Our Team
Kellee Coleman
Kellee Coleman
Kellee Coleman
Kellee Coleman was born and raised in Austin, TX. She has been active in community social justice work since she was 12 years old. From 1992 – 1997, she worked on the Austin call-in cable access show, “What’s On Your Mind?” that focused on youth community issues. Kellee later spent 3 years working with ATU local union 1091. She co-created
Kellee Coleman was born and raised in Austin, TX. She has been active in community social justice work since she was 12 years old. From 1992 – 1997, she worked on the Austin call-in cable access show, “What’s On Your Mind?” that focused on youth community issues. Kellee later spent 3 years working with ATU local union 1091. She co-created and produced a weekly radio show on social issues impacting mothers of color called Mamis of Color, on KOOP FM radio from 2003 – 2007. Kellee returned to college as a mother and graduated with a B.A. in Sociology from St. Edward's University. She served as the inaugural Program Director for Vibrant Woman/Mama Sana prenatal clinic, a project of Mamas of Color Rising, the organization that she co-founded in 2008. The project works to provide holistic and culturally centered prenatal care, birth companions, midwifery, prenatal fitness and nutrition services to lower income Black and Latinx birthing folks in the Austin area.
Between 2015-2018, Kellee organized with others to establish the Equity Office for the City of Austin and eventually became the Interim Austin Chief Equity Officer. She is the mother of three, and a consultant/trainer on racial equity and social justice issues. Coleman has conducted training on health equity issues, researched social determinants of health as they impact Black women, and consulted with national organizations on community engagement and reproductive justice. She is a board member of Foundation Communities, advisory committee member with the Free Minds Project, and served as national board member of INCITE! Women, Gender Non-Conforming, and Trans People of Color Against Violence.
Paula X. Rojas
Kellee Coleman
Kellee Coleman
Chilean-born community organizer, licensed midwife and social justice trainer Paula X. Rojas grew up in Houston, followed in the footsteps of family members in Chile and began working on social justice issues affecting her local community as a teen. She spent formative years as a youth back in Chile learning from grassroots revolutionary
Chilean-born community organizer, licensed midwife and social justice trainer Paula X. Rojas grew up in Houston, followed in the footsteps of family members in Chile and began working on social justice issues affecting her local community as a teen. She spent formative years as a youth back in Chile learning from grassroots revolutionary movements taking down the military dictatorship. For the last 30 years, she has organized at the intersection of class, race and gender to build collective people power in her local community, experimenting with different forms of grassroots organizations.
Paula has worked on issues of gender violence, racial justice, reproductive justice, childcare and health care access and community alternatives to policing. She co-founded various community-based organizations including Sista II Sista, Pachamama, Mamas of Color Rising, Mama Sana Vibrant Woman, Refugio: Center for Community Organizing and the New York Organizing Support Center. She has also played a key role in supporting and amplifying local organizing work including providing training and technical assistance to the local chapters and affiliates of INCITE! (Women and Trans People of Color Against Violence). Over the last 15 years in Texas, she has supported the training and development of community organizers and their organizations working on a range of social justice issues.
In 2014 Rojas was licensed as a midwife while developing a model to practice a vision for a just and loving approach to pregnancy, birth and new parenthood for poor and working class BIPOC families. The MJM model integrates the midwifery model of care and racial justice organizing, with an understanding of the social determinants of health using a popular education methodology.
Paula is a contributor to the INCITE! collections: The Color of Violence and The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. In 2020, she served as co-chair of the Reimagining Public Safety Taskforce for the City of Austin, Texas, a process that culminated after years of volunteer organizing to divest public funds from policing and invest in a holistic local People's Budget. She is the mother of two amazing kids, Xue-li and Camino, and loves to dance!
Andrea Black
Kellee Coleman
Andrea Black
Andrea Black works as a consultant and trainer supporting advocates, organizers, nonprofits and foundations working for social change. With over twenty-four years of immigrant rights experience as a lawyer, advocate, organizer and non-profit director, she has worked in a range of capacities including program development, public education,
Andrea Black works as a consultant and trainer supporting advocates, organizers, nonprofits and foundations working for social change. With over twenty-four years of immigrant rights experience as a lawyer, advocate, organizer and non-profit director, she has worked in a range of capacities including program development, public education, advocacy, communications, facilitation, fundraising, nonprofit management and movement building. Andrea served as Executive Director of the Detention Watch Network for nine years, a national member-led coalition working to expose and challenge the injustices of the U.S. immigration detention and deportation system and to advocate for profound change that promotes the rights and dignity of all persons. In this capacity, Andrea organized and facilitated many multi-day member conferences, strategy meetings and board/staff retreats for organizations including the U.N. High Commission on Refugees.
Andrea received a B.A. in history from Harvard-Radcliffe University and is a graduate of New York University Law School. Andrea is the recipient of fellowships from the Open Society Institute, Equal Justice Works, and the Next Generation Leadership program of the Rockefeller Foundation. Andrea is a member of the City of Austin’s Equity Action Team and a board member of Mama Sana Vibrant Woman, a peer-led organization which provides culturally appropriate and quality prenatal and postnatal care for women of color in Austin and Travis County. She also teaches meditation at the Travis County Jail as part of her meditation practice