People

Co-Directors

Niasia Hughes-Polk (Lead Facilitator) graduated in 2021 from Boston Latin Academy (BLA). She is a first-year at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She grew up in a family that has had to overcome many challenges. She admires how her mother and sister have chosen professional careers to help others going through the same hardships they once did. For the past four years, Niasia has been a youth leader in the Boston Public Health Commission’s Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (VIP). 

Sarah Knotts (Lead Facilitator) graduated in June 2020 from Boston Latin School. She is a sophomore at Boston University. She is following in the footsteps of her grandmother, who spent decades working in public service. 

Adult Advisors

Victor Wei Ke Yang (adult advisor, CV linked) works with young people to tell their stories. Stories that articulate hard truths, demand change, and inspire others to do the same. As an organizer, he has supported local community leaders to run national campaigns for immigrant rights, stop ICE deportations, and double voter turnout in communities of color. He served as the lead educator for a labor union of 18,000 janitors in Boston, where he pioneered a worker school that combined storytelling with social change. He has degrees from Boston University, Harvard College, and the University of Oxford, where he earned a PhD on movements for racial equity.

Liz Bishop (organizer) is a student teacher at Medford High School where she teaches math and computer science. She is also a graduate student at UMass Boston working towards a Master’s in Education.