SFWAR | San Francisco Women Against Rape

Janelle L. White

returns to the staff of San Francisco Women Against Rape as the incoming Executive Director. She has been active in the movement to end violence against women for over ten years working with the University of Michigan Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center, the YWCA Rape Crisis Program of Greater New Orleans, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, the Hate Crimes Project of the Lesbian and Gay Community Center of New Orleans, and as Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of New Orleans (UNO) and Director of the UNO Women's Center. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan. Her doctoral work examines US based Black women's mobilization to confront sexual and domestic violence. She is excited to once again be connected to community based organizing efforts to challenge violence against women.

Roshni Sharma Chabra

is an Indian lesbian/feminist/activist who relocated to San Francisco from Long Beach, California almost four years ago. Roshni graduated from California State University, Long Beach in 2002 with a double Bachelor's Degree in Women's Studies and Psychology. She also took a course of study in Nonprofit Management in a national program called American Humanics. While at Long Beach State, Roshni was the Program Coordinator of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center for two years. She became involved in the violence against women movement in college while coordinating Take Back the Night: Rally, March and Speak Out against sexual violence and went on to work at the Sexual Assault Crisis Agency where she first joined the rape crisis movement. Over the past five years she has been working in the rape crisis movement. She is currently the Administrator of Programs at SFWAR, a position she has held for the past three years. Roshni is presently working on her Master's Degree in Feminist Clinical Psychology at New College of California. She is working toward becoming a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.

Amal Kouttab

is a registered drama therapist, teacher, mediator, and filmmaker. She has used drama, art and writing to facilitate therapeutic groups in mental health settings, nursing homes, hospitals and drug rehabilitation centers in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. She obtained a bachelor's degree in the performing arts and women's studies from the University of Virginia in 1997, and a master's degree in psychology and drama therapy from New York University in 2001. For the past four years, she has facilitated therapeutic workshops with Palestinians and Israelis and other groups in conflict in the Middle East and the Bay Area. She has taught graduate psychology classes entitled Drama Therapy for Social Change at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she developed part of the curriculum focused on internalized oppression. She co-founded the Araceli Theater Project based at San Francisco General Hospital, which rehearses and performs original educational theater pieces for people with cancer. In addition to her work in the non-profit sector, she also owns and operates a multimedia production company committed to preserving the work of performing artists and supporting the work of alternative healers (for more information visit www.amaldesigns.com). She is honored and excited to join the dedicated team at SFWAR as the Director of Community Initiatives.

Mary Miller

Mary Miller, BSW, MA, is a singer, writer and performance activist from Cleveland, Ohio. Before coming to San Francisco in 2004, Mary was navigating the system as a social worker where she worked extensively with perpetrators and survivors of domestic violence. A recent graduate of New College of California's MA program in Activism and Social Change, she joined the SFWAR team last year as a community educator, challenging the social constructs that perpetuate cycles of violence in personal and institutional relationships. Conducting "Sexual Assault and Rape Prevention"

Julie Baltzley

Julie began her advocacy work at Women Escaping a Violent in Environment (WEAVE) in Sacramento, and started volunteering at SFWAR when she moved to San Francisco in 1998. She continued as a volunteer hotline and medical advocate until she began her "nomadic period" and left the country for Latin America in 2001. For several years, Julie worked with numerous humanitarian and Latin American solidarity organizations, including IFCO/Pastors For Peace, Annunciation House and Casa de la Peregrina. After spending a year on the El Paso/ Juarez border working with undocumented immigrants and refugees Mexico and Central America, Julie finally wandered home to San Francisco. She worked as a case manager at Hamilton Family Center and Toolworks before returning to SFWAR in 2007, bringing lots of heart and a spirit of solidarity to her work with survivors of sexual violence.

Lisa Thomas-Adeyemo

In 2001, Lisa began her journey with anti-violence work in Santa Fe, NM as a staff advocate and program director for her local rape crisis center. She worked with middle and high school youth to challenge stereotypes and behaviors that lead to all forms of violence and oppression. She organized forums to break silence and address sexual violence within Native American Pueblos in northern New Mexico and provided opportunities for both youth and adults to develop an experiential based understanding of systems of oppression, and the abuse of power and privilege that leads to violence. She later organized and facilitated groups for bi-racial young women of African descent dedicated to exploring positive body image, self-esteem, and building spiritual awareness of self.

For four meaningful years, Lisa participated in the organizing core of the People of Color Institute for Creating Change, an annual conference sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF). The conference has a 28+ year history as the largest gathering of queer people of color in the country.

Lisa actively integrates her activism with music and healing work. She has organized women's singing and healing circles, and has contributed her vocal gifts to a wide range of artistic spaces including, the Vagina Monologues, Sins Invalid and Artist Against Rape.

As a New African healer, activist, educator, facilitator, vocalist, and Mother, she brings her enthusiasm, experience, and joy for healing to SFWAR as the Director of Counseling.

Janet Upadhye

brings three years of grassroots fundraising to SFWAR. She began fundraising and training with California Peace Action: an organization that seeks to end current US imperialist foreign policy. She has also fundraised for Oakland Rep Barbara Lee's re-election campaign, the Campaign to Elect Robert Haaland to District 5, and conducted several fundraising/phonebank trainings for Retropoll, a non-profit that works to expose the effects of the US media on public opinion. She currently volunteers as a crisis counselor for Community United Against Violence (CUAV).

Janet began her relationship with SFWAR as a temporary phonebanker in March of 2004. Janet has since become the Development Director at SFWAR and is continually empowered by the community's willingness to support this organization. Janet has learned to see grassroots fundraising as a revolutionary act in which non-profits cease their dependence on government funding and begin to be fully funded and owned by the communities that they serve. She believes that our movements will succeed only when they are envisioned, carried out, supported and funded by the community itself.

Nicole Hsiang

Nicole Hsiang first started working at San Francisco Women Against Rape in 2005 as an intern for Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations. Later she worked at SFWAR as an intern with the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training program, as well as worked with youth in an after school program at Horace Mann Middle School.

Now she divides her work time between SFWAR and the Agape Foundation, a public foundation that grants to small, emerging grassroots social justice organizations.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Nicole graduated with a B.A. in Sociology from Wesleyan University in 2005. She enjoys writing, bike riding and crossword puzzles.

Frolayne Carlos

began her work in social justice through a research group examining the impact of reported domestic violence in court mediation at San Diego State University. Inspired by personal stories and critical dialogue, she continued her activism through an internship at a domestic violence transitional house in San Diego, where she was later hired on as staff. She relocated to San Francisco Bay Area and worked at AACI's Asian Women's Home in San Jose, a shelter serving abused asian immigrant women. She then joined SFWAR to continue her work in deconstructing a culture which promotes violence and the oppression of marginalized communites.

Frolayne journeys to deepen her connection to her Pilipino heritage and her understanding of the multiple layers of social issues that plague the Philippines. She sits on the board of Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity spearheading the annual Face2Face solidarity trip. Frolayne is honored to work in partnership with community members and organizers working to address the negative impacts of militarism and imperialism. As a blossoming activist, Frolayne's life is continually enlightened by the diverse folks in this movement and is amazed at the strength and resiliency of survivors of violence and social injustices.

Teresa Martyny

joins the staff of San Francisco Women Against Rape as the Director of Volunteers after being a volunteer for 4 years. Initially she volunteered doing outreach and fundraising, then transitioned into medical advocacy which she still does today. She has been active in movements to end state and interpersonal violence through organizations such as the Riley Center, Free Battered Women, Challenging White Supremacy workshop, And Castro for All, and POWER. As a part of this work she organizes, through workshops and discussion groups, white social justice activists to challenge white privilege and white supremacy. She believes that as a queer woman it is important for her to focus particularly on challenging racism within queer communities. In a previous life she was a big tech geek, so now she builds websites for social/racial justice agencies pro-bono when she has free time. Since self care is such an important part of this work, when she's not organizing, she's learning how to play her dobro, riding her motorcycle, or romping around with her dog.