Advisory Council 2025-2026

Maria Raquel Marillanca Loncopan

Leader of the Mapuche community “Manuel Marillanca” of Maichin LLafa (Araucanía, Chile).
She is a member of the movement Las Guardianas del Territorio de Curarrehue, the Council of Lonko and is co-founder of the Walüng Fair.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mariaraquel.marillancaloncopan

Jackie Namadi

Jacklyne Namadi is the head of programmes at Eco green Kenya, a community based environmental organizational and currently serves as Chairperson of the environment committee at the Busia Professional Association and vice chair at the Financing Locally-Led Climate Action Program, FLLoCA. She is a Business manager by profession and trained in agroforestry, Bamboo Taxonomy, Bamboo Cite matching and Bamboo Value Addition in China and Ethiopia. Her mantra has been “leave no one behind” and thus has made the bamboo industry become one of the fastest growing value chains in Busia County and its neighboring Counties in Kenya. Ms. Namadi is a GIA (Green Innovation Awards) Award National winner 2021, a Tall Berge global award nominee 2020, a Zuri Award winner 2020, an ALIBABA scholarship beneficiary, young media boss award global winner 2020 and the EAC (EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY) Award winner 2023 under the trade fair.  She is a steward of the Kenya Forest Service (KFS), INBAR (International Bamboo and Rattan Organization and KEFRI (Kenya Forestry Research Institute). As a volunteer in her community, she uses bamboo as a tool to address climate change mitigation, livelihood improvement, degraded sites restoration, hill tops reforestation, river banks and dykes protection. Recently, Busia County has been able to increase its forest cover and tree cover from 0.014% and 4% to 2% and 5% respectively as recorded by KFS and the Department of Environment. The community involvement at on-farm level has been enhanced and thus is commended for increase of the tree cover on farms. The Western part of Kenya has more than 10,000 Farmers involved in the greening initiative using bamboo and Busia County is leading with more than 6,000 farmers growing bamboo with an estimated hectare of 6000 acres. She has also trained more than 15 Counties in Kenya and the Busia District in Uganda on Bamboo Value addition and has also undertaken training Program under the seed for change program. 
Email: jackiemwaminifu@gmail.com

Mary Kladouris

Niketa Peters, MA

Ancestral Knowledge Protector| Educator| Aunt| Poet
Born on the sacred land of the Lokono (Arawak) peoples, surrounded by many bodies of water and fertile lands, my relationship with water and the land was naturally formed. I spent my early years in the waters and forests, absorbing, experiencing, and feeling the teachings of the land, enveloping myself in the energies of all creation. My transition to Canada, coupled with the violence embedded in Western colonial education, created a shift in my relationship with creation. My colonial education earned me undergraduate and graduate degrees and certificates that remain unopened and under my bed. Given my experiences with colonial transgressions, my work is focused on political healing and revolutionary liberation. I lean on the teachings of my ancestors, waters, fires, nature, earth, and minerals to develop pedagogies of liberation and healing.
Email: peters.niketa@outlook.com

Glenda Mejia, PhD

Glenda is an educator, scholar, mum, daughter, sister, aunt and amiga. She was born in the ancestral lands of Náhuat people, known as El Salvador. She teaches in the field of migration/mobility/displacement, and Spanish language/culture studies at RMIT’s School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, recognising the university as a colonised spaced and unceded sovereignty of the Traditional Custodians of the Kulin Nations on which she lives, works and breathes. I extend that respect to Elders past, present and emerging as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples throughout Australia. My respect also extends to all Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, fires, stones, animals, plants and skies where this is read. As a lifelonger learner, educator and scholar, Glenda is committed to un/re/learning and teaching by engaging and embodying a praxis of senti-pensante and liberation pedagogies. Her ethics, teaching, and work are inspired by Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Clelia O. Rodríguez, and Paulo Freire. She is currently working collaboratively on an arts-based community participatory practice titled ‘Storytelling displacement: Salvadoreans’ memories in Australia', while learning the language of her ancestors, Nahuatl, taught by knowledge holder Tamatchtiani Franco Huixtemi.
Email:  glenda.mejia@rmit.edu.au
Website: RMIT University

Josephine Gabi, PhD

(She/Her/Hers) is a Reader in Education at Manchester Metropolitan University. Grounded in Black feminist thought, and antiracist praxis, she is dedicated to challenging disembodied pedagogy in the early year’s education and care and undoing forms of coloniality in curricula and relational encounters. Josephine embraces solidarity as a tool of resistance to the matrix of domination as a critical orientation towards liberated futures. Her work advances co-creation as a liberatory pedagogy that facilitates relational agency. Josephine is a Senior Advisor of the UK Advising and Tutoring (UKAT) and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE). She is the co-editor of Who Are You Without Colonialism?: Pedagogies of Liberation.
Email: j.gabi@mmu.ac.uk

Aquib S. Yacoob, MBA

Aquib S. Yacoob is a social entrepreneur and community organizer from a sugar plantation community in Guyana. His roots, marked by ancestral resilience, determination and survival, ignited a lifelong dedication to social change advocacy and world building. At 14, he began creating human rights campaigns with Amnesty International, later becoming a key leader at Women's March, mobilizing millions in the face of rising fascism. Responding to gun violence in his NYC community, Aquib partnered with a local organizer, transforming a local program into a $5B White House initiative. Now a Consortium and ROMBA Fellow at Rice University’s Business School, Aquib innovates sustainable financial  systems for enduring social impact.
Email: aquib@brownmanrunning.com

c.k. samuels, Honorary MA

I am a poet, musician, and farmer finding peace relating with land.  My ancestors trod Taino land. I am trodding Algonquin land.  
https://manfromjambican.bandcamp.com/music
https://jambican.ca/en
Instagram: @jambican
Facebook: jambican 
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEDtNMrdOsMk9r_G7YmPMjw

Pamela Lynne Chrisjohn

Born into the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe and Lenape people, in the Eastern woodland region of Ontario, Canada, Pamela Chrisjohn has strong ties to each of these diverse nations. 
Her home community of Onyota’a:ka (People of the Standing Stone) is located in southwestern Ontario. She did travel, living in Germany, Holland, Arizona, and B.C. before raising 5 children and one grandson on the Oneida Reservation. A traditionalist Pamela identifies as a part of the Ohkwa:li (bear) clan family of the Oneida Nation, within the Six Nations Confederacy (Haudenosaunee). Being from a matrilineal society Pamela has always felt her responsibilities as an Oneida woman are to unconditionally care for the family and nation. It is up to the women to ensure the children receive the teachings which are the original instructions from the creator. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy predates contact and is a governance based on maintaining peace and Pamela is committed to peaceful nation building. Artistic expression has always been very important to Pamela, she has been mainly self-taught but did attend The University of Western Ontario and University of Victoria (En’owkin Program) for Fine Arts. She has worked as an ambassador for Six Nations Tourism, was a photojournalist, a writer, and an eclectic visual artist throughout her lifetime. Pamela feels traditional indigenous arts and language are integral to our survival as nations and is using her artistic talents to share and express her identity. She presently teaching online painting and cultural identity with Anishinaabeg Outreach.
Email: pamela.lynne.chrisjohn@gmail.com

Advisory Council 2024-2025

Niketa Peters, MA

Ancestral Knowledge Protector| Educator| Aunt| Poet
Born on the sacred land of the Lokono (Arawak) peoples, surrounded by many bodies of water and fertile lands, my relationship with water and the land was naturally formed. I spent my early years in the waters and forests, absorbing, experiencing, and feeling the teachings of the land, enveloping myself in the energies of all creation. My transition to Canada, coupled with the violence embedded in Western colonial education, created a shift in my relationship with creation. My colonial education earned me undergraduate and graduate degrees and certificates that remain unopened and under my bed. Given my experiences with colonial transgressions, my work is focused on political healing and revolutionary liberation. I lean on the teachings of my ancestors, waters, fires, nature, earth, and minerals to develop pedagogies of liberation and healing.

Caroline Shenaz Hossein, PhD

Dr. Caroline Shenaz Hossein is Associate Professor of Global Development at the University of Toronto Scarborough and cross-appointed to the graduate program of Political Science at the University of Toronto and Founder of Diverse Solidarity Economies (DISE) Collective. She holds an Ontario Early Researcher Award (2018-2025) and was previously funded by SSHRC (2017-2020). Hossein is board member to the International Association of Feminist Economics, advisor to Oxford University Press, editorial board member to the U.N. Task Force for the Social and Solidarity Economy, Kerala University’s Journal ‘Polity & Society’ and The Review of Black Political Economy. Hossein is the author of ‘Politicized Microfinance’ (2016), co-author of ‘Critical Introduction to Business and Society’ (2017); editor of ‘The Black Social Economy’ (2018), co-editor of ‘Community Economies in the Global South’ (2022) and ‘Beyond Racial Capitalism’ (2023) both by Oxford UP. Her forthcoming books are ‘The Banker Ladies’ by the U of Toronto Press and Africana Feminist Political Economy by Cambridge UP.
She has held visiting professorships at Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia, University of Guyana, UWI St. Augustine, Trinidad and Jadavpur University, India and spent 2019 sabbatical in Malaysia. She has also held a U.S Fulbright Scholarship at the University of the West Indies, Mona Jamaica and Hossein has given keynote lectures in the US, Ireland, Jamaica, Norway, Sweden, India, the UK and Thailand. Prior to becoming an academic, she worked for 9 years in a number of global non-profits and 8 years as a self-employed consultant to the World Bank Group, UNDP, USAID, IRC, CIDA, IADB, and the Aga Khan Foundation.
Email: caroline.hossein@utoronto.ca
Website: University of Toronto Scarborough
Twitter @carolinehossein @AfricanaEconomy
Founder: Africana Development & Feminist Political Economy
 

Glenda Mejia, PhD

Glenda is an educator, scholar, mum, daughter, sister, aunt and amiga. She was born in the ancestral lands of Náhuat people, known as El Salvador. She teaches in the field of migration/mobility/displacement, and Spanish language/culture studies at RMIT’s School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, recognising the university as a colonised spaced and unceded sovereignty of the Traditional Custodians of the Kulin Nations on which she lives, works and breathes. I extend that respect to Elders past, present and emerging as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples throughout Australia. My respect also extends to all Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, fires, stones, animals, plants and skies where this is read. As a lifelonger learner, educator and scholar, Glenda is committed to un/re/learning and teaching by engaging and embodying a praxis of senti-pensante and liberation pedagogies. Her ethics, teaching, and work are inspired by Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Clelia O. Rodríguez, and Paulo Freire. She is currently working collaboratively on an arts-based community participatory practice titled ‘Storytelling displacement: Salvadoreans’ memories in Australia', while learning the language of her ancestors, Nahuatl, taught by knowledge holder Tamatchtiani Franco Huixtemi.

Email:  glenda.mejia@rmit.edu.au
Website: RMIT University

Pamela Lynne Chrisjohn

Born into the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe and Lenape people, in the Eastern woodland region of Ontario, Canada, Pamela Chrisjohn has strong ties to each of these diverse nations. 
Her home community of Onyota’a:ka (People of the Standing Stone) is located in southwestern Ontario. She did travel, living in Germany, Holland, Arizona, and B.C. before raising 5 children and one grandson on the Oneida Reservation. A traditionalist Pamela identifies as a part of the Ohkwa:li (bear) clan family of the Oneida Nation, within the Six Nations Confederacy (Haudenosaunee). Being from a matrilineal society Pamela has always felt her responsibilities as an Oneida woman are to unconditionally care for the family and nation. It is up to the women to ensure the children receive the teachings which are the original instructions from the creator. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy predates contact and is a governance based on maintaining peace and Pamela is committed to peaceful nation building. Artistic expression has always been very important to Pamela, she has been mainly self-taught but did attend The University of Western Ontario and University of Victoria (En’owkin Program) for Fine Arts. She has worked as an ambassador for Six Nations Tourism, was a photojournalist, a writer, and an eclectic visual artist throughout her lifetime. Pamela feels traditional indigenous arts and language are integral to our survival as nations and is using her artistic talents to share and express her identity. She presently teaching online painting and cultural identity with Anishinaabeg Outreach.
Email: pamela.lynne.chrisjohn@gmail.com

Aquib S. Yacoob, MBA

Aquib S. Yacoob is a social entrepreneur and community organizer from a sugar plantation community in Guyana. His roots, marked by ancestral resilience, determination and survival, ignited a lifelong dedication to social change advocacy and world building. At 14, he began creating human rights campaigns with Amnesty International, later becoming a key leader at Women's March, mobilizing millions in the face of rising fascism. Responding to gun violence in his NYC community, Aquib partnered with a local organizer, transforming a local program into a $5B White House initiative. Now a Consortium and ROMBA Fellow at Rice University’s Business School, Aquib innovates sustainable financial  systems for enduring social impact.
Email: aquib@brownmanrunning.com

Erica Peña, MA - Educational Leader and Program Assistant

Education Specialist| Teacher| Community Organizer and Activist 
Email: erikapkalu@gmail.com

Josephine Gabi, PhD

(She/Her/Hers) is a Reader in Education at Manchester Metropolitan University. Grounded in Black feminist thought, and antiracist praxis, she is dedicated to challenging disembodied pedagogy in the early year’s education and care and undoing forms of coloniality in curricula and relational encounters. Josephine embraces solidarity as a tool of resistance to the matrix of domination as a critical orientation towards liberated futures. Her work advances co-creation as a liberatory pedagogy that facilitates relational agency. Josephine is a Senior Advisor of the UK Advising and Tutoring (UKAT) and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE). She is the co-editor of Who Are You Without Colonialism?: Pedagogies of Liberation, a collective of voic
Email: j.gabi@mmu.ac.uk

c.k. samuels, Honorary MA

I am a poet, musician, and farmer finding peace relating with land.  My ancestors trod Taino land. I am trodding Algonquin land.  

https://manfromjambican.bandcamp.com/music
https://jambican.ca/en
Instagram: @jambican
Facebook: jambican 
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEDtNMrdOsMk9r_G7YmPMjw