Meet the team

Pittsburgh-born and Bogotá-based, Zia is a social justice organizer, facilitator, and researcher. With over 15 years of experience in community organizing, she became involved in social movements while studying Environmental Studies and Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College.

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Zia specializes in designing and facilitating risk analysis with a differential approach to better support frontline communities. Since 2016, she has worked with international organizations that accompany human rights defenders facing state-sanctioned violence, creating spaces for the development of holistic security mechanisms.

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She believes that collective safety is built through co-responsible, community-based alternatives to the militarized protection mechanisms offered by governments. Passionate about this work, Zia is committed to supporting organizations and communities in constructing these agreements.

Ecuadorian educator, researcher, and artist with extensive experience working with diverse communities across Latin America and the United States. Chelsea is a skilled educator with a Master’s in Community Development and Planning from Clark University. She is passionate about leveraging popular education and artistic expression for collective empowerment, creative conflict transformation, and advancing social justice.

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For five years, Chelsea worked with Pachaysana on higher education initiatives aimed at decolonizing learning through intercultural exchange and study abroad programs. As a scholar-practitioner, she is an active researcher. Her earlier work explored the gendered impacts of extractive industries in Latin American communities, while her current projects focus on transformative justice, epistemic pluralism, and gender dynamics in intercultural and organizational spaces.