Academy Delegation Prepares for Madrid

From October 4–8th a Working Families Academy delegation will participate in an international conference of approximately 80 representatives of European left parties and social movements taking place in Madrid, Spain. Members of the delegation will be participating and speaking in various workshops, panels and keynote sessions, as well as having an opportunity to build relationships with people fighting some of the same fights we face in the United States.

Take a moment to meet the Academy delegation…

Alwiyah Shariff

National Membership Coordinator

Alwiyah Shariff is the Working Families Party National Membership coordinator/mentor. She comes from Columbus, OH where she was the Civic Engagement Director with the Ohio Student Association, registering nearly 30,000 young people across the state. Alwiyah is also an experienced trainer and facilitator working with Ayni Institute, Momentum Theory, and the Wildfire Project, as well as a Wellstone adjunct trainer. She is looking forward to learning and exchanging ideas on process, structure and organization for a political change with everyday working people.

Joe Dinkin

National Communications and Campaign Director

Joe Dinkin is the national communications and campaign director for the Working Families Party. He leads many of WFP’s national election priorities, designs campaigns geared at capturing media and winning new supporters, and develops and executes strategies to leverage print, digital and broadcast media to advance campaigns for justice and equality. He is a campaign veteran, having developed earned and paid media plans, including advertising and direct mail, for numerous candidates. He has a degree in film from Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Madeline Stocker

Communications Coordinator — Columbus Yes We Can / Working Families Party

Madeline is the current Communications Coordinator for Yes We Can Columbus, an affiliate of the Working Families Party. Before working with Yes We Can, Madeline organized with the Fight for $15 campaign, worked as Press Secretary with For Ohio’s Future and reported for various publications in Ohio and the Northeast. Madeline believes in the power of empathy, creativity and community-building. Her current job is to help hold a mirror up to Columbus, highlighting both the city’s deep-rooted socioeconomic inequality and the deeper-rooted people-power working to radically transform the status quo. When she’s not sneaking puns into press releases or furiously searching for synonyms, she can be found at most local music venues, metro parks or used bookstores.

Marcelia Nicholson

Endorsed Elected Official — Milwaukee, WI

Marcelia Nicholson was born and raised in Milwaukee, WI in the 53206 zip code. She is a proud product of Milwaukee Public Schools and graduated from Milwaukee School of Languages. She went on to graduate with honors from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she served on the university’s Communication’s Advisory Board and received her Bachelor’s of Communications. She attended Lakeland College for her teaching certification and teaches 4th grade at Pierce Elementary School, a Milwaukee Public School. Marcelia is an avid fighter for working people, public education, and encourages community empowerment. She has marched with activists and spoken out in support of public education across many states. She is a member of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, National Education Association, NAACP Education Committee and A-Lego Education Committee. In April 2016, Marcelia was elected to the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, garnering 65% of the vote. Since elected, she worked as lead sponsor to help pass a $15 living wage ordinance for County Employees, as well as co-sponsored an important anti-discrimination ordinance. Marcelia currently serves as Vice Chair of the Parks, Energy and Environment committee, Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Relations committee, and sits on the Economic and Community Development committee at the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, while serving as an appointed member of the Milwaukee Art Museum Board of Trustees. Marcelia is proud to be one of few elected African American women in Milwaukee.

Maricela Sanchez

Branch Member — Prosser WA., Working Families

Maricela Sanchez is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, and grew up as a migrant farmworker in eastern Washington State. She attended the University of Washington in Seattle, majoring in American Ethnic Studies, then joined Teach For America and taught middle school for two years in Los Angeles. She was subsequently accepted to medical school at Stanford University and went on to complete her residency training at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Maricela volunteered for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign in Brooklyn, joining forces with Working Families Party efforts to register voters, phone bank and canvass throughout the borough in the months leading up to the primary. In the fall of 2016, she traveled to North Dakota to deliver supplies and join the water protectors in peacefully demonstrating against the Dakota Access Pipeline, and was arrested for participating in a sit down protest on treaty land. She has now returned to her hometown in rural, deeply conservative eastern Washington where she is a practicing anesthesiologist and is currently running for school board.

Marina Dimitrijevic

State Director — Wisconsin Working Families

Marina was born and raised on the Southside of Milwaukee. A proud product of Milwaukee public schools and both the daughter and wife of immigrants, Marina became the youngest Milwaukee County Supervisor elected in 2004. She was the second woman to serve as Chairwoman of the County Board and is known for her prolific progressive policy making. She has authored legislation for: a free bus ride program, an eviction reduction plan, pro-breastfeeding legislation, a non-discrimination ordinance for LGBT, pro-immigrant policies, and raised the living wage in Milwaukee County. In 2015 she became the State Director of WI WFP. Since launching under her leadership-WI WFP has grown its organizational table of members and expanded geographically across Southeastern Wisconsin. WI WFP helped beat millionaire County Executive Abele in a primary election and recently swept the Milwaukee School Board races. WI WFP is proud to have helped recruit Randy Bryce-the man who will beat Paul Ryan. Marina is fluent in Spanish, holds a Master’s Degree in Nonprofit Management and Leadership and is working to make the world a better place for her 1.5 year old son Rafael.

Mat Hanson

State Director — D.C. Working Families

Mat is a dedicated organizer who works to build progressive political power though fights for economic and social justice. Since 2013, Matthew has successfully built coalitions and run legislative campaigns that have raised wages for over half a million workers in Maryland and Washington, DC. Prior to his work in the DC/Maryland area, Matthew worked for a variety of community and labor organizations, including AmeriCorps and an international labor rights campaign in Mexico City, Mexico. In 2012, he joined the Working Families Party and organized the Mid-Hudson Valley 99%, a grassroots coalition that ultimately helped unseat a Tea Party Member of Congress. In 2016 he was embedded on the Bernie Sanders for President campaign. In addition to his efforts to raise wages at the city, county and state level, Matthew has fought for paid sick days, paid family leave, fair elections, affordable housing and climate justice, among other issues. Matthew has worked as a researcher, organizer and campaigns manager. He graduated from the City University of New York in 2010.

Nelini Stamp

National Organizing Director

Nelini Stamp is the National Organizing Director at the Working Families Party. She works with volunteer leaders across the country to build local progressive infrastructure. Nelini joined the New York Working Families Party staff in 2008; door knocking and field organizing for a variety of electoral campaigns across New York State. Since then, Nelini has been deeply involved in social movement work around economic and racial justice across the country. She worked on the ground at Occupy Wall Street to help bridge the gap between labor, community- based organizations and Occupy activists. Afterward, Nelini co-created the Freedom Side and co-founded Dream Defenders in Florida, which organizes and trains youth in non-violent civil disobedience, civic engagement, and direct action. Lately, as a co-builder of WFP’s Resist Here project, which launched #ResistTrumpTuesdays, she has been chasing Senator Schumer around to make sure he stands up to Trump. You can often find her leading marches, rallies and mic-checking at direct actions.

Rafael Shimunov

National Creative Director

Rafael Shimunov entered the US from JFK Airport himself as a child refugee from Uzbekistan. His live coverage of the JFK protests garnered over 16 million views and helped spark the national airport movement against the Muslim Ban — landing him on CNN where he called for continued mass movements opposing Trump’s entire agenda. As Creative Director for the National Working Families Party, he recently worked on Tax March, Wisconsin’s Randy Bryce campaign, Bernie Sanders and for countless progressive candidates and issue campaigns nationally and for over 12 Working Families state organizations. Prior to WFP, Rafael led digital and creative at the The CCR on cases such as Stop & Frisk (Floyd v. City of New York), on behalf of Sexual Minorities in Uganda (SMUG v. Lively), for survivors of sexual violence taking on the Vatican at the Hague and the UN, and the fight to close Guantanamo Bay. As Associate Director for Communications at PolicyLink, a national think tank, Rafael co-lead data driven campaigns and built and managed online communities of health, education and infrastructure researchers who lobbied policymakers to adopt equity into legislation that impact low income communities and communities of color. Before joining the fight, Rafael helped win Cannes Lions, Webbys, and WebAwards as a digital producer for ad agencies on campaigns for the very same Fortune 500 corporations he designs to challenge today.

Steve Hughes

Working Families International Coordinator

Steve Hughes has worked as a community, union, and political organizer for almost 20 years. Most recently he was the State Director of the Oregon Working Families Party, where he played a key role in the innovative campaign to create the “Oregon State Bank” and led a successful campaign to oust a corporate-backed Democratic member of the Oregon state legislature, which was seen at the time as a national model for the Working Families approach to building independent political power. Getting his start in the alter-globalization movement of the late 1990’s, Steve still counts organizing for the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization as one of his most formative movement experiences. He now lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic where he has been involved with developing international exchanges between the Working Families Party and European left-parties, as well as efforts to create political education and movements support structures in both the United States and Europe.