Just Announced! Plenary Speakers for the National Sexual Assault Conference

Survivor, student leader, organizer, advocate, and activist. The plenary speakers at the 2018 National Sexual Assault Conference in Anaheim California embody people taking bold moves to end sexual violence in one generation. Six more speakers have been announced to take the stage. The plenary speakers include Tarana Burke, founder of the ‘metoo.’ Movement, Anabella Aguirre of Ya Basta and SEUI-USWW, KayTeshia Wescott of Menominee Indian High School, Melody Minuet Klingenfuss of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights , Dalton Dagondon Tiegs of the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, Bamby Salcedo of the TransLatin@ Coalition, Farah Tanis of Black Women’s Blueprint, and Lupe Gonzalo of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. They each bring their powerful voice and have been making significant changes with their bold moves to end sexual violence. (Read and learn more about each speaker below.)
The registration for this year’s conference is full with over 1,700 attendees. This is an event that can’t be missed! For more information on how to be added to the waitlist, click here.
Stay connected! For more information and live updates from the conference follow CALCASA’s social media pages.
Use the hashtags #NSAC2018 #BoldMoves

	Anabella Aguirre SEIU-USWW, Executive Board Chair Founding member and instructor of Ya Basta SEIU-USWW, Executive Board Chair. Anabella Aguirre came from Guatemala when she was 19 years old. She left her country because gang members in her country killed her husband. She also left fleeing poverty with three children. When she came to the U.S. she worked taking care of children and cleaning houses. In 2001, she started working in the cleaning industry. She was humiliated and suffered two sexual abuses. At that time, she did not know there was help, and she was harassed at work. She was about to make the decision to quit her job because of everything she had gone through, but a colleague told her that they had a union. From there, she became more involved. She is proud to be a member of USWW, as well as a delegate on her site, She is a Promotra, a self-defense instructor, and SEIU-USWW Executive Board Chair . She decided to break silence and talk about her rape story. In 2016, she participated in a hunger strike in Sacramento to support action to prevent sexual abuse of janitorial workers.
	Bamby Salcedo TransLatin@ Coalition, President and CEO Bamby is a national and international transgender Latina Woman who just obtained her Masters Degree in Latino/a Studies. Bamby is the President and CEO of the TransLatin@ Coalition, a national organization that focuses on addressing the issues of transgender Latin@s in the US. Bamby developed the Center for Violence Prevention & Transgender Wellness, a multipurpose, multiservice space for transgender people in Los Angeles. Bamby’s remarkable and wide-ranging activist work has brought voice and visibility to not only the trans community, but also to the multiple overlapping communities and issues that her life has touched including migration, HIV, youth, LGBT, incarceration and Latin@ communities. Through her instinctive leadership, she has birthed several organizations that created community where there was none, and advocate for the rights, dignity, and humanity for those who have been without a voice.
	Dalton Dagondon Tiegs Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence Dalton immigrated from the Philippines in 2008 to Idaho where their adopted dad and mom found a home in Nampa, ID. They are in their final year at Boise State University studying Ethnic Studies and currently gearing up to practice for the LSAT in hopes of attending law school one day. Currently, Dalton is employed at the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence where they work to center the lived experiences of the most vulnerable in their communities. From day to day, you can find them reading books, organizing within their communities, gardening, doing water color and photography, and being hella queer. Dalton believes wholly that a world where everyone is valued is entirely possible and is on the way. Dalton believes in the power of youth, queer and trans folx of color, and historically marginalized communities in being able to lead the way in transitioning from the decaying world view to the verdant, healing centered, emergent new world.
	Farah Tanis Black Women’s Blueprint, Executive Director Farah Tanis is the co-founder, Executive Director of Black Women’s Blueprint working nationally and at the grassroots to address the spectrum of sexual violence against women and girls in Black/African American communities, and working with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) across the nation on issues of gender, race, sexuality, anti-violence policy and practice. Tanis was the national co-chair of the March for Black Women. She chaired the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the U.S. ever to focus on Black women and their historical and contemporary experiences with sexual assault. Tanis is a NoVo Foundation – Move to End Violence Program, Cohort 3 Movement Maker, a U.S. Human Rights Institute Fellow (USHRN) and a member of the Task Force on the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Until 2017, Tanis served on the Advisory Board of SurvJustice and Faculty Against Rape.
	Lupe Gonzalo Coalition of Immokalee Workers Lupe Gonzalo is a senior staff member and leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). She has worked in the agricultural fields of the United States for the last 12 years as a migrant farmworker, including in the harvesting of tomatoes, citrus, peppers, and many other vegetables and fruits. As part of the Fair Food Program education team, Ms. Gonzalo and her colleagues conduct workers’ rights education in seven states along the East Coast throughout the year. Ms. Gonzalo was also a member of the CIW team working with Futures Without Violence, which collaborated with CIW and other Fair Food Program partners on the first sexual harassment training curriculum for the agricultural sector in the U.S. Ms. Gonzalo’s work at the CIW includes hosting daily radio shows on the CIW’s low-power community FM radio station, leading the weekly women’s group meetings, receiving complaints of abuses in the fields, and managing wage theft claims. Finally, Ms. Gonzalo represents the CIW at a national level, speaking publicly on the challenges faced by farmworkers in Florida, both during major actions with thousands of consumers and in dozens of presentations throughout the year. She was featured on CNN Freedom Project’s recent series on the Fair Food Program, and was named a Community Trailblazer by the Equal Voice Magazine.
	KayTeshia Wescott KayTeshia Wescott attends Menominee Indian High School, she will be a senior the upcoming year. In recent months KayTeshia was chosen to travel to New York to speak in front of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) about the sulfide mining that would not only destroy the Menominee’ Antiquity but destroy the Menominee river that’s located next to the mine. A significant accomplishment for KayTeshia is that she has done a family water walk that her family has done for many years since her grandparents were alive. She has faced many challenges in her life but her spirit stays strong. KayTeshia strength comes from her belief that she has to be a leader for herself, her family, and her people.
	Melody Minuet Klingenfuss Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA)’s California Dream Network, Statewide Organizer Melody Minuet Klingenfuss was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala. After growing up without parents, she was reunited with her mother in the heart of Los Angeles when she was 9-years-old. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Communications and Political Science at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). She graduated with a Master of Nonprofit Leadership and Management from the University of Southern California (USC). She has conducted a research thesis focused on the representation of undocumented students in mass communication.Melody works as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA)’s California Dream Network (CDN) Statewide Youth Organizer as a devoted advocate for human and immigration rights. She is a DACA recipient since 2015. Her life goal is to continue bending the arc of the moral universe towards justice.
	Tarana Burke ‘me too.’ Movement, Founder Tarana has worked in social justice and Black arts and culture for more than twenty-five years. Her long and varied professional career started in Selma, AL where, over the span of a decade, she worked with: the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement helping to develop hundreds of youth leaders across the country; at the National Voting Rights Museum & Institute serving as a curatorial consultant and special projects director helping to organize the annual commemoration and celebration of the Selma Voting Rights Struggle known as the Bridge Crossing Jubilee; and as Executive Director of the Black Belt Arts and Cultural Center where she created and oversaw cultural community programs designed for underserved youth. Tarana’s work in Selma earned her a consulting position with the production of the 2014, Oscar nominated film, SELMA directed by the incomparable Ava DuVernay whom she met while serving as Managing Director of Art Sanctuary, a Black arts organization based in Philadelphia. Tarana is passionate about social justice and has made a lifelong commitment to serving the causes of people of color and marginalized groups with a particular focus on young women and girls. She has done organizing work from the deep South the the East Coast dealing with issues ranging from economic justice to police brutality. Her passion for justice has taken her around the country and the world where she has been invited to speak and present at various conferences and gatherings in multiple states and countries, including: Senegal, Cuba, Mali, and Tunisia as a UN Delegate for the World Summit on Information Systems. In 2003 she turned her focus to young women of color and co-founded Jendayi Aza an African-centered Rites of Passage program for girls. That program eventually evolved into the creation of her non-profit Just Be, Inc. Since its inception, Just Be has served hundreds of girls around the country through unique programming and workshops. Through the work of Just Be, Tarana started the ‘me too.’ Movement, a campaign using the idea of “empowerment through empathy” to help young women of color who are survivors of sexual abuse, assault and exploitation. The campaign is designed to, among other things, train women who are survivors to work in communities of color and fringe communities where there is less access to resources.

Just Announced! Plenary Speakers for the National Sexual Assault Conference

Anabella Aguirre

Bamby Salcedo

Dalton Dagondon Tiegs

Farah Tanis

Lupe Gonzalo

KayTeshia Wescott

Melody Minuet Klingenfuss

Tarana Burke

Find US ONLINE