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.
Romina Vargas Bezzubikoff
she/her(s)
Impact Manager
A first-generation immigrant born in Peru and
raised in Kansas, Romina has been passionate
about working with the people most impacted by community violence since volunteering at a grassroots organization in her hometown. After graduating from the University of Chicago, she explored the legal field by assisting survivors as a paralegal at the Domestic Violence Courthouse. She then shifted to organizing at Healing to Action to focus on addressing the root causes of gender-based violence alongside survivor-leaders.
Ashley Hart
she/her
Development Manager
Ashley’s own experience of domestic, workplace, and gender-based violence fuels her personal and professional work towards collective healing and liberation. In earning her Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management and BA degrees in Psychology and Women’s & Gender Studies at DePaul University, Ashley found her passion for the decolonization and redistribution of wealth through trust-based and transformative philanthropy. Ashley bridges her development and social work experience to bring forth emergent strategy and sustainability to the nonprofit sector.
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