Board of Directors

Patricia Alejandro (She/ Ella)
Take Root Justice

Patricia (she/her) is a lawyer, educator and community-builder. She is committed to fighting for and building equity and access for everyone, particularly immigrants and communities of color. She started her career working on democracy and human rights, and began focusing on economic justice in law school, seeing sustainable livelihoods as a crucial ingredient of more just and democratic societies. Cuban-born, she brings the experience of being an immigrant, navigating multiple identities, and continuously growing and spreading roots in new communities. She currently works as a Staff Attorney at TakeRoot Justice, advising worker-owned cooperatives in New York City. Prior to TakeRoot, she worked at large law firm representing clients in international financial deals. Every now and then, she also teaches workshops and classes on negotiation. This past year, she volunteered with South Brooklyn Mutual Aid to organize food deliveries to families in Brooklyn.

Tehmina Brohi (She/ Ella)
Happy Family Night Market

Tehmina Brohi (she/hers) is a Pakistani-born, NYC-cultivated citizen of the world. She is a cooperative developer, an entrepreneur, organizer, and artist. She is the founder and owner of the cross-cultural lifestyle brand Istani. Tehmina has over ten years of experience in grassroots organizing and her career’s focus has been on entrepreneurship and alternative business models. Currently, she is also on the steering committee of Happy Family Night Market, a recently-converted multi-stakeholder cooperative which celebrates the Asian diaspora through food, art, and education. Tehmina is inspired by the methods of exchange and relationship building that the solidarity economy presents and is excited to move this work forward by adding her perspective and skills to the movement. In all that she does, Tehmina values and upholds community, creativity, and joy.

Myla Flores (She/ Ella)
Uptown Village Cooperative

Myla Flores (she/her), CD, LCCE, SpBCE, CLC is the Founder of The Birthing Place, My Loving Doula, and Co-founder of Uptown Village Cooperative. As a birth doula, postpartum doula, birth assistant, educator, and lactation professional, Myla was first initiated into birth work in 2006 as a birth assistant in the homebirth setting, eventually shifting to mostly supporting in hospitals via My Loving Doula. In 2016, Myla co-founded Uptown Village Cooperative, a multicultural community of maternal health professionals supporting gentle birth and postpartum, breastfeeding, and reproductive health justice in Upper Manhattan & The Bronx where she has built relationships with a spectrum of people and organizations with a deep commitment to improving their community. Currently, Myla is working to open a Bronx based birth center, The Birthing Place. Engaging in numerous community partnerships serving expectant and new families through the years has provided Myla the ability to witness firsthand the challenges that birth workers face in having the true ability to improve experiences and outcomes in their community. She is a committed birth justice activist with strong connections to people and organizations who share the common interest to improve birth for NYC families.

Dalaeja Foreman (She/ Ella)
breadfruit

Dalaeja Foreman (she/they) is a community organizer, curator, cultural worker and first-generation Caribbean-Brooklynite. As a hood-intellectual, their work focuses on political education, Black and Indigenous Autonomy, and community control through community preservation. Radical pedagogy, reclaiming public space, and liberatory action are central to Foreman’s curatorial and organizing practices; specifically with the goal of prototyping counter-hegemonic ideologies and actions, combating internalized misconceptions oppressed people have of ourselves, and emphasizing resistance through direct action and cultural production. She is one of three founders of the woodworking cooperative, breadfruit.

Mohammad Hassan (He/ Ello)
The Drivers Co-op

Mohammad (he/him) is a founding member of the Drivers Cooperative. As an active driver of over 6 years, he wants to make sure that all drivers are aware of their rights. He is an expert in customer service experience with fluency in 3-4 different languages. He is also a Council member of District 24 of the DOE in NYC.

Félix Gardón Rivera (They/ Them/ Ellx)
Coqui Interpretation

Félix E. Gardón Rivera   Is an interpreter/actor/artist/activist. Gardón is a queer economic justice activist and a language advocate and an experienced trainer and facilitator that has held various positions to develop new leadership and trainers in multiple topics on economic, gender, social, and justice. They were one of the co-founders and co-chairs of Queers for Economic Justice, worker/ owner of Caracol Language LLC, and Robert W, Maggs Designs LLC among others. They also worked as Director of Education/Advocacy for SAGE (Services and Advocacy for LGBTQ Elders,) Program Coordinator Specialist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry, where they developed the Standards for Cultural Competency for the Ryan White Tittle 1 programs in NJ, Director of Education for AVP, and direct service member of the SRLP collective providing language access services for legal clinics in  NYC for the transgender community.

Felix is also an actor artist and co-founded the Puerto Rican Actors troupe Los Cuatro Gatos. For 15 yrs they were part of the Medicine Show Theatre, the oldest experimental theater group in NYC.  They studied with the renowned Greek artist Omiros and has shown in various galleries in Philadelphia and NJ.

Michelle Saenz (She/ Ella)
The Working World

Michelle was born in Chula Vista, California, a town along the US/Mexico border. Likely due to her experiences on both sides of the border, she developed an interest in economic inequality at a young age. This led her to study Latin American economic history in college. She then pursued a graduate degree in Urban Planning at Hunter College, with a focus on Marxist geography. She have worked in economic development and workforce development since then, most recently for The Working World as a Senior Project Officer.

Mosa Tsay (She/ Ella)
Group Muse

Mosa Tsay (she/her) is a Taiwanese-American cellist, first-generation artist, and community organizer. She is a worker-owner of Groupmuse (www.groupmuse.com), a cooperative that organizes house concerts. Since her studies at UC Berkeley and The Juilliard School, she has combined her interests in environmental sustainability and music to create hyperlocal partnerships between musicians and local businesses to “listen local.” She is Executive Director of Groupmuse Foundation, and has focused on uplifting artist cooperativism, mutual aid, inclusive and accessible cultural events, and economic independence through grassroots fundraising and grantmaking.

Nicole Rodriguez (She/ Ella)
Wholehearted Bookkeeping 

Nicole is a bilingual WOC native to Washington Heights. As a first generation American, she has seen the effects of systemic inequality firsthand. She has worked with other worker cooperatives providing administrative support and dipped her toe in Finance when establishing a cooperative coffee shop in NYC. She is a self-taught bookkeeper with 3 years experience.

Kazembe Balagun (He/ Ello)
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung

Kazembe is a native New Yorker who has worked for over two decades in public engagement for social, racial and ecological justice. His work is centered in building spaces for dialogue and education for community development across multiple disciplines. He has worked as the Education Director for the Brecht Forum, a progressive arts and cultural center (2008-2013) organizing over 250 forums per year. Currently, he serves as the project manager for the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung New York Office, where he focuses on racial justice and the right to the city. He has appeared and organized programs at Metrograph, Goethe Institute, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Weeksville Heritage Center, the Black Archives (Amsterdam) among other notable venues and organizations.

Officers

Patricia Alejandro, Chairperson

Felix Gardón Rivera, Vice-Chairperson

TBD, Secretary

Nicole Rodriguez, Treasurer