Isabella Gitana (they/she)
is the founder and director of Survivor Arts Collective. They are a Rape Crisis Counselor Advocate, artist, somatic bodyworker, and survivor. They identify as a queer, working class, fat, Xicana Indigenous human who thinks it is integral to intersect a peer model of facilitation with anti-racist activism and art to assist in their own healing and open pathways for community to heal themselves.
Donny (he/they)
identifies as a white, queer, trans, fat, feminist, and survivor of childhood trauma who grew up in a rural mountain town. Ever since he left, he is trying to disband the white, heteropatriarchy that encompassed his youth. He’s committed to undoing systematic injustices such as racism, transphobia, transmisogyny, sexism, socioeconomic imbalance, ableism, and oppression within the mental health system. As a peer, Donny attempts to minimize power imbalances and to inspire connection with a focus on mutual vulnerability to bridge the gap trauma can create. His work is through a transformative justice lens where he values alternatives to our current systems which often position themselves as protectors while simultaneously enacting the forms of violence they claim to condemn.
Lachlan (they/them/theirs)
is a queer, disabled artist and peer facilitator. They are a survivor of incest and relational trauma. They are passionate about blending their art practice with intuitive movement, and dream of cultivating communities that honor and integrate disability justice & trauma-aware care. They specialize in working with survivors of sexual violence and childhood trauma, especially through peer support groups and art-infused workshops.
Romeo Romero (they/them/elle)
is an educator-organizer-poet based in Western Massachusetts. They hold a masters degree in social justice education and have taught at the high school, college, and graduate level. Romeo is deeply entrenched in the transformative justice movement and has supported young people in Holyoke to find healing and repair in more than 600 conflicts through their work at Pa’lante Restorative Justice, where they currently serve as the assistant director.
Shani (she/they)
is a queer Jew mom with an interest in using transformative justice to empower communities with relational trauma to heal themselves. Shani comes to this work via the mental health field, working with survivors of sexual trauma and interpersonal violence.
Julia (she/her/hers)
is committed to the liberation of BIPOC and queer communities, disabled communities, and those whose voices have been at the margins. She is interested in transformative justice as a liberatory and just ways to heal from the harm we cause one another.