| Staff |
|
Choice USA staff are a group of young, dedicated leaders who want to see real change within communities and campuses around the nation.
Our headquarters is located in Washington, DC. Learn more about each of our staff members below! Staff:
Kierra Johnson, Executive Director is a southern girl from the peach tree state of Georgia. With a solid background organizing around reproductive health, racial justice, student’s rights and access to education, Ms. Johnson is a prominent and dynamic leader in developing the growing national reproductive justice and progressive movements. As a recent addition to the Resource Generation Regional Organizing Advisory Committee, she works with young people of financial wealth to effect progressive social change through the creative, responsible and strategic use of financial and other resources. Also a member of the Women’s Health Leadership Network with the Center for American Progress, Ms. Johnson is guiding new and innovative initiatives across the progressive movement to ensure youth leadership and investment in long-term social change in support of reproductive and social justice. Ms. Johnson’s top priority is developing new leaders and since 1999, she has helped Choice USA transform its image, voice, and mission, from a pro-choice organization with a youth project into a dynamic, youth-led and youth-focused organization. From the diversity of participants in regional and national trainings, to the organization’s strategic collaborations and partnerships, Choice USA has redefined what it means to be youth-driven by developing young leaders and funneling them to positions of leadership across the progressive movement. Ms. Johnson is a Choice USA success story: her journey with the organization started as a participant in Choice USA’s National Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C., in 1999, after which she became Choice USA's 2000 Maxine Waters Reproductive Freedom Fellow. Once immersed in the movement as a Fellow, she knew that this would be her life’s work and joined the staff in 2001 as Choice USA’s Field Director. Under Ms. Johnson’s leadership as Field Director from 2001 to 2003, Choice USA became more campaign-oriented; strategically targeting winnable issue campaigns in states and regions around the country. Choice USA engaged in unique regional and cross-movement collaborations to foster youth leadership development that will strengthen the pro-choice progressive base in crucial communities in the United States. As Choice USA’s Field Director for more than three years, she served as the co-chair of the Campus Coordinating Committee of the Campaign for Access and Reproductive Equity (CARE2000), a coalition of organizations committed to working on issues of reproductive health and rights access for lower-income women, tackling issues like welfare reform and Medicaid funding for reproductive health services. Also in 2002, she developed and ran Choice USA’s state-wide student and youth-led campaign in California for emergency contraceptive (EC) access. As a result, the state passed legislation that year to require training for pharmacists to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception over the counter. It was the first state in the nation to embrace this standard long before the FDA made EC over the counter nationwide in late 2006, becoming a model for other campaigns nationwide and demonstrating a shift in youth power and leadership in the state. Ms. Johnson took on the reins of Choice USA’s Development Department in 2003, becoming its Director from then until mid-2007. In her new role, she focused on building new relationships with foundations, individual donors, and funding sources, attracting new long-term supporters to innovative programs and collaborations of the organization. Under her leadership, Choice USA developed an individual donor program, encouraged innovative peer-to-peer annual house party fundraisers, and started Choice USA’s trademark Generation Awards – an annual event to recognize and give national visibility to amazing young leaders in the reproductive justice movement and raise support to further their leadership development.With her leadership in 2005 – as part of the organization’s planning committee – Choice USA undertook a comprehensive strategic planning process that incorporates forward-thinking and groundbreaking ideas into the future of Choice USA’s reproductive justice work. Ms. Johnson is the 2002 recipient of the Young Women of Achievement Award from the Women's Information Network and recently served as a member of the Board of Medical Students for Choice from 2003 to 2006. Ms. Johnson’s began her career as a student organizer around choice issues at the University of Colorado (CU) in 1999 at the age of 22. Through a pre-collegiate program at CU, she was a teaching assistant and a summer counselor, targeting low-income youth and youth of color. She also served as a Tri-Executive of the school’s student body during the 1997-1998 school year, where she worked for students rights and access to higher education. On behalf of Choice USA, Ms. Johnson has spoken to media outlets, student groups, campus chapters, and for a variety of conferences, trainings and events including: In These Times, Blue Grid, The Student Operated Press, Young People For, RH Reality Check, Feministing.com, the National Youth Advocacy Coalition Conference, University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, Hampshire College, Northern New England Multi-Generational Women’s Conference at Dartmouth College, Yale University, the Religious Action Center, the Western States Center, the United States Students Association Annual Congress and Legislative Conferences, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Conference, SisterSong, the Democratic National Committee’s Young Women’s Leadership Conference, and many more. In her spare time, she is likely to be found at Tryst or Bukom, two of her favorite DC hangouts. Top
Darshan Khalsa, Deputy Director, joined the Choice USA team in June 2008. She began her involvement with Choice USA in 2005 as a development and communications consultant for our annual Generation to Generation Celebration. Darshan was formerly the Deputy Director at the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (CAPACD), the first national organization dedicated to addressing the housing and community development needs of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. In 2004, Darshan founded the Racial Justice Campaign, Darshan founded and directed the Racial Justice Campaign, a program of Progressive Majority that works to support and elect progressive candidates of color to state and local political offices and to increase the collective political power of all communities of color. Darshan is a graduate of California State University, Sacramento and New York University School of Law. She was born in Sioux City, Iowa and grew up Vacaville, California. Recently, in an attempt to give up workaholism, she has begun a personal campaign to see how many beaches she can nap on before she is 40. Top Joy Lawson, Midwest Field Coordinator, came to Choice USA in 2006 from the beautiful state of Kansas. Don’t ask her where Toto is, or if she has been to the Yellow Brick Road, because for her, there still is no place like home. Joy loves that she gets to work with our Midwestern leaders to develop campaigns around issues that affect students. She loves all kinds of music and used to be a DJ at the University of Kansas radio station, KJHK. As an undergraduate student at KU (rock, chalk, Jayhawk!) Joy was the president of her Choice USA chapter, facilitated discussions with young men and women about body image, created a feminist art walk, helped organize Womyn Take Back the Night, and helped ensure comprehensive sex education was mandated in Kansas schools. Joy is a certified trainer for the Choice GROW. Top Edith Sargon, Field Director, recently joined the team at Choice USA as the National Field Director. She started working with Choice USA as a student at UC Santa Barbara when she participated in the Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute 2000. Edith graduated UCSB with a degree in women’s studies and her unofficial other major (campus organizing). She served as chairs of the UCSB Women’s Commission and Student Commission on Racial Equality and served a year as the External Vice President. Edith graduated college and began work as a union organizer with the Service Employees International Union. She had the pleasure of working with public sector union members and organizing new membership. Although she was no longer working on campus with Choice USA she had the opportunity to serve on the board of directors of the organization for the past two years. She is from the great state of California and is happy to talk to anyone who will listen about how great Los Angeles is! Top Alex Smith, Communications Director, joined the team at Choice in January 2009. Before landing in DC, she worked in San Francisco in PR, journalism and new media consulting. Alex began her work as a professional trouble maker in high school running human rights teach-ins. At Haverford College she continued to "be the change" directing the first Vagina Monologues on campus, launching a women's group, working for twenty-four hour condom access, and founding a women's studies course that took place in a Philadelphia women's prison. As the Choice Communications Director, Alex loves bringing her passion for journalism and new media to student organizers across the States working on the issues that kept her activist fire burning in college. Outside the office she can be found green blogging, practicing and teaching yoga and hanging out at her favorite DC spot, Busboys and Poets, soaking in the conscious community and slowly trying every vegan thing on their menu. Top Robin Wood, Development Coordinator, joined the Choice USA team in January 2009. He brings a background in grassroots fundraising paired with youth leadership development and facilitation. Robin most recently worked as an account manager for a Democratic direct mail firm, creating winning communication strategies for state and federal races. He has also worked with national LGBT rights organizations, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force where he was part of the team that re-launched the National Conference on LGBT Equality – Creating Change. Robin is a graduate of the George Washington University where he served as Political Director for Allied in Pride, the campus LGBT student organization. He has volunteered as a facilitator and group director for Denver-based Leader's Challenge, delivering hands on training in civic engagement and community service. Currently, Robin serves as the Vice President of the board for Youth Pride Alliance and sits on the board of the DC Center, two LGBT organizations dedicated to serving the DC metro community.
|
