Keynote Speakers
Venkayla Haynes:
Venkayla Haynes is a survivor advocate and community organizer. She has worked on issues such as sexual violence, police brutality, homelessness, gun violence, and gentrification. Venkayla has previously sat on the Campus Advisory Board for It’s On Us, organized with Know Your IX, and a former member of the Biden Foundation Advisory Council to End Violence Against Women. Throughout her work with sexual violence, Venkayla focuses on education, working on legislation such as defeating a mandatory police referral bill in Georgia, directly working with school administration on their Title IX policies and procedures, public speaking, and grassroots organizing. She has worked with many survivors of sexual violence at different institutions across the United States as well as politicians on the state and local level. Venkayla’s activism has led to her being invited to the White House, and letters from Vice President Joe Biden, Michelle Obama, and President Obama.
Venkayla is a recipient of several activism awards, most recently, the 2019 #SpeakHer50 Award that honors 50 Black Women and Femmes for their work in politics, advocacy, and journalism. The 2019 NBC Pride 50 list for her work on sexual violence in the LGBTQ community, and the 2019 NBA Voices Champion Award. Her work focuses on centering the experiences of marginalized groups such as Black women, trans men and women, undocumented survivors, queer survivors, incarcerated survivors, and those with disabilities.
Azure Savage:
Azure Savage is a black trans man in his senior year of high school. He wrote You Failed Us as a response to the racial injustice within the education system. After releasing the book, Savage has started to pursue speaking opportunities, facilitation, and meeting directly with people working in Seattle Public Schools. He is working towards creating more understanding of the harm caused to students of color in order to create change in the school district. Aside from book-related opportunities, Savage also has a strong voice at his high school around sexual assault education.
Victoria Herrmann:
National Geographic Explorer Victoria Herrmann works with coastal communities in the United States and U.S. territories on climate change adaptation. Over the past two years, as lead researcher for America’s Eroding Edges project, she traveled across the country interviewing 350 local leaders to identify what’s needed most to safeguard coastal communities against the unavoidable impacts of climate change . Her current project, Rise Up to Rising Tides, is creating an online matchmaking platform that connects pro bono experts with climate-affected communities. The project seeks to safeguard heritage by connecting national expertise to some of the 13 million Americans at risk of being displaced due to rising waters in the coming years. Herrmann is also the president and managing director of The Arctic Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to Arctic security research.
Her research focuses on human security of remote indigenous communities in the circumpolar north. Herrmann teaches sustainability management at American University; science communication at the University Centre of the Westfjords, Iceland; and public speaking at National Geographic Sciencetelling Bootcamps.
Lily Zepeda:
Lily is an LA based documentary filmmaker whose most recent feature film, MR TOILET: The World’s #2 Man follows the eccentric social entrepreneur Jack Sim (AKA “Mr. Toilet”) who uses humor to break poo taboos and help the 2.4 billion who lack access to safe sanitation. She is a Diversity Fellow and Accelerator Lab grantee from Chicken & Egg Pictures as well as a Hedgebrook Lab finalist. MR TOILET won the Docs for Schools Audience Award in 2019, was theatrically released in NY & LA and toured in over two dozen cities worldwide. Lily spent six years capturing the challenges and triumphs of global sanitation changemakers while filming in Singapore, China, India and US.
She has also created impactful partnerships with organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Water Aid, Kohler Co., the United Nations, and the World Bank. Lily aims to tell stories that build bridges across cultures and increase audience understanding of our shared humanity.
Alyssa Downing, Network Representative at The Mockingbird Society
Alyssa is a journalist, an author, and a fierce advocate for social justice. They first became homeless at 18, and 7 years later, they’re still fighting to end youth homelessness and advocate for affordable housing. Alyssa started working with Mockingbird late last year after writing an article in the Mockingbird Times, and recently accepted a Network Representative position as an opportunity to make a bigger impact. In their spare time, they publish independent articles and fictional short stories online, and are working on an original novella, which they hope to publish sometime next year.
Brianna Franco, Network Representative at The Mockingbird Society
Brianna is a current college student at Seattle Pacific University, pursuing a BA in Communications. She has been working at The Mockingbird Society since November 2018. After being in the foster care system for nine years and experiencing housing instability for three years, she is passionate to learn more about the systems that are in place so she can advocate for change that impacts the most vulnerable population: young people.
Avrey Tuttle, Network Representative at The Mockingbird Society
Avrey was born and raised in Kirkland, WA. Avrey was adopted as an infant, when she turned 17, she re-entered the foster care system. During this time, she worked with many social workers, not always having the best experience. Avrey plans on becoming a social worker, to ensure no child gets left behind. During her schooling Avrey was active in FCCLA (Family, Career, Community Leaders of America) where she learned public speaking skills and how to advocate for herself and others. Avrey still uses those skills to this day now advocating for a different cause, The Mockingbird Society. Where she was hired as a Network Representative in December 2018. In June 2019 she started working with Teen Feed where she works youth experiencing homelessness; connecting them to services or resources and coordinating the nighty meals.
Sameer Ranade
Sameer Ranade strongly believes in public service and environmental justice. Since fall 2018, he has worked as a Senior Organizer at Front & Centered, a coalition focused on advancing racially and economically just solutions to pollution and climate change in Washington State. Sameer grew up in Kennewick, WA earned a B.A. in Political Science from WSU and an M.P.A. from UW. Sameer boasts extensive work experience in government, advocacy, and elections, having been a staffer in the state and federal legislative branches, on multiple state and federal candidate campaigns, and interned for several environmental organizations. This includes working for U.S. Senator Patty Murray as a Staff Assistant, interning at the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President Barack Obama, and serving as an organizer on the President’s 08’ and 12’ election campaigns in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Since 2014, Sameer has worked at the nexus of Washington state climate policy and politics.
He was a Climate and Clean Energy Campaign Associate at the Washington Environmental Council for four plus years. In 2016, he ran for an open seat in the Washington State House where he was endorsed by every environmental group. His hobbies include writing environmental rhymes and sharing them at local open mics, reading NYT & Vox, and finding Seattle’s most caffeinated coffee.