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Our final round of panelists will discuss obstacles as black and/or African women, share frameworks of justice and resilience & help scholars prepare for their return home.
This panel will take place Sunday instead of Saturday due to the Closing Ceremony.
Want to submit a question to the panel? E-mail moderator at jes@expandinglives.org
CONSUELLA BROWN
Consuella was recently Acting President and Program Director at the Woods Fund of Chicago. In January 2001, she began her philanthropic career as a Program Officer at the Grand Victoria Foundation. She has served as co-chair of the Leadership in Philanthropy Committee, Affordable Housing Funders Group and Grantmakers Concerned with Poverty. Consuella has also served as a Board of Director at Chicago Women in Philanthropy, the Eleanor Foundation, Action Now Institute and Las Caras Lindas. She is also an advisory committee member for the Workers Center for Racial Justice.
Consuella spent most of her career with the Peace Corps, first as a volunteer in the Marshall Islands and Lesotho and then as a staff member in Swaziland and the Gambia. As an Associate Director for Administration, she helped establish the first Peace Corps program in the Republic of Zambia. In 1996, she completed her tour with the Peace Corps and joined the national Democratic Institute for International Affairs as the County Director in Malawi. In this capacity, she worked closely with members of parliament, political parties, and targeted segments of Malawi’s civil society.
A native of Los Angeles, Consuella holds a master’s degree in political science from Illinois State University and a bachelor’s degree in legal studies/women’s studies from Scripps College.
ALICIA CROSBY
Alicia has always been the type of person to color outside the lines - a trait that comes in handy as the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Center for Inclusivity (CFI). Her passions for justice, spiritually engaged activism, and community engagement led her to pursue a M.A. in Social Justice and Certificate in Non-Profit Management & Philanthropy at Loyola University Chicago. She also has a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Hollins University.
Through experiences within religious, social service, and community empowerment contexts and her navigation of the world as a queer, black woman, Alicia saw a need to address the spiritual, systemic, and interpersonal harm people experience through the promotion of inclusion and equity for all people through her work. She is proud that CFI is a place where people can bring the fullness of who they are forward and find community that gives them life.
KINA COLLINS
Kina Collins is a gun violence prevention and criminal justice reform advocate. She is also a native of the Austin community on Chicago’s west side. She began her activism during her time as a student of Chicago Public Schools, where she served as a Summer of Service Learning Ambassador and continued her mentoring efforts throughout her collegiate career. She attended Louisiana State University studying Sociology. During her time at LSU, Ms. Collins was inducted as a Ronald E. McNair Research scholar and a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Ms. Collins would go on to be selected as a National Leadership Council regional organizer for gun violence prevention and criminal justice reform through Generation Progress “Fight for a Future” network, representing the state of Louisiana. As the Louisiana regional organizer, Ms. Collins was apart of the “Beyond the Gun” campaign, where she helped launch two national campaigns around the 2016 Presidential election including the Millennial Real Talk campaign, a social media campaign highlighting the voices of millennials during the final presidential debate.
Currently, Ms. Collins serves as the CEO and founder of the Chicago Neighborhood Alliance, a coalition building organization centered on empowering activists and organizers around the reduction of gun violence in the City of Chicago. Ms. Collins was recently selected as Galvanize Program scholarship recipient for the United State of Women conference. She has also participated as a panelist for the national Youth Organizing Summit in Washington, D.C. and during a community conversation hosted by the Live Free campaign for 2017 NBA All-Star weekend.
The panels are open to volunteers, host families and Expanding Lives' supporters.