Chuck Kaufman is National Co-Coordinator of the Alliance for Global Justice. He has been a leader of the Central and Latin America solidarity movements since joining the staff of the Nicaragua Network in 1987. He gave up his successful advertising business out of disgust at Congress’ cowardice during the Iran-Contra scandal. He went on his first coffee picking brigade to Nicaragua that same year. Chuck has been in the front ranks of the movements to support the right of people in Latin America and the Caribbean to dignity, sovereignty, and self-determination. He has led delegations to Nicaragua, Venezuela, Haiti and Honduras.
Chuck has written and spoken often about US democracy manipulation programs through the National Endowment for Democracy and US Agency for International Development as well as what he calls the need to look to the Abolition Movement as our inspiration to change the culture of US militarism. He is a board member of the Latin America Solidarity Coalition and a leader of the LASC’s effort to build a stronger movement to oppose US militarism and the militarization of relations with Latin America. He was a founder of the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition and has spoken at most of the major Washington, DC anti-war demonstrations. He is a board member of the Honduras Solidarity Network and a founder of the Venezuela Solidarity Network. He has a B.A. in Government and Politics from George Mason University. His first political activism was as a high school student in 1969 when he organized student walk-out in four county high schools in his native Indiana.
Elane Spivak Rodriguez is the Fiscal Sponsorship Coordinator for the Alliance for Global Justice. She also leads AfGJ human rights solidarity delegation to Nicaragua and Honduras and is an active with the Honduras Solidarity Network. Coordinating with our 90+ fiscally sponsored projects, Elane works to bring the work of our fiscally sponsored projects together to build a stronger more unified grassroots movement.
Eduardo Garcia is an activist and photojournalist born in Mexico City. His work has been focused primarily on the struggles of indigenous peoples in Mexico, Central American migration, forced disappearance and social movements in Latin America. His work as a researcher and photographer has gotten him involved with the Undocumented Migrant Project of the University of Michigan. Eduardo is also co-founder of the Michigan Solidarity Network with Mexico and co-founder of the Militarization in the Americas Research Collective. He studied Political Science at the Universidad de las Americas Puebla, with special interest in political philosophy and Latin American Studies. Eduardo is a former SOA Watch member, where he collaborated as the Media and Communications coordinator, research consultant and organizer. Today he coordinates AFGJ’s Prison Imperialism Project and supports the solidarity work in Honduras.
James Patrick Jordan has lived in Tucson, Arizona since 1983, where he has a long history of grassroots organizing. His main duties at AfGJ are the facilitation of AfGJ’s labor, ecological, and Colombia solidarity campaigns, and he is part of AfGJ’s teams for the prison imperialism project, and the Respect for Democracy campaign against US interference in foreign elections.
Natalia Schuurman is a co-coordinator, researcher and writer for AFGJ. Natalia was born in Gdańsk, Poland and raised in Chicago, where she got involved in independent left political organizing and artistic activism. Since then, her work has broadened to include research in sociology, political science and international relations, project development for social justice initiatives, student-worker solidarity, leftist coalition-building, international solidarity activism, popular education efforts and grassroots feminist organizing. Natalia currently coordinates for AFGJ’s Human Rights School and is a co-author of various reports and publications. Natalia has a B.A. in Global Studies from St. Edward’s University with concentrations in geopolitics and Latin America.
Maya Hernández is a National Co-Coordinator at Alliance for Global Justice. Her work centers on border militarization and border imperialism in the U.S. and across Latin America. She also works with the Fiscal Sponsorship team at AFGJ. Maya has a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Anthropology from Lewis & Clark College. She believes in an intersectional and inclusive movement for justice and liberation.
Madeline McClure is part of the fiscal sponsorship team and coordinates The People, Yes, AfGJ’s monthly podcast. She comes from two decades of working in the service industry and was radicalized through farmwork and an AfGJ delegation to Honduras in 2013 as an electoral observer. Her passion lies in language and in her free time she writes poetry and offers English classes to her community.
Evelyn Medina is part of the finance team. She works closely with a dedicated group of staff members who contribute on the day-to-day record-keeping and reporting. Some of Evelyn’s other areas of focus involve bookkeeping and payroll.
Eunice Escobar is a grassroots activist and organizer, co-founder of Cuentos Foundation, the organization created to provide a venue for local artists in Chicago and Mexico to share their stories and art. Eunice is involved in solidarity work with the Afro-Colombians and indigenous communities, and other Latin-American grassroots solidarity work. Since 2007, Eunice had led multiple delegations to Colombia, primarily composed of People of Color, to visit indigenous and Afro-Colombian territories in the interest of changing solidarity models and connecting the struggles of the African diaspora.
