Democrats’ Trailblazer of the Year in 2020.
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