In this second session of MPC's Summer Learning Series, we will hear from writers Gabriela Alcalde, Gillian Kranias, and Maria Garcia about what was learned through the Listening to Community Priorities in Wabanakiq report. We will hear a brief overview about the findings before opening up for a Q&A and discussion on how to use the results of the report in our work in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector.
Please take a look at the report before the session to generate a more meaningful and transformative discussion.
About the Presenters
Gabriela Alcalde (she/her/ella) is a public health leader with 20+ years of experience and commitment to equity and social justice. Gabriela joined the team of the Sewall Foundation as Executive Director in the summer of 2019 and in this capacity leads the integration of environmental, human and animal health and welfare as the foundation works to center equity and community voices in all of their work and strategies.
Prior to joining the Sewall Foundation, Gabriela served as Managing Director for Equity and Health at Richmond Memorial Health Foundation (RMHF) and as Vice-President for Policy and Program at the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. Gabriela has worked in the philanthropic, academic, government, nonprofit and grassroots sectors throughout her career and served in various volunteer capacities to promote equity.
She earned a DrPH in health administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MPH in maternal and child health at Boston University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Louisville. A native of Lima, Peru, she currently lives in Maine with her husband, children and pets.
Maria Garcia (she/her) has a B.W.S. / M.Ed. in Indigenous studies, currently living in Treaty 13, Toronto, raised on Manitoulin Island, Canada, and had lived in a wide range of local and international Indigenous land spaces. I am an Indigenous/Bi-Racial leader (she/her) who commits to traditional community listening and building design strategies and systems change through a world wide lens of Indigenous education and awareness. 20+ years consulting and facilitating decolonizing understanding of Indigenous world-views, frameworks, ways of knowing and emergent strategies. I personally and professionally walk and talk a Mino Bimaadiziwin life-long commitment of service to co-creating transformational practices of change in support of all Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, past and future 7 Generations. Chi Miigwetch!
Gillian Kranias (they/she) is a queer woman of Greek-Irish heritage with significant unearned privileges, including settler, white, and class privilege. Gillian encountered anti-oppression and community healing approaches at a young age through social justice movements, and by practicing these, they continually grow. Gillian’s collaborative work with Maria Garcia is an example of their most precious professional relationships and the good fortune such allyship spawns. Gillian contributes to change through design, facilitation, knowledges mobilization, and strategy consulting – with a passionate focus on partnerships for systems change.
About the Summer Learning Series
At MPC, we believe in the value of learning – it is how we grow as a philanthropic and nonprofit community to become the most effective we can be.
This summer, join us for a series of informal virtual gatherings to learn more about recent Maine-focused research and reports that explores important issues in our community. We will hear from the creators about what they learned through their research, with ample time set aside for questions and discussion about how the results can be transformed into action that supports the people of Maine.
Come ready to be curious, ask questions, and strategize with your peers in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector to work towards a more vibrant, just, and equitable Maine.
Session 1: June 29, 2022 10am – 11am Registration
Report: COVID-19: Racial and Geographic Disparities in Maine (John T. Gorman Foundation)
Session 2: July 27, 2022 10am – 11am Registration
Report: Listening to Community Priorities in Wabanakiq (Elmina B. Sewall Foundation)
Session 3: August 10, 2022 10am – 11am Registration
Report: Lives in Limbo: How the Boston Asylum Office Fails Asylum Seekers (Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, ACLU of Maine, Maine Law)