2017-2018 Community Leadership Institute

Cliff Cawthon is an organizer and writer from Buffalo, NY, who currently lives in South Seattle with his partner. Cliff has been part of social justice struggles for fifteen years. Since he arrived in Seattle four years ago, he has worked alongside workers, community members and underrepresented people on workers' rights campaigns, and anti-displacement campaigns. In his everyday life, Cliff is passionate about fighting white supremacy, capitalism, and the ongoing Injustice of poverty in our, so called, "Region of Boom" and elsewhere.

Cliff is a Political Science Instructor at Bellevue College., and fights for housing Justice Chair of the Tenants Union Board of Directors. He earned an M.A. from the University of Manchester in England with a focus in Human Rights and Political Science. Cliff is highly passionate about racial justice work.

Tiffany Chan’s involvement with environmental justice efforts motivated her to join the CLI. Her home roots in the Beacon Hill neighborhood have shaped her understanding that equitable policies are integral to sustaining vibrant and thriving communities. This led her to engage in community building work with environmental organizations such as: EarthCorps, Got Green, Open Seattle (civic tech group), Parisol, Environmental Professionals of Color, and HWLO.

These community hubs inspire her to work to advance a more Just Transition, and remind her how integral it is for policies and government to uphold equitable practices.

Aliah Davis is a resident of Seattle and an employee in the banking/finance industry. Her life passion is working to help individuals achieve their human potential. Her work is guided by the belief that every person is born with qualities and abilities that can be harnessed to achieve harmony and self-sufficiency. She believes that in order to help our community achieve its full potential, we must work for social justice and inclusion of historically excluded groups.

Through the CLI, Aliah is hoping to study human development at a macro scale, particularly city government and how policies can be influenced to promote the greater good of communities.  She also hopes to meet others who are driven by various interests to come together with a common goal of service to others.

Febben Fekadu is a first generation Ethiopian-American. She is a Seattle native, born and raised, and she takes a lot of pride in that. She has been working in the non-profit sector for over ten years and enjoys working with the community in various aspects. Her greatest role has been working as an advocate for families in King County who are experiencing homelessness.

Febben’s passion is working with the black and immigrant communities because she wants to see them be their best selves by any means necessary. She is a coffee connoisseur, a foodie and loves to spend time with her friends and family.

Meron Kasahun is the Executive Director of the Ethiopian Community in Seattle (ECS). After completing a B.A. in Anthropology, she was certain that in a year she would be going on to complete a Master’s in Social Work and Public Health. A few months into her work with ECS, she realized that there was so much more work to be done in policy and public administration that she began to consider practicing law or working in government. She realized that many non-profits like ECS work incredibly hard for their clients, but work in a vacuum where they fight to distribute the crumbs left behind by higher level policy decisions. Joining the CLI meant an opportunity to unpack these frustrations and learn about corrupt systems she could help rebuild with her community in mind.

Fun fact: Meron has been to 9 countries in 5 continents.

Patience Malaba's commitment to environmental advocacy and her labor organizing inspired her to join the CLI. The intersectional realities of environmental injustices specifically the unequal distribution of benefits and costs in our relationship to the environment for countless immigrant workers drove Patience to seek to engage deeper in policy conversations that recognize the disproportionate effect of climate change on people of color. She serves in the Executive Committee of Sierra Club , a national grassroots environmental advocacy organization where she is also the Seattle Group’s Representative to the Sierra Club State Chapter Political Committee. The Seattle Group focuses on transportation, affordable housing, environmental justice, supporting climate and environment-friendly candidates.

She was born and raised in Zimbabwe where she began her advocacy work in the face of a repressive regime. Her international advocacy and organizing background landed her at One America, an immigrants organization through the IREX Community Solutions Programme sponsored by the U.S Department of State. She also worked as Lead Organizer at Services Employees International Union Local 6 (SEIU6) organizing 800 low wage service workers,having joined the SEIU6 in the final phase of the fight for $15 campaign for airport workers as an organizer. Patience currently works with Futurewise, an environmental organization whose mission incorporates an important focus on livability, housing, transportation, environmental justice and environmental quality in our urbanized areas.

Alexander Njuguna is an advocate of diversity, racial equality, and social justice. He was born in Africa, Kenya and also lived most of his teenage life in Botswana before moving to the U.S. in 2007. Alexander believes that participating in the CLI program and eventually serving on a municipal board will be the optimal springboard for a career in the public sector. Alexander believes in the importance of protecting the rights and needs of vulnerable groups, those who continue to be disenfranchised and marginalized based on race, gender, disability, nationality, sexual orientation, religion and class. Alexander’s ultimate goal is to work as a policy maker, case manager, or development manager and address social welfare issues.

Alexander graduated from the University of Washington, Tacoma, with a bachelor’s degree in Law and Policy in 2015.

Dana Owens-Cheatham is a Program Specialist at South Seattle College and a student at Evergreen State College (she will complete her BA in 2018). During her undergraduate studies, Dana has conducted research focusing on the relationship between police and the Tacoma Hilltop community. Next spring, Dana plans to conduct further research in Dakar Senegal on the gender construction of African American and Senegalese women through the lens of Black Feminist Thought theory. She presented her current research at the Society of Anthropology Conference in Vancouver B.C.

Currently Dana is on the City of Tacoma Human Service Commission and interning with the City of Tacoma Public Relations Department using Equity and Empowerment Framework to analyze their Legislative Policy Statement. Dana’s ultimate goal is to become a researcher and policy maker.

Pah-tu Pitt G. (Warm Springs and Wasco) works on indigenous climate change, environmental health and community well-being issues at the University of Washington. She feels strongly about developing sustainable economies for the future of tribes and the region. 

Pah-tu has a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Science Degree, and a Master’s Degree in Environmental Studies. She is a member of several tribal canoe families that encourage cultural continuance, as well as Environmental Professionals of Color, Traditional Ecological Knowledge chapter of Ecological Society of America, and the George Wright Society. She also serves on her tribe’s Education Committee and Economic Ventures Board. Pah-tu joins the CLI in hopes of collaborating with others to bring the change they would like to see in the world.

Tashara Ramese is an Accountant and Educator. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting with 5 years of experience in full charge Bookkeeping. As a fellow entrepreneur she loves to empower women to take control of their wealth and believes it is important for women to achieve financial success and financial freedom.  

TaShara is most passionate about helping mothers let go unhealthy relationships by showing the value of a wealthy woman through budgeting, credit repair and financial investing. Her most recent projects have focused on teaching financial literacy. 

Gyanendra Subba is originally from Bhutan. Being a Nepali by ethnicity, his family became a victim of the ethnic cleansing that happened in Bhutan in the early 1990s. He was five when they left Bhutan and growing up in a refugee camp was not easy. Fortunately he was good at school and was picked up by the Jesuits and sent to a residential school in South India to complete his middle school and high School education. Later he was able to enroll in St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata to complete a Bachelor of Science in Physics.

Gyanendra currently serves as the Interim President of the Bhutanese Community Resource Center and works at the Seattle Housing Authority as an Economic Opportunities Specialist.

Taylor Tibbs is a South Seattle native and graduate of Seattle University. She works at Degrees of Change in Tacoma Washington as the Site Director of the Tacoma-Seattle Act Six Leadership and Scholarship initiative, which supports young emerging leaders as they develop skills to better serve their college campuses and communities. Through her work, Taylor holds social and racial justice at the forefront of exploring what it means to be a community leader and an individual who seeks to create lasting, positive transformation. She hopes that, as a part of CLI, she can continue to refine her own leadership skills and see where and how change happens outside of higher education.

Fun Fact: In elementary school, Taylor performed as a part of a unicycle team!

Dana Wu (吳 淑 如) is a genderqueer first generation Chinese-American and the eldest child of refugee parents displaced by what some choose to call the "Vietnam War".

Originally from Los Angeles, Dana relocated to the Pacific Northwest in 2005 and is the first college graduate in their family, with a Bachelor's Degree in Biology and minor in Environmental Studies. They are committed to serving and uplifting Puget Sound's communities of color within the environmental conservation movement, both personally and professionally as the Community Outreach Coordinator for the Seattle Aquarium. Dana looks forward to utilizing the tools, knowledge, and connections gained from the CLI to continue to challenge society's dominant narratives and to cultivate more community power.

William Yi has been interested in understanding the impacts of race on his community since childhood. In pursuit of this interest, he completed a degree in American Ethnic Studies and went on to work with local government in King County.

William’s work has focused on advancing diversity, inclusion, and social justice in city government, particularly Seattle’s City Light Department, the Race and Social Justice Initiative, and the Women & Minority Business Enterprise. William was motivated to join the CLI to learn how to become a more effective agent of change. He looks forward to learning from the cohort’s collective wisdom and knowledge.

Cynthia Yongvang is an avid learner, a designer, a social justice activist with a disability and the founder and CEO of Cynthia Yongvang, a textile and fashion company in Renton. She also holds a bachelor degree in Paralegal work with a minor in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Hamline University.

Cynthia firmly believes that communities should determine their own future because they know best the needs and issues they face in their community. With this belief in mind, she co-founded the Hmong Women’s Giving Circle in 2004 to fund programs that supported social change for Hmong women and girls in Minnesota. While serving on the MN Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities and on the Ramsey County Workforce Investment Board she realized that people of color were very much under-represented in government. By participating in the CLI, Cynthia hopes she can learn a how to influence policy decisions.