CASA, Colectivos de Apoyo, Solidaridad y Accíon, is guided in its long term decisions by an Administrative Team. We employ staff in Oaxaca. Former volunteers are referred to (admiringly) as alumni.

The Administrative Team oversees the long term vision, outreach, promotion, and fundraising of the organization. It's made up of allies with years of experience organizing around social justice issues around the issues of gender, labor, immigration, media organizing, indigenous sovereignty, and LGBT justice.

Coordinators

Andrea Caraballo is a co-facilitator of CASA Chapulin in Oaxaca. She comes from Uruguay and studied Architecture at the UdelaR. She has participated in student groups of Latin American architecture students on solidarity projects in Argentina, Brasil and Uruguay. As an activist she has worked to defend the rights of youth and collaborated with a number of social organizations in Montevideo and Canelones. She is a founding member of the collective ContraImpunidad (Against Impunity) which denounces state terrorism and impunity in Latin America, realizing solidarity actions and information campaigns about cases in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala and Uruguay, among others. Since the assassination of indymedia journalist Brad Will, she has formed part of the organization Friends of Brad Will in New York. She enjoys going to rock concerts with friends and Mexican food that's not too spicy. :)

Sylvia Gonzalez Castro is a co-facilitator at CASA Chapulin in Oaxaca. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants whose parents are from Jalisco and Oaxaca.  She holds a bachelors degree from the University of Minnesota in Chican@ Studies and Feminist Studies. Sylvia previously worked with an immigrant rights grassroots organization based in the Twin Cities as a youth organizer on issues of equal access to higher education and racial justice in the schools. As a Xicana, Sylvia is interested in re-claiming our humanity and dignity across geo-political borders, generations, and identities.

Administrative Team Bios

Yakira Teitel is an artist and educator who lives in her native San Francisco Bay Area. She is currently studying to enter the field of community medicine and working with a multilingual theater ensemble of cancer patients. Her involvement in CASA began in 2004, when she worked with an indigenous women's theater collective in Chiapas. Since then, she has spent time in Mexico, Central America, Peru and the US, working to support community-based organizations, painting murals and teaching kids.

Monica McWooters lives in Mexico City where she works for the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy.  She holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Southern California and has extensive experience in social movements and human rights issues in Mexico and Central America. She has lived two years in Guatemala and participated in anthropological field research in Guatemala as well as Panama. Monica worked nearly two years on human rights issues in Chiapas and Guerrero with the International Service for Peace after volunteering with the CASA Chiapas Peace House. She has lead international delegations to bring attention to the political situation in Southern Mexico, monitored US foreign policy in Mexico with an emphasis on increased militarization and the criminalization of social protest, and conducted research on the impacts of US military strategies on Chiapas’ state policies, and the effects of transnational corporations on the local economy. Monica is a native of Los Angeles California and is bilingual in Spanish and English.

Jonathan Stribling-Uss is a grassroots organizer and video-maker who has organized for squatters rights in the South Bronx, human rights as an organizer for Peace Action West and racial justice as a facilitator for the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop. He has worked as director of grassroots organizing at Education Not Incarceration and as a fundraiser for SF Women Against Rape, and Greenpeace. He has been active with the Bay Area Mexico Solidarity group, ARCO. He is co-founder of Sticks and Stones video collective which recently finished a documentary entitled "Shutdown: The Rise and Fall of Direct Action to Stop the War" about shutdown the financial district of San Francisco. He's from New York City where he enjoys playing soccer, and dancing as part of the RMO marching band.

Jen Lawhorne is a media activist based out of Richmond, Virginia, who first volunteered with Chiapas Peace House in 2005. She has collaborated with various collectives in Mexico and the United States to produce movement-building media about what the grassroots is doing to change the world. She recently completed a documentary, "The Little Trip of a Dream," which explores immigration in the U.S. Jen's other passions include gardening, DIY culture, yoga and biking.

Melissa Mundt coordinated CASA-Chiapas from 2004-2006 and laid the groundwork for CASA-Chapulin. Previously, she lived in Veracruz and Oaxaca working with indigenous communities on sustainable development issues. She then worked providing legal services to detained immigrants in Florence, Arizona. Currently, she is working on a radio documentary about immigration detention, and facilitating workshops on community health and local agriculture for the Community Food Bank of Tucson.