staff directory block - Staff Directory Block
Jean Chong has been an LGBTQ activist for 18 years. She first started in her activism by volunteering with a gay christian support network, Safehaven, and became their first female vice chairperson. Subsequently, she co-founded an inclusive church, Free (First Realize Everyone is Equal) Community Church and served as their chairperson. Looking to expand her horizons in helping others, she went on to be a part of the core team of a LGBT federation, People Like Us in Singapore. She is also currently a part of the Steering Commitee of the ASEAN SOGIE Caucus, a regional network of South East Asia LGBTIQ groups lobbying for the inclusion of LGBTIQ rights in the ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism. In addition, Jean co-founded Sayoni, a queer women's organization based in Singapore who organise, does research and advocate for equality in well-being and dignity regardless of SOGIESC. Jean holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Australia in Communication and Media Management, and a Master of Human Rights and Democratisation from the University of Sydney (EU scholarship).
Damon comes to OutRight from the British Council, a global charity that also plays a role in the cultural diplomacy of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He developed partnerships with donors based in the United States to support the Council’s international programs on social entrepreneurship, women’s and girls’ empowerment, youth civic engagement and LGBTIQ issues. During the first year of his tenure, his team increased annual giving from U.S. donors by more than 50%.
Prior to joining the British Council, Damon worked at the EastWest Institute, a global nonprofit promoting peace and security. He served in a series of increasingly senior roles, and introduced innovations to make the Institute’s fundraising efforts more efficient.
Damon started his international career as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Kyrgyzstan. In Central Asia, he created and managed USAID-funded grantmaking and capacity building programs for local nonprofits. While in the region, he also served as a consultant for the Asian Development Bank and UNHCR.
Damon holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and a Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia University.
A lesbian feminist activist since 1997, Ging Cristobal joined the OutRight Action International (formerly names as International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC)) in 2008 as Project Coordinator for Asia and the Pacific. She was the main writer and researcher of the SOGIE report for the Philippines during the Philippines ICCPR review in 2012, as part of a 2-woman Asia program team, they produced the video documentary, “Courage Unfolds: LGBT Activism and the Yogyakarta Principles in Asia”, and have coordinated the research on violence on LBT persons with five partner countries in Asia. Ging has been a technical advisor of UNDP Being’s Asia regional project LGBT in Asia, and is acting Chairperson of the Quezon City Pride Council, instrumental in having the anti-discrimination ordinance passed in Quezon City. Ging is one of the co-founder & member – ASEAN SOGIE Caucus, a coalition of LGBT groups in Southeast Asia advocating for the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGIE) in the ASEAN. Work is focused on issues on police education on LGBTI rights, LGBT migrant workers in ASEAN and legislative advocacy work an ASEAN.
A member and former vice-chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Amnesty International – Philippines, prior to that, she was the Executive Director and one of the founders of the Lesbian Advocates Philippines (LeAP!), Inc. where she wrote and did the first research on sexual and reproductive health of lesbian in the Philippines titled, “Hidden Health: Exploring the Knowledge, Attitudes, Beliefs and Practices of Filipino Lesbians on Sexual and Reproductive Health” and as one of the documenter and writer of the documented discrimination cases of lesbian in the Philippines in the book titled, “Unmask: Documentation of Violence Against Lesbians in the Philippines.”
Ging has lobbied for laws to protect LGBT rights as one of the members and founders of the Lesbian and Gay Legislative Advocacy Network (LAGABLAB), a local network of LGBT organizations and individuals engaged in legislative advocacy and lobbying for laws recognizing LGBT rights, particularly the anti-discrimination bill that has been languishing in Philippines Congress for last 17 years. She was also one of the founders and active members of Task Force Pride, the local network engaged in organizing the annual LGBT Pride event in the Philippines, of the Asia Pacific Rainbow, a regional LGBT organization, and a former member and party list nominee of LADLAD, a national LGBT political organization for LGBT people in the Philippines.
A Buddhist by philosophy, 80’s music addict, dog lover, positivist, environmentalist, gardener, weekend catering driver, expert laundrywoman, a videoke junkie, a serial collector of things, a proud fashion wreck and obsessive compulsive, while promoting human rights for everyone, everywhere, all the time!
Cäcille joins the Outright team with five years of professional writing experience. A graduate of Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Strategic Design and Management while minoring in The New School’s prestigious writing program.
During her years at Parsons, Cäcille worked tirelessly inside and outside the classroom. Cäcille, ever the overachiever, recognized the lack of community that her beloved school had. Wanting to bring her peers closer together while also spreading goodwill, she and a few close friends took initiative and brought the Greek Life to The New School in the form of Kappa Kappa Delta and Alpha Phi Omega.
And while most students focused solely on classes with the occasional internship, she started her writing career during her freshmen year; writing social justice articles for the LGBTQ lifestyle magazine, Kraven. After graduating, she began her career as a contributing food/wellness writer for New York Spirit Magazine and a blog/copywriter for Kanler Construction.
Cäcille has and always will be a fighter for the underdog. Originally from a small town in Indiana, she knows firsthand how difficult it can be growing up “different”. Because of that, she will forever be a fighter for a persons right’s and a champion for anyone in need.
With a career in the nonprofit sector spanning more than 20 years, Katie brings a deep understanding of nonprofit management and fundraising to OutRight. Most recently, Katie served for eight years as the Northwest Regional Director at NPH USA (Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos), where she led the staff and Board in development efforts to support programs for vulnerable children in Latin America and the Caribbean, raising more than $2.2M annually. During her time at NPH, Katie also regularly guided donor trips to Latin America and helped launch NPH’s Seattle Institute for emerging young leaders.
Previously, Katie spent nine years as the Executive Director of Passages Northwest, a Seattle non-profit dedicated to building courage and leadership in girls through the outdoors and the arts. While based in Washington, DC Katie was the Assistant Development Director for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and the Director of Partnerships and Outreach for Ashoka’s Youth Venture. She began her career on the finance team for the 1996 U.S. Senate Campaign of Harvey Gantt in North Carolina.
Katie has volunteered in leadership roles with the Women’s Funding Alliance, the Northwest Girls Coalition, and as a Board member for OutRight. She supported the Washington state marriage equality campaign in 2012 by fundraising and filming TV ads with her family. She has also raised money for personal causes including Memorial Sloan Kettering, the Whitman-Walker Clinic, and Food & Friends. Katie currently sits on the Advancement Committee at Giddens School and acts as a mentor in the Seattle University Masters of Nonprofit Leadership Program.
Katie holds a Masters degree in Nonprofit Leadership from Seattle University and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead Scholar and studied in Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay. Originally from San Francisco, Katie now lives in Seattle with her wife and three children. She is truly honored and excited to help OutRight expand its visibility and community of supporters on the West Coast.
Paul Jansen (1969) joined OutRight as the Senior Advisor for Global Advocacy in October 2017. Before joining he worked as International Consultant from Sitges, Spain, mainly on organisational and strategic reviews for LGBTIQ organisations and networks, as well as key population networks working on HIV issues.
Before starting his consultancy company, he was the Program Director for Salzburg Global Seminar in Salzburg, Austria, in the areas of education, nature and sustainability issues, as a side step from his LGBTIQ work. It was not his first post outside his home country, The Netherlands, as he worked as organisational sustainability advisor in APCOM, the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health, in Bangkok, Thailand. Prior to this, he was the country director of the Hivos office in Johannesburg, South Africa, well-known for its LGBTIQ human rights programmes.
It was not his first job in Hivos; since June 2007 he was the programme officer LGBT Rights/MSM & HIV in Hivos in The Hague, The Netherlands. In that capacity he developed the Hivos (worldwide) programmes on sexual diversity and rights. He has been working in international development since 1998 in various development organisations, like Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO-manager corporate social responsibility programmes) and Population Services Lanka in Sri Lanka (project on internally displaced persons and refugees), after a career in the tourism industry for the Dutch Tourism Board in Cologne, Germany, and the Provincial Tourist Board in Utrecht, Netherlands. He obtained his Master’s degree in Development Studies at Utrecht University, The Netherlands in 1998. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in marketing management for the hospitality and tourism industry from the Maastricht Hoge Hotelschool (1992).
Neish McLean is a Jamaican LGBTQ activist who is committed and passionate about advocacy for the community which is reflected in his involvement in local and regional work.
In Jamaica, Neish co-founded TransWave Jamaica, Jamaica’s first and only organization that is solely dedicated to trans advocacy. Additionally, he brings with him regional and international exposure through his participation in human rights workshops and trainings.
Neish serves as Vice-Chair of the United Caribbean Trans Network as well as a member of the Steering Committee for CARIFLAGS. Neish is well positioned to make an impact in his role as Caribbean Program Officer at OutRight.
He holds a BSc in Psychology which helps in his work as a human rights defender while using his lived reality as a man of trans experience to inform his advocacy. He also holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Sports Management. He is a sports and fitness enthusiast.
Sahar Moazami is a New York State bar admitted attorney with a focus on international human rights law. Sahar is a first generation Iranian-American born in London but primarily raised in New York. They attended Boston University for their undergraduate degree, majoring in Political Science and minoring in American and Persian history. Upon graduation, Sahar volunteered with the AmeriCorps FEMA Corps program, traveling the United States for 10 months aiding disaster survivors. After completing the 10 month service position Sahar returned to New York to attend Fordham Law School.
Sahar obtained her Juris Doctor from Fordham Law School in 2017. As a student at Fordham Law, they heavily engaged in student activism through leadership positions in a number of student groups including the Coalition of Concerned Students, the National Lawyers Guild, Advocates for Sexual Health and Rights, and Fordham OUTLaws. Sahar was also a member of the Stein Scholars for Public Interest Program and was a Crowley Scholar for International Human Rights.
M.J. Moneymaker is OutRight's digital communications manager responsible for all online platforms and social media. They manage everything from UX content experience, tech advocacy, content development and publishing to media outreach. MJ has an MFA in Creative Writing and a BA in TV/Film. Previous work: Digital media producer at WITNESS; Production supervisor for the NYC LGBT Community Center's TV show; and other media projects with makers like the director of the Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary Short Subject, Freeheld. MJ is a U.S. Navy veteran, teaches digital marketing, and is an award-winning screenwriter; MJ is on the board of The Bechdel Group, a theater company producing readings of works in progress that challenge the roles of women for stage and screen.
Grace Poore is the Regional Program Coordinator for Asia at OutRight Action International since 2007. She manages collaborative partnership projects throughout Asia for LGBT access to justice and LBT protections from domestic violence and family violence, conducts trainings on human rights documentation, and facilitates LBT engagement with UN mechanisms, specifically the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). She coordinated OutRight’s 5-country research on violence against lesbians, bisexual women and gender variant people in Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines and Sri Lanka, and co-edited the 2014 regional report. She co-edited OutRight’s 2017 legal mapping report on criminalization of LGBT people in Indonesia. She previously worked for about ten years in the U.S. movement to stop domestic violence. Her documentary films on domestic violence and surviving child sexual abuse have been viewed in eighteen countries. Ms. Poore holds a Master’s degree from Syracuse University, Newhouse School of Communications. She’s been published in several anthologies and online journals.
Em joins the OutRight team after earning their Bachelor of Arts in Educational Studies from Colgate University. During their tenure at Colgate, Em worked tirelessly to support LGBTQ students on campus through mentoring peers, advocating for gender neutral bathrooms, and fostering community across New York State schools by hosting the 2018 NY6 Spectrum Conference: Intersections in Queerness. Additionally, they assisted on research projects that support trans and gender nonconforming youth in New York City public schools. Em looks forward to continuing advocacy work at OutRight and exercising their own voice in the movement for LGBTQ justice.
Daina is OutRight’s Senior Communications Manager responsible for media relations and raising the organization’s profile. She joined the team in February 2019 after almost three years at ILGA-Europe, the foremost European-level LGBTIQ organization. She has also worked at leading international development organizations CARE International UK and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Daina first joined the LGBTIQ movement in her native Latvia in 2006, when the second Pride march was being organized and faced hateful and violent opposition. Thereafter Daina studied history of sexuality as part of her Bachelor’s degree in History and English at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and earned her Master’s in Public International Law and Human Rights from the Riga Graduate School of Law in Latvia.
Originally from Latvia, Daina is a bit of a nomad at heart - moving to New York to join OutRight marks her 8th country of residence. She is a massive dog-lover, enthusiastic singer, and is fluent in English, Latvian and Russian.
Maria Sjödin joined OutRight Action International formerly known as the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in 2014, as Director of Development and External Relations. From 2016 she is Deputy Executive Director. Between 2005-2014 she was the Executive Director of RFSL, Sweden’s largest and oldest LGBT organization. Maria led the expansion of RFSL’s international work from a single advocacy project to a number of projects with partner organizations in several countries and human rights and leadership training of hundreds of international LGBT activists. Maria served on the board of ILGA (the global membership organiation for LGBT organizations) between 2006-2014 and led the organizing of the largest ever ILGA World Conference hosted by RFSL in Stockholm in 2012.
Maria has led international leadership trainings of over 150 LGBTIQ activists, including topics such as strength-based coaching and appreciative inquiry.
Jessica Stern, Executive Director of OutRight Action International, specializes in gender, sexuality and human rights globally. At OutRight, she has supported the legal registration of LGBTIQ organizations globally, helped secure the mandate of the United Nations Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, and advanced the UN LGBTI Core Group. She has provided expert opinions to governments globally, regional human rights institutions, and UN mechanisms, including UNWomen where she serves as a member of the LGBTI Reference Group. Her writing has been cited by the Indian Supreme Court in its seminal judgment decriminalizing homosexuality and featured in The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security (2019). She is frequently quoted by the media, including by The New York Times and The Guardian. She is an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs.
Before joining Outright in November 2017, Kevin Wanzor worked in college access and student advocacy, on a team committed to teaching a shift from passive and impersonal communication to active, personal, agency and fluency-focused ways of expression. As Director of Operations/Chief of Staff, as well as a teacher, Kevin worked to support professionals, teams, jobseekers and students to tell better stories and to be their strongest advocates. Previously, he worked in global health PR, researching and assessing social and epidemiological studies related to HIV/AIDS, malaria and other infectious diseases in the majority world.
Kevin is as comfortable working in the office as he is performing on stage, where he spent his early career. His passion for working with marginalized populations and advocating for equality and parity is matched only by his passion for music and the performing arts. He has collaborated with several organizations to create an acting and singing program for foster care LGBT teens. He is an award-winning lyricist and playwright, and spent a number of years traveling the country as a performer.
He is an alumni of Syracuse University and the prestigious BMI Writing Program.
Meet Bob. Bob is the cofounder of “Unicorns For Humanity” and a proud member of the LGBTQI community. If it were up to him the world would be pink and covered with glitters. He’s very sweet and a huge supporter of OutRight Action International. So much, he even agreed to be their mascot. Some say, he’s the one making marriage equality in Belgium possible by persuading the political leaders with his glitter cookies and pancakes with strawberry jam. Learn about how Bob became our mascot.
