the homegirl project.

Maya Siegel is an 18-year-old survivor and environmental advocate from Evergreen, Colorado. She is the co-founder of Space to Speak, an organization that creates consent curriculum and is a resource specifically for young survivors. Aside from that, she is an editor at Lune Magazine and the Secretary for ThinkOcean. Maya is currently working part-time with Shiffon as a marketing intern and part-time as a research intern for a law firm in Colorado. She is a 2019 State of Young People Youth Delegate and was most recently featured in an article for MTV. In her spare time, Maya designs websites. She has previously worked for ThinkOcean, GenZ Girl Gang, and March For Our Lives CO.

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Mentee: Djamila Oumarou, age 17

Fatima is an award-winning, unapologetically Muslim activist with a focus on racial justice and community organizing. She was a Women's March Youth Empower 2018 Cohort Member and is on the 2019 WYME Committee. Fatima is also the founder of a local grassroots advocacy organization, DMV Muslims Making Change. She has spoken at many marches and social justice conferences and started the Muslim Student Association at her community college. Fatima has been active in making sure intersectional voices are heard on campus and led and helped organize the March 14 gun violence walkouts at her college and nationally.

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Mentee: Dakota, age 14

Bhavana is an 18 year old Indian-American currently studying economics and international studies at The University of Alabama. Growing up, Bhavana split her childhood years between Central Illinois where she was born, and the city of Visakhapatnam in South India. As a result, she grew to care deeply about international affairs, especially girls' rights around the world. Bhavana has worked with nonprofits since her high school days to support girls' education and empowerment, and hopes to work in international law one day to continue supporting these issues. 

Marlene is a prison abolitionist and a Tejana originally from El Paso, TX. As a PhD student and scholar activist at UC Davis, her research is focused on the police state, prison abolition and the solidarity that seeps through the concrete walls of prisons. She works with the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee of Sacramento.

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Mentee: Christina Vo, age 16

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Rocio Alvarado believes in the power of community, the value of hard work and open communication. She has led projects big and small from national broadcast campaigns to digital, social, and experiential activations for brands like Target, Toyota, Nike, Marriott, Warner Brothers, and Munchkin.

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Mentee: Anh, age 19

Eidah is a third-year law student at Pepperdine University School of Law. She received her BA in Political Science from UCLA. Eidah co-founded  the National Lawyers Guild Pepperdine Chapter and the Public Defender Student Association, and organized panel discussions, documentary screenings, a book drive for detained youth, fundraisers, legal observer trainings, lectures, and Pepperdine's First Annual For People of Color Conference. She has clerked full-time for the Los Angeles County Public Defender, the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia, and Children's Law Center of California. Eidah has also externed part-time with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and volunteered for the Neighborhood Legal Services in their Workers' Rights Clinic. 

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Mentee: Florence Shen, age 15

Daisy Zavala is Chicanx and was born and raised in San Diego County in California. Daisy is a political science student and also serves Political Director for her local MEChA chapter. She advocates for WOC involvement in political activism, education, and politics in general. 

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Mentee: Maggie Augustine, age 16

Karen was granted the Posse Scholarship, graduating from Kalamazoo College with a B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology. She focuses on advocating for human rights, mental health services, sexual education, and access to higher education. Karen currently works as an Admission Counselor at a private liberal arts university in Los Angeles and wants to use her experiences and knowledge working in higher education to bring awareness and access to resources, especially for first-gen, undocumented, womxn of color, and low income students.

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Mentee: Greisy Hernandez, age 17

Cindy is a first generation high school graduate and college student at UC Berkeley with a focus on political science. Her past experiences included being a Youth Commissioner with the Gonzales Youth Council, the official youth advisory group to the Gonzales City Council and Gonzales Unified School District. She has had the opportunity to create a lot of change locally including passing legislation, planning and implementing community events, and so on. She is also the founder of Senior Swarm: a series of workshops that provide high school seniors with college advising and mentorship through community engagement. 

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Mentee: Yamira Patterson, age 15

Kinsale Hueston is a Navajo activist and award-winning poet from Corona del Mar, California, and currently a student at Yale University. She was a 2017-2018 National Student Poet, and has lectured and read her poetry across the country. She is the recipient of the Yale Young Native Storytellers Award and three National Scholastic Art and Writing gold medals for her writing. Her accomplishments have been highlighted by Time Magazine, the Library of Congress, the Los Angeles Times, Indian Country Today, Poets.org, and more.

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Mentee: Makenna Brunson, age 17

Faith is the founder of the Latina Legacy Foundation, which is a nonprofit that aims to solve legacy issues in Latinx communities with technological solutions. For her first project, Faith created an application called Calor that prevents heatstroke amongst farmworkers working the fields of her hometown in the Central Valley. For her work, she received the Dynamic Youth Award during the 2019 Latino Spirit Awards hosted at the California state capital. Faith is very proud of her Mexican heritage, and is dedicated to serving immigrant communities who are hit the hardest by issues like Climate Change.

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Mentee: Gari de Ramos, age 20

 Chalyna graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in Women and Gender Studies with a minor in Communication Studies. She currently interns with Ignite National, a non-partisan organization that encourages high school and college women to run for office and pursue political careers. She is a high school facilitator, working with girls to build their confidence as political leaders. She is a graduate student at Mills College in Oakland, CA, pursuing a master’s in Public Policy. 

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Mentee: Salma Kamni, age 17

Isabel is currently a sophomore at Hunter College in New York City majoring in bioinformatics and minoring in computer science. She works in the intersection of medicine and technology to improve patient outcomes and the healthcare system as a whole. She hopes to enter a workforce that is inclusive, collaborative, and recognizes the importance of both ambition and self-care. 

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Mentee: Erika Wang, age 17

Daniela is a senior at Chatham University pursuing an interdisciplinary degree in Management Information Systems and International Business. She has experience in XML, Python, and JavaScript programming languages. In addition, Daniela has won the Intercollegiate Project Management Quiz Bowl and a prestigious Grow with Google Scholarship. She looks forward to continue developing her programming and language skills through future internships and/or work-study positions. Upon her graduation in the winter of 2019, Daniela sees herself working for a company that utilizes technology to bridge the gap between different cultures.

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Mentee: Aashni Patel, age 16

Anisha started  Project Equal in 2017, capturing 180 pictures of girls across India. She will also be hosting TEDxGSLMedicalCollege in September. She worked on the #ThisIs18 Project Collaboration with New York Times, helping people understand the life of 18 year old girl across the globe. She hosts Podcast UnConventional, sitting down with Gen Z, Millennials and top LinkedIn Content Creators to know their journey, lessons learned and how to make an impact. 

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Mentee: Zyva Sheikh, age 16

Mónica Cristina Murillo Parra is a first generation Latina college graduate.  She is passionate about using education and grassroots activism to advocate for social change and focuses on social work and child welfare. She has a forensic psychology degree and plans to pursue a PhD in Counseling Psychology.

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Mentee: Katelyn Perez, age 17