Jack Makau is the Director of SDI - Kenya. He was previously research and communications director of Muungano Support Trust and Pajoma Trust, leading NGOs in Kenya that support the urban poor to reclaim their rights and negotiate for improved living conditions, among other issues. Makau is a global expert in slum upgrading, designing planning and policy solutions that prioritize the urban poor and working to ensure the voices of youth are prioritized in African city development. He has worked with the Kenyan federation, Muungano wa Wanavijiji, since its founding, holding roles with Muungano Support Trust and Pamoja Trust. He is an expert in enumerations, slum profiling, and participatory urban planning. Makau is based in Nairobi, Kenya but works with SDI affiliates across the world.
Nelson "Nelmo" Munyiri - Mukuru Youth Initiative
Julius Obi - KYC TV
Julius Wainaina - KYC TV
John Thuo Kimani - Inuka Angaza Youth Initiative
Joseph Muturi - Muungano Wa Wanavijiji
Nancy Njoki - Muungano Wa Wanavijiji
Jackline Wanyonyi has supported the Kenyan Slum Dwellers federation, Muungano wa Wanavijiji, for more than six years. Wanyonyi's role is to add value by ensuring strong financial systems of internal control, accountability and transparency. Wanyonyi continually builds systems for the Federation, compatible with the financial management systems of various funding institutions and investors. Wanyonyi is also working within the SDI international network to build financial management capacities of other SDI Affiliate Countries, while reporting to the SDI Secretariat - South Africa. On a voluntary basis, Wanyonyi has been a project manager of an informal primary school in Mukuru slums in Nairobi. The aim of the project was to improve the potential of the children through health and education.
Bay Area Participants
Ciera-Jevae "CiCi" Gordon - RYSE Youth Center
As the Media, Arts, & Culture (MAC) Program Manager, CiCi mentors and supports her team as they collectively elevate all art forms within RYSE. CiCi is passionate about creating spaces where youth are comfortable so they can challenge themselves and their peers in their art while building community.CiCi has a BA in Sociology, has received the Dean's Award for her chapbook Incarcerated Words, All Campus Honors Awards, and placed 5th in the nation as part of the Root Slam Team.
Thomas Omolo - City of Richmond & UC Berkeley
Thomas Omolo is pursuing his Master of City Planning and Master of Public Health degrees at the University of California at Berkeley. He was born abroad, moved to the Bay Area when he was 8 years old, and has always loved exploring outdoors, learning about the natural world, and encouraging others to appreciate their surrounding environment. He is currently working at the Richmond City Manager’s Office and using public data and graphical information systems (GIS) to inform community center programming in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Thomas is also a research fellow with Cal’s Institute of Urban and Regional Development, where he’s focused on utilizing community-based participatory research to track revitalized neighborhood change after a park greening intervention.
James Anderson - POGO Park
Shasa Curl - City of Richmond
Shasa Curl serves as the Administrative Chief for the City of Richmond, California. She directs the City’s Environmental and Health Initiatives and Special Projects. As Administrative Chief, Curl directs a team in the City Manager's Office that researches and develops public policies and programs to implement City Council policy direction. Recent examples include the launch of the Richmond Promise Scholarship and Richmond Rent Program, adoption of the City’s first Climate Action Plan, and implementation of the nation’s first city-wide Health in all Policies Ordinance and Strategy. In her capacity as Administrative Chief, Curl also facilitates public-private partnerships to increase private investments in the City, such as the recently executed $90 million Environmental and Community Investment Agreement (ECIA), and establish working relationships with developers to increase the City’s housing supply and improve the City’s built environment. Prior to her employment in the City of Richmond, Ms. Curl served as the Strategic Initiatives Director for Green for All, and worked for the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, where she managed predevelopment and entitlement activities for downtown development projects.
Amanda Fukutome-Lopez - UC Berkeley
Amanda Fukutome was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Anthropology and American Studies. Responsible for the logistical and operational management at IURD, she is interested in pursuing graduate school in the near future. If you need assistance, she is easily found in 316 Wurster Hall, during normal business hours, Monday through Friday.
Jason Corburn, PhD - UC Berkeley
Jason Corburn is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, jointly appointed in the Department of City and Regional Planning and the School of Public Health. He directs Berkeley's Institute of Urban and Regional Development, and joint Master of City Planning (MCP) and Master of Public Health (MPH) degree program and leads the Center for Global Healthy Cities. His research focuses on the links between environmental health and social justice in cities, notions of expertise in science-based policy making, and the role of local knowledge in addressing environmental and public health problems.
Marisa Ruiz Asari - UC Berkeley
As a Project Manager at the UC Berkeley Institute of Urban and Regional Development, Marisa manages a range of global and local projects that engage community partners to advance equity and improve public health with and for the urban poor. As an Oakland Bay Area native, she grew up questioning place based social and racial inequality, but never understood how the puzzle pieces fit together until discovering the fields of public health and city planning. She loves communicating information and ideas through design, and uses a combination of graphic design, illustration, and other visual media combined with data analysis & research, to support projects and people that are part of the global equity and social justice movements. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Public Health.
Dan Reilly - RYSE Youth Center
As Director of Innovation, Dan engages youth and community in visioning and designing a new youth-driven, healing-centered space that can better serve the wants and needs of the diversity of youth in Richmond. Dan is passionate about building community and bringing people together to accomplish things that others don't initially believe are possible. He is working to realize the vision of an expanded campus called RYSE Commons so that Richmond youth and invested stakeholders have a space to build, learn, heal, and transform themselves and their communities.
Brenda Ogutu - City of Richmond & UC Berkeley
Brenda is a recent graduate of the Master of City Planning program at UC Berkeley. She is interested in the development of low income communities and consequently the improvement of developing countries. She has extensive experience working within communities in Kenya and in the USA; and extensive background in all areas of qualitative and quantitative research, including report development and data analysis. In her time as a masters student, she worked as a graduate student researcher at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development, and supported housing initatives as a staff member at the Richmond City Manager's Office.
Joe Griffin - POGO Park
Joseph Griffin leads the research collaboration between community and university researchers for Pogo Park. A native of Richmond, he has been a volunteer with the park since 2008 before moving into this more formal role. He is a doctoral student in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley studying community violence prevention and intervention.
Gabino Arredondo - City of Richmond
Gabino Arredondo is a Management Analyst for the City of Richmond, CA in the City Manager’s Health Initiatives division. In this role, Arredondo is responsible for supporting the successful implementation of Richmond’s Health in All Policies (HiAP) Strategy and Ordinance. Richmond’s HiAP implementation is a collaborative effort with City staff, institutional partners, community based organizations, and Richmond residents to achieve health equity within the City. In addition to his work in the Health Initiatives division, Arredondo supports the implementation of new public policy initiatives as directed by the Richmond City Council. Recent examples include the launch of the Richmond Rent Program and Richmond Promise Scholarship. Arredondo supports these initiatives in large part through thoughtful planning and execution of inclusive community engagement strategies. Prior to working in the City Manager’s Office, Arredondo assisted with implementation and community engagement efforts surrounding the City’s adoption of the Richmond General Plan 2030 and, more specifically, the Community Health and Wellness Element.
Roy Robles - Youth Uprising
Roy continues to advance his experience with DIY philosophies and has been advocating ‘making’ as a form of liberation, education, and economic strength. He served as an instructor in the wood technology program at Laney College in Oakland CA and taught woodworking in a K5 afterschool enrichment program for several years. Roy was also a mentor at Curiosity Hacked, a local hacker's space for children. Roy currently works with the Career Ladders Project, a nonprofit based in Oakland that partners statewide with the community colleges in workforce and economic development, and education reform.
Mahasin Mujahid - UC Berkeley
Mahasin Mujahid, PhD, MS, FAHA is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and the Director of the MPH Program in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. As a social epidemiologist, Dr. Mujahid employs interdisciplinary and community-based approaches to investigate racial/ethnic and place-based health disparities. Her primary area of research examines the role of neighborhood environment in cardiovascular health. She uses data from several US-based cardiovascular cohorts and novel statistical methods in order to improve the measurement of neighborhood physical/social environments and to investigate neighborhood health effects. Dr. Mujahid’s research, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation among others, has been published in leading public health and medical journals nationally.