VOZ

VOZ Staff

Romeo Sosa
Executive Director
(503) 233-6787
romeo (at) portandvoz (dot) org

Ignacio Paramo
MLK Worker Center Director, LUCHA Program Director
iparamo (at) portlandvoz (dot) org

Justin Shear

Worker Center Assistant, Organizer

justin@portlandvoz.org

Francisco Aguirre

Worker Center Assistant

francisco@portlandvoz.org

Elizabeth Fussell

Development Director, LUCHA Program Coordinator

development@portlandvoz.org

VOZ Board of Directors:

Marco Mejia

Marco is from Ecuador and the President of the Board. In his country he was part of the popular youth movement organizing and developing leaders using the Popular Education methodology. His activism extended beyond Ecuador to other countries in Latin America. He currently works with AFSC as Director of the Youth Program, developing leaders as well as working in community organizing, training, advocating for immigrant rights and building bridges among diverse groups.

Valerie Chapman

Valerie is the Pastoral Administrator of St. Francis Church. She is a Portland native and the mother of six children. She has been interested in the issues of immigrants particularly those from Central America for a number of years. She has made several trips to the region and has been active in local organizations that promote workers�s rights.

Wilmer Escoto

Wilmer is originally from Honduras where he grew up in the Pequenos Hermanos orphanage. Wilmer has participated in many different committees and organizations throughout his life; in school, in his hometown to improve community health and to introduce water to surrounding villages, and in his church back in Honduras where he was the treasurer. Before moving to Portland, he was a day laborer in Arizona. As a day laborer in Portland, he utilizes the Martin Luther King Jr. Worker Center and has participated in many of VOZ’s activities including the Northwest Leadership School and neighborhood clean-ups.

J. Lauren Norris

Lauren is from Portland,OR. She has a Masters degree from the Institute of Non-profit Administration at Lewis and Clark College. She worked as a development and community organizer for a number of non-profits before working for the City’s Office of Neighborhood Involvement for 10 years. She is currently a Volunteer Coordinator at the Office of Sustainable Development. For the past nine years, Lauren has volunteered in Guatemala, working in a variety of community development and health promotion programs with the Mayan Quiche and Tzutuhuil communities. She spends much of her volunteer time raising funds for these Guatemalan projects and for VOZ.

Anna Fratolla

Anna is from New York City. At the age of twelve Anna relocated with her mother to Los Angeles where she later graduated from New Roads High School.  She attended Reed College as a Studio Art major for two years and is currently enrolled at Portland Community College, on a leave of absence from Reed. As a teenager Anna worked with Head Start, and an after-school program for public school children.  Over the past four years, Anna has organized with Food not Bombs, a group that serves free food to hungry people. Anna has volunteered as an ESL teacher with VOZ, Workers’ Rights Education Project, since 2007 and coordinated classes and teachers during the spring and summer of 2008.  Anna is currently employed at a bike shop and living in Portland Collective Housing. Anna considers creativity our greatest human resource.  She is keenly interested in applying creative solutions to educational reform and social concerns including health care, the environment, and our food supply.

Edilberto Antonio Montano

Edilberto speaks Otomie as his first language. He is a Portland day laborer and the father of four. He has participated in many of VOZ’ leadership workshops and activities.

COUNCIL OF ELDERS

Pedro Sosa

Pedro is a Guatemalan Mayan.  He has been a community leader for many years, as a member of the Comité de Education Integral and in the indigenous peoples’ movement. Pedro organized community programs that included schools for tailoring and shoe making, child nutrition, and a community health clinic. While in Mexico, Pedro translated documents from Spanish to Quiché to assist Guatemalan refugees. He has been a factory and janitorial worker in LA and Portland, a dishwasher, and a fast food assembly worker. Pedro volunteers with community radio and television Spanish language programming.  Pedro was a worker organizer with the day laborer project at Workers’ Organizing Committee for over two years, and  worked as an Organizer at VOZ for four years.