Sonali Sangeeta Balajee

Sonali Sangeeta Balajee (she / her) is a mother, daughter of Sri Lankan and Indian immigrants, a teaching artist, activist, organizer, and emerging health practitioner. She is the founder of Our Bodhi Project (Bodhi), which focuses on the intersection of Belonging, Organizing, Decomposing, Collective Health and Interconnectedness. Bodhi and the Embodying Belonging and Coliberation frame (the project’s centerpiece) stem from her active research as a Senior Fellow with the Othering and Belonging Institute with UC Berkeley. Sonali spent 13 years for Multnomah County and City of Portland as a senior policy advisor on equity and empowerment, as manager of a health equity program and of a City-wide community-visioning project. She has spent over 10 years of community organizing in the areas of youth organizing, arts, queer liberation, HIV/AIDS issues, and environmental justice. Sonali served as a healing practitioner with the W.K.Kellogg Truth, Reconciliation, and Healing Initiative, and serves on the boards of World Trust and Bioneers. Her life's work has sought to integrate her various influences, cultures, grounding in earth-and-cosmos-based practices, and experiences of spirituality in multiple forms. Our current moments of social and environmental oppression, decomposing, heartbreak, and transformation call Sonali to offer and learn through such integrative and collectively liberating practices.

Kabzuag Vaj

Kabzuag Vaj is a Hmong refugee who was born in Laos and raised in Madison, WI. She is the founder and co-executive director of Freedom Inc and the executive director of Freedom Action Now, Inc. She has dedicated the majority of her life to ending gender-based violence. Her advocacy started when she was 16 years old, assisting and housing at-risk teens, and challenging abusive gender norms within her community. She is a strong believer that those who are most deeply impacted must be at the forefront of the movement and must have opportunities and resources to advocate for themselves and tell their own stories. In the past 20 years, Vaj has spent her life working to build collective power and social change within Southeast Asian and Black communities. She was recognized as a Champion of Change at the White House during Domestic Violence Awareness month in 2011, and was part of NOVO’s Move to End Violence 4th leadership cohort. In 2020 she was named one of "20 Women of Color in Politics to Watch in 2020" by She the People. She is a co-founder of Building Our Future, a global feminist Hmong movement that works to change traditional practices, behaviors, and beliefs that contribute to gender-based violence within Hmong communities. Kabzuag is also a co-owner/founder of Red Green Rivers, a social enterprise that works with women and girl artisans from the Mekong Region in Southeast Asia. Kabzuag is a daughter, mother, artist, feminist and organizer. Her first love is the movement.