The CASA Board of Directors is based in the U.S. and oversees the long term vision, outreach, promotion, and fundraising of the organization. Our Board is made up of activists and professionals with years of experience organizing around social justice issues, principally the rights of women, labor, immigrants, indigenous peoples, and LGBT communities.

Board Bios

Simon Walker has been involved with CASA since 2005, working first as a volunteer activist in Chiapas facilitating bicycle repair workshops in Zapatista communities, and now as a member of the Board of Directors. A resident of San Francisco since 1999, he as been involved in various activist movements and anti-war struggles in the Bay Area and across the US. Simon enjoys fixing and riding bikes (obviously), composting and garden puttering, songs about vegetables and hip hop. He is currently working as a bilingual educator.

Diego Merino was a public school teacher in a Mexican neighborhood of Chicago for two years before going to Chiapas in 2005. There, he was a CASA collective member and worked as a researcher with CIEPAC, the Center for Economic and Political Research for Community Action. Diego then moved to New York City, where he continues his solidarity and social-justice work with grassroots organizations in Latin America as a grantmaking officer with the American Jewish World Service. He also directs summer experiential learning programs with high school students and serves on the CASA Board of Directors.

Andrew Willis lived in Memphis, TN; Guadalajara, Mexico; and Ft. Lauderdale, FL before coming to the District of Columbia in 2001 to earn degrees from American University, where he helped coordinate a student solidarity group and several delegations to Chiapas. Currently a community organizer in the District, he is active in supporting local organizing and advocacy initiatives and dreams of making time to read for pleasure.

Melissa Mundt coordinated CASA-Chiapas from 2004-2006 and laid the groundwork for CASA-Chapulín. Previously, she lived in Veracruz and Oaxaca working with indigenous communities on sustainable development issues. She now works for Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project providing legal services to detained immigrants in Arizona.

Yakira Teitel has settled down again (for the time being) in her native Bay Area. From March 2003 to November 2005, she spent a good amount of time living, traveling and working in Chiapas and Central America. Her projects have included Theater of the Oppressed workshops, translation, graphic design and murals. She most recently returned to Mexico on an emergency human rights delegation to Oaxaca, after which she became involved in promoting and exhibiting Oaxacan revolutionary street art.

Rachel Wallis has been involved with CASA as a member of the board or the staff since 2002. She lives in Chicago with her partner Alex, and she is currently working at the US Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP), a cross border labor solidarity organization.

Leila Saraiva is from Brazil and coordinates CASA Chiapas. Her principal goal for this year working with CASA is to make the organization less "gringocentric," increasing the participation of Latin Americans as volunteers at the house. She is also planning to work with an educational project with the autonomous Zapatista schools. Before moving to Chiapas, Leila was involved with a movement that fights for public transportation, with Indymedia and with a popular educational project in Brasilia.

Katherine Golub has been a member of CASA Chapulin since January 2008.  She is volunteering with CASA on fundraising and the development of CASA projects, including the website, speaking tour, and grant-writing.  She is the proud and very happy mother of a brand new baby boy- Kai Sarmiento- born on March 11. She is on maternity leave from working in strategic affairs with hotel and service workers’ union- UNITE HERE- where she fights for organizing rights for hotel workers.  

Staff

Diana Denham coordinates CASA Chapulin and is working with the collective on publishing a book of testimonies of Oaxacans who have participated in the statewide social movement. Before moving to Oaxaca, she worked on squatters' settlements with the Landless Movement for Agrarian Reform in Northeastern Brazil. There, she produced "The Right to Share in Our Common Wealth", a documentary film about a local political project implemented by the Workers Party aimed at the inclusion of traditionally marginalized sectors of Brazilian society.