Spring IST 2021 Workshops

Spring IST 2021 Facilitators

Organizing with a Black Queer Feminist Lens

How do we incorporate a Black, Queer, Feminist lens into our daily lives, and why is it important? In order to dismantle oppressive systems, we must not only think creatively but also uplift those whose voices and experiences are often silenced. We have the tools within ourselves to make small changes that can lead to positive impacts. 
In this interactive workshop, we will start by breaking down gender and then move into discussing ways to implement living with a BQF perspective.

Ari Schill | Organizing with a Black Queer Feminist Lens
Ari is a writer and facilitator living in Oregon. They believe in the importance of advocacy, education and community support. They have facilitated workshops with organizations such as SOBLACC, New Avenues for Youth, Imagine Black and the Grand Street Settlement. Ari graduated with a degree in Psychology and Human Sexuality Studies from San Francisco State University. In their free time they love dancing, going to the beach, attending writing workshops, and reading fiction & Sci-fi.

Wage Theft: Popular Legal Violations Face by BIPOC Workers

This is a workshop that will locate Wage and Hour laws within the broader employment protection legal framework. We will learn the basics of this highly technical area of the law that protects all workers, including youth and undocumented/underdocumented workers. This session will help you identify popular wage and hour legal violations and help you build your advocacy for repair. ​

Banafsheh Violet Nazari | Wage Theft
​Banafsheh Violet Nazari is an immigrant and attorney who has exclusively represented employees in their Wage Theft and Workplace Discrimination case against employers. She has also advocated for immigrants and refugees during her time as Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization's (IRCO) statewide advocacy coordinator. She has previously served on the Homeless Youth Law Clinic board and eight years as the Oregon Women Lawyers Board and served on the Intersectionality Network, Transformation, and Leadership Committees. Her recent presentations include Intersectionality Now!, Implicit Bias, Professionalism Panel: Practicing Diversity, Safe Spaces, and A Voice From the Margins, and Know Your Rights training within the employment context.

Beyond the Labels

​Being an immigrant or refugee can be difficult. The connotations formed around these words in themselves have constructed a history and double consciousness that can often be taxing on the person or said groups. This presentation will highlight the real lived experience(s) of this cohort.

Hawi Muleta | Beyond the Labels
Hawi Muleta is a Program Manager for the Ethiopian and Eritrean Cultural Resource Center (EECRC), a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon.

AmeriCorps VISTA to Unite Oregon: Transferring your skills to the nonprofit world

Are you interested in learning about how to transfer your AmeriCorps skills to the nonprofit world? If so, this workshop will highlight an example of what that process can look like and support you in identifying the skills you are interested in transferring. Participants will be given the opportunity to create an outline of skills they wish to further develop and use in their future career endeavors.

Vania Lucio | AmeriCorps VISTA to Unite Oregon
​Vania (she,her,ella) is a Latinx woman who identifies as a Dreamer. She immigrated to this country at the age of four from her native country of Mexico. She is a first generation college graduate and now holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from Portland State University. Vania is a former AmeriCorps VISTA and currently works as a community organizer at Unite Oregon where she supports and advocates for immigrant and refugee rights. She also currently occupies the role of a commissioner for the New Portlander’s Policy Committee within the City of Portland.

Designing our Career Spaces for Liberation

In this workshop, we explore how absolute and deficit-based language/behaviors have been used against minoritized communities as perpetual acts of violence and exclusion in the workforce and workplace. In this session we will focus on co-developing tactical navigational and resistance anecdotes for career planning success. This session contends with how we seek and create environments/places where we know/sense we belong. We plan to continue the conversion on how to advocate for justice/safety/community/universal design in our career spaces that embrace transformation and liberation.  ​

Meleani Bates | Designing our Career Spaces for Liberation
Meleani Bates (she/her/they/them) is a Black, first generation, queer student affairs scholar-practitioner who has worked in education for 10 years. Her recent work has been in the intersections of equity, Black feminism and career education. She earned two bachelor degrees from Oregon State, one in Ethnic Studies with an emphasis on African American Studies, and another in Women Studies. She is a recent Lewis & Clark graduate having earned her degree in Student Affairs Administration. She currency serves as the Guided Pathways Consultant with the Diversity Center at Clark College, and a Program Coordinator with the Office of Institutional Diversity at Reed College.

Shania Siron | Designing our Career Spaces for Liberation
Born and raised in Oregon, Shania (she/her) graduated from the University of Oregon in 2017 and later from Portland State University in 2019 with her MSEd where she studied the structural impact of Division-I collegiate systems on first-generation student-athletes of color and their transition into the work-force. She currently works as a Career and Fellowships Advisor at Reed College and volunteers her time as the Chair of Board of Directors for Oregon Women in Higher Education (OWHE). In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her son, playing soccer and working out.