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affirming &
EMpowering

2022 fellows

Evoking cosmic connections through dreams and schemes, the 2022 Fellows envision a future centered on liberation. They’re forging that path forward with community care and empowerment.  

Dhanya

Addanki

Ini

Augustine

Kiela 

Smith-Upton

Marq

Mitchell

Mattie

abraham

mu

knowles

suzette

burton

william

isom ii

Who are these visionaries? Let us introduce them.  

DHANYA ADDANKI (SHE/HER)
The Blueprint | AnacostanTerritory
“They stoked the fire and calmed the seas.”

Dhanya believes that grassroots movements and journalism can work in tandem to create sustainable political and communal change. The Blueprint is a movement oriented news platform reframing South Asian American and immigrant issues. We center human rights stories concentrating on labor rights, immigration, grassroots organizing, identity, and culture from the perspective of caste-oppressed and other South Asian minorities in the U.S.

INI AUGUSTINE (SHE/HER)
Black Internet Cooperative | Wahpekute Territory
“She came, she saw, she organized.”

Ini is a network engineer who occupies the space between equity, technology, and art. She was also named Aspiring Businesswoman of the Year by the National Association of Women Business Owners in Iowa.  Her organization to close the digital divide, Project Nandi, was launched in direct response to Covid-19 and the George Floyd protests. Augustine’s project, the Black Internet Collective, would build on Project Nandi to create a community-owned Internet Service Provider (ISP) with a Black broadband summit.

KIELA SMITH (SHE/HER)
Artists Design the Future | Kaskaskia Territory
“Collaboration and Creativity power my genius.”

Kiela is a charismatic servant leader who loves inspiring artists and others while connecting them to resources. She brings grit and street training as a lifelong Chicagoan, 17 years as a teaching artist, and 30 years of professional experience consulting, planning, and creating collaborative community-based mural projects. Smith’s project, Artists Design the Future, engages a participatory, grassroots planning process for developing a worker cooperative and idea planning for an art space building that positions citizen artists as investors, owners, and stakeholders.

MARQ MITCHELL (HE/HIM)
Decarcerate Broward Coalition | Tequesta Territory
“Keep living. It gets better.”

Marq is the founder of Chainless Change. He is a returning citizen, abolitionist, visionary, and community leader. In addition to being the lead strategist for Chainless Change, Mitchell serves on a variety of local and statewide advocacy boards and initiatives related to ending mass incarceration and other systems change efforts. Mitchell’s project, Decarcerate Broward Coalition (DBC) is a community-rooted effort in the early stages of development. DBC is made up of local organizing groups and individuals working together to end mass incarceration in South Florida and to increase accountability and transparency regarding abuse by local correctional institutions and law enforcement.

MATTIE ABRAHAM (HE/HIM)
The Prisoner's Support Group | Quinnipiac Territory
“New life, New journey, New world.”

Mattie advocates for those who are imprisoned enduring trauma after trauma. He also advocates for families who suffer from the violence that the prison space inflicts upon them. Abraham’s project, the Prisoner’s Support Group will form a connected network of support groups led by currently and formerly imprisoned people, drawing on approaches to care and support rooted in the communities’ lived experiences that oppose the criminalizing logics and systems dominating growing industries of re-entry, prisoner rehabilitation, and mental health care.

MU KNOWLES (THEY/THEM)
Intergenerational Healing Circles | Puyallup Territory
“Their very existence is divinity manifest.”

Mu is an Afro-Indigenous, trans, non-binary queer liberation steward. Knowles holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Puget Sound where they focused on the study of classificatory and categorical systems within the United States as they relate to power, disenfranchisement, oppression, and inequity. Knowles’ project, the Intergenerational Healing Circle: Reclaiming and Sustaining Black and Indigenous Organizing will offer robust, ethical, and sustainable alternatives to settler colonialism and capitalism through in-depth participatory research. It will allow Black, Brown, and Indigenous stewards, organizers, artists, healers, creators, writers, and storytellers to reclaim autonomy and agency in cocreating the practices, strategies, and solutions that create a liberated world.

SUZETTE BURTON (SHE/HER)
Tribal Strands Film & Impact Campaign | Canarsie Territory
“Black talented female filmmakers do exist.”

Suzette is an award-winning filmmaker and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film/Video from Pratt Institute. She directed the short documentary film “Disconnected” about her father’s mysterious death which premiered at The BAM Theater (Brooklyn Academy of Music) in 2006. Burton also co-produced the documentary “Daddy Don’t Go” directed by Emily Abt. Burton’s project, Tribal Strands is a film and a social impact campaign amplifying the growing movement to end hair discrimination in the United States. Anchored by the amplification of cultural narratives, it aims to uplift the historical significance and beauty of Black hair.

WILLIAM ISOM II (HE/HIM)
Black in Appalachia | S'atsoyaha Territory
“Old man working on everything now.”

William is a sixth-generation East Tennessean and directs the Black in Appalachia project across seven Appalachian states. He has and continues to work with regional public media outlets, social justice formations, university departments, and a whole bevy of small, locally specific cultural, social, and religious entities. Isom’s project, Black in Appalachia seeks to develop and implement a Black-led, cooperative, social entrepreneurship model for a rural field office in Whitesburg, Tennessee.

READ ALL ABOUT THE PROGRAM AND MEET THE OTHER COHORTS​