The League of Young Voters Education Fund (LYVEF) : Trainers

Trainers

Tanzila "Taz" Ahmed is the founder and Director for South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY) and runs around the country doing speaking engagements, training South Asian youth in organizing, and supervising campus fellows on the Vote SAAVY Campaign. At the youthful age of 25 yrs., she has been an organizer in the youth voting movement for the past 6 years. She used to live in DC and work for EnviroCitizen, where she trained over 400 youth, but was upset by the lack of brown faces in her trainings. So she started talking with other like-minded Desis about this need, and thus, founded SAAVY fall of 2003. Taz graduated from the University of Southern California in 2001 and lives currently in the Los Angeles area, working with the Secretary of State's office Youth Program through 2004, and mobilizing the APA/SA community of Southern California.

Molly Wieser is an attorney and the Executive Director of The Racial Fairness Project, a private non-profit public education and advocacy organization in Cleveland, Ohio which pursues racial and ethnic justice through education, advocacy, and the empowerment of communities and institutions. Prior to coming to the Project, Molly provided legal services and education to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women at Women's Re-Entry Network, a social service and mental health program of Community Re-Entry in Cleveland, Ohio. She is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and is currently adjunct faculty there, teaching "Race, Ethnicity and Criminal Justice". Molly is a member of the Ohio City Near West Development Corporation Board, an advisory board member of the Case Law School Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic Center, and member of Friends of Women's Re-Entry, and other local professional and policy advocacy associations

Mattie Weiss, recently moved back to her hometown of Minneapolis, to work as the Midwest Regional Organizer for the League of Pissed Off Voters — a national organization working to build progressive power among young people. As co-author of the League's book, "How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office" (with her chapter about the 2002 Wellstone campaign), Mattie spent the spring touring swing state campuses, bookstores, and community organizations, and developing local League chapters. Come September she will hit the road for another five weeks of fever-pitch speaking and organizing.

Though a Midwesterner to the core, Mattie has also lived in Nicaragua (where her parents worked in solidarity with the Sandinistas in the late 1980s), Bolivia and South Africa. Mattie graduated with a Political Science degree from Swarthmore College. As a student activist Mattie organized students and staff around issues of global economic justice, local race politics, and a campus-based living wage campaign. While still in college, Mattie worked for the Active Element Foundation in New York, doing research for the Future500 youth organizing directory. Mattie has also worked as a community muralist and a union organizer in Minneapolis. After college Mattie worked in Oakland, CA, as a writer and researcher for the Applied Research Center, a racial justice "think and do tank." where she wrote and published a major report on national high school youth organizing. Mattie loves to paint, draw, and read. She hates writing (but does it anyway cause a whole lot needs to be said). She dances salsa every chance she gets, loves hip hop, plays soccer, and wants to learn to samba.

Malia Lazu was selected as the Alliance Field Director because of her revolutionary work with communities of color and the non-traditional voter model she implemented in Boston--only one of two models in the nation to prove young people vote when targeted. Malia is currently one of the twelve American Candidates on Showtime's new reality show. She was the founding Executive Director of BostonVOTE, a statewide non-partisan coalition of community-based organizations, faith-based institutions and neighborhood associations that increased voter participation in urban neighborhoods. She has been recognized by the Massachusetts State Senate and House for her role in the rise in voter turn out in Boston.

Malia was named "Activist of the Month" by MTV in June 2000 and was a board member of the Youth Council of The Partnership for Excellence in Government. She currently sits on the YouthVote, Dunk the Vote, Declaration Generation and the Center for Voting and Democracy boards. Malia served as a statewide college organizer for the Clean Elections campaign, winning a landmark statewide ballot question in 1998 for sweeping campaign finance reform in Massachusetts. A native of Hawaii, Malia is 27 years old and currently resides in DC.

Angela Angel-Humphrey, the Alliance OH State Director, was taught at an early age the importance of giving back to her community. She continued in that family tradition while she was at Hampton University, volunteering for many local organizations and political campaigns. While a senior at Hampton, her passion for politics led her to become the youngest African American female ever elected to the Democratic National Convention. Her senior thesis New Power Elect: A Study of the Political Socialization of African American Youth was a culmination of research and field observations from her work in the 2000 Election Cycle.

Angela has done local and national field organizing for Black Youth Vote, Project Vote, and the NAACP National Voter Fund. She continues to work for social and economic justice for all people through her work on the Board of Directors for The Fannie Lou Hamer Project and Black Youth Vote. On June 1, 2004 she earned her Juris Doctorate Degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Angela is happily married to Darrius G. Humphrey and they have a two year old daughter MasonMarie Humphrey.

Kyle Stewart is a practicing attorney in native Los Angeles, CA. She specializes in entertainment and non-profit/electoral law. Kyle is also involved in local political organizing and strategizing and is a founding
member of LALOC (the Los Angeles Local Organizing Committee).
While obtaining her BA in Political Science, Kyle became active in the anti-war movement during the Gulf War. During the LA Uprising in '92, Kyle got her first taste of community organizing by co-founding Exodus, a local non-profit organization whose mission was to expose the racial injustice that plagues LA. Through Exodus, Kyle helped found the Justice for the LA 4 Legal Defense Fund Committee in conjunction with Bethel AME Church and family and friends of the LA4 (the 4 men charged with the beating of Reginald Denny after the Rodney King verdict). The committee’s main purpose was to seek immunity for the LA4, demand the resignation of the police chief, and raise funds for the LA4’s legal defense. During her college years, Kyle was also actively involved in product boycott campaigns in connection with the divestment movement.

An aspiring film producer, after college Kyle went to work in Business and Legal Affairs for various entertainment production companies. This work motivated her to go to law school. After obtaining her JD, Kyle became an in-house Business and Legal Affairs attorney for various production companies. During this time Kyle was also raising a teenager as his guardian. Kyle grew increasingly fed-up with the corporate sector and eventually started her own practice.

Sticking to her roots, Kyle again became actively involved in the anti-war movement during the Fall of '02. Her complete indignation with the Bush Administration prompted Kyle to reach out to an associate, Rap Coalition Founder Wendy Day, to vent about why the hip hop community was not flexing its political muscle. Wendy put Kyle in contact with Billy Wimsatt and it was from that introduction that the League of Young Voters Education Fund and the League of Independent Voters were spawned.

Kyle currently serves of the boards of LYVEF and LIV as well as JUiCE (Justice by Uniting in Creative Energy), a local hip hop community center.

		Tanzila "Taz" Ahmed is the founder and Director for South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY) and runs around the country doing speaking engagements, training South Asian youth in organizing, and supervising campus fellows on the Vote SAAVY Campaign. At the youthful age of 25 yrs., she has been an organizer in the youth voting movement for the past 6 years. She used to live in DC and work for EnviroCitizen, where she trained over 400 youth, but was upset by the lack of brown faces in her trainings. So she started talking with other like-minded Desis about this need, and thus, founded SAAVY fall of 2003. Taz graduated from the University of Southern California in 2001 and lives currently in the Los Angeles area, working with the Secretary of State's office Youth Program through 2004, and mobilizing the APA/SA community of Southern California.

		Molly Wieser is an attorney and the Executive Director of The Racial Fairness Project, a private non-profit public education and advocacy organization in Cleveland, Ohio which pursues racial and ethnic justice through education, advocacy, and the empowerment of communities and institutions. Prior to coming to the Project, Molly provided legal services and education to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women at Women's Re-Entry Network, a social service and mental health program of Community Re-Entry in Cleveland, Ohio. She is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and is currently adjunct faculty there, teaching "Race, Ethnicity and Criminal Justice". Molly is a member of the Ohio City Near West Development Corporation Board, an advisory board member of the Case Law School Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic Center, and member of Friends of Women's Re-Entry, and other local professional and policy advocacy associations
		Mattie Weiss, recently moved back to her hometown of Minneapolis, to work as the Midwest Regional Organizer for the League of Pissed Off Voters — a national organization working to build progressive power among young people. As co-author of the League's book, "How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office" (with her chapter about the 2002 Wellstone campaign), Mattie spent the spring touring swing state campuses, bookstores, and community organizations, and developing local League chapters. Come September she will hit the road for another five weeks of fever-pitch speaking and organizing. Though a Midwesterner to the core, Mattie has also lived in Nicaragua (where her parents worked in solidarity with the Sandinistas in the late 1980s), Bolivia and South Africa. Mattie graduated with a Political Science degree from Swarthmore College. As a student activist Mattie organized students and staff around issues of global economic justice, local race politics, and a campus-based living wage campaign. While still in college, Mattie worked for the Active Element Foundation in New York, doing research for the Future500 youth organizing directory. Mattie has also worked as a community muralist and a union organizer in Minneapolis. After college Mattie worked in Oakland, CA, as a writer and researcher for the Applied Research Center, a racial justice "think and do tank." where she wrote and published a major report on national high school youth organizing. Mattie loves to paint, draw, and read. She hates writing (but does it anyway cause a whole lot needs to be said). She dances salsa every chance she gets, loves hip hop, plays soccer, and wants to learn to samba.
		Malia Lazu was selected as the Alliance Field Director because of her revolutionary work with communities of color and the non-traditional voter model she implemented in Boston--only one of two models in the nation to prove young people vote when targeted. Malia is currently one of the twelve American Candidates on Showtime's new reality show. She was the founding Executive Director of BostonVOTE, a statewide non-partisan coalition of community-based organizations, faith-based institutions and neighborhood associations that increased voter participation in urban neighborhoods. She has been recognized by the Massachusetts State Senate and House for her role in the rise in voter turn out in Boston. Malia was named "Activist of the Month" by MTV in June 2000 and was a board member of the Youth Council of The Partnership for Excellence in Government. She currently sits on the YouthVote, Dunk the Vote, Declaration Generation and the Center for Voting and Democracy boards. Malia served as a statewide college organizer for the Clean Elections campaign, winning a landmark statewide ballot question in 1998 for sweeping campaign finance reform in Massachusetts. A native of Hawaii, Malia is 27 years old and currently resides in DC.
		Angela Angel-Humphrey, the Alliance OH State Director, was taught at an early age the importance of giving back to her community. She continued in that family tradition while she was at Hampton University, volunteering for many local organizations and political campaigns. While a senior at Hampton, her passion for politics led her to become the youngest African American female ever elected to the Democratic National Convention. Her senior thesis New Power Elect: A Study of the Political Socialization of African American Youth was a culmination of research and field observations from her work in the 2000 Election Cycle. Angela has done local and national field organizing for Black Youth Vote, Project Vote, and the NAACP National Voter Fund. She continues to work for social and economic justice for all people through her work on the Board of Directors for The Fannie Lou Hamer Project and Black Youth Vote. On June 1, 2004 she earned her Juris Doctorate Degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Angela is happily married to Darrius G. Humphrey and they have a two year old daughter MasonMarie Humphrey.
		Kyle Stewart is a practicing attorney in native Los Angeles, CA. She specializes in entertainment and non-profit/electoral law. Kyle is also involved in local political organizing and strategizing and is a founding member of LALOC (the Los Angeles Local Organizing Committee). While obtaining her BA in Political Science, Kyle became active in the anti-war movement during the Gulf War. During the LA Uprising in '92, Kyle got her first taste of community organizing by co-founding Exodus, a local non-profit organization whose mission was to expose the racial injustice that plagues LA. Through Exodus, Kyle helped found the Justice for the LA 4 Legal Defense Fund Committee in conjunction with Bethel AME Church and family and friends of the LA4 (the 4 men charged with the beating of Reginald Denny after the Rodney King verdict). The committee’s main purpose was to seek immunity for the LA4, demand the resignation of the police chief, and raise funds for the LA4’s legal defense. During her college years, Kyle was also actively involved in product boycott campaigns in connection with the divestment movement. An aspiring film producer, after college Kyle went to work in Business and Legal Affairs for various entertainment production companies. This work motivated her to go to law school. After obtaining her JD, Kyle became an in-house Business and Legal Affairs attorney for various production companies. During this time Kyle was also raising a teenager as his guardian. Kyle grew increasingly fed-up with the corporate sector and eventually started her own practice. Sticking to her roots, Kyle again became actively involved in the anti-war movement during the Fall of '02. Her complete indignation with the Bush Administration prompted Kyle to reach out to an associate, Rap Coalition Founder Wendy Day, to vent about why the hip hop community was not flexing its political muscle. Wendy put Kyle in contact with Billy Wimsatt and it was from that introduction that the League of Young Voters Education Fund and the League of Independent Voters were spawned. Kyle currently serves of the boards of LYVEF and LIV as well as JUiCE (Justice by Uniting in Creative Energy), a local hip hop community center.