Our Staff
Sheerine Alemzadeh
she/her(s)
Co-founder, Co-director
The proud daughter of Iranian immigrants, Sheerine works to transform responses to gender-based violence in marginalized communities as an activist, litigator, thought leader, and organizer.
Her career has focused on building bridges between social movements, applying intersectional approaches to human rights activism, and promoting shared leadership as a path to sustained social progress.
Karla Altmayer
she/her(s) or they/them/their(s)
Co-founder, Co-director
Raised on Chicago’s Southside by a single-mother from Mexico, Karla is driven by her family’s experience with poverty, sexual violence, racism, and incarceration to dismantle the cultural conditions enabling gender-based violence. As an attorney, she developed an innovative and nationally recognized promotora model so survivors could organize and build solidarity. As co-director of Healing to Action, Karla continues to collaborate with survivors, building their individual and collective power.
Jagoda Rachwal
she/her(s) or they/them
Basebuilding/Leadership Development
Organizer
A lifelong CPS student and first-gen daughter, Jagoda's work explores how safe and affirming learning environments can reconnect individuals with their own agency and encourage meaningful conversations about how to co-create the world we want to see. This includes implementing comprehensive sex education in all Chicago Public Schools by envisioning this education as an intergenerational tool for sensitive and challenging conversations about collective liberation. Her previous experience supporting educational justice efforts inform how survivor-led campaigns at Healing to Action prioritize community knowledge above all else.
Jocelyn Moreno
she/her(s)
Campaign Organizer
Born and raised on Chicago's Southside in a mixed-status home, Jocelyn experienced and witnessed the poverty, racism, gender-based violence and police brutality her community had to endure every day. Originally a graphic designer, Jocelyn made a swift career change to activism and organizing in response to our political society's increasingly poor conditions and aggregate moods and opinions. With her personal and professional experience as a Community Health Worker, she is now taking the lead at Healing to Action to help end gender-based violence.
Our Board
Maddie Smith
they/them
Operations Assistant
Maddie graduated recently from the University of Illinois at Chicago and studied Anthropology and Disability Studies. They are passionate about mental health, Queer and Disability justice, gender-based violence, research, and ethnography. Maddie is also a current fellow in the Coelho Center Law Fellowship program.
Our Board
Jasmine Benjamin, Secretary
Amanda DePalma Gable
Anne Gottschalk
Michael Kiser
Michelle Roseborough, Vice Chair
Gillian Shapiro, Treasurer
