Aida Manduley, LICSW (they/them & elle/le) is an award-winning Latinx organizer, bilingual clinician, and international presenter known for big earrings and building bridges. Trained as a health educator, social worker, and nonprofit executive, they’re working to make the world a more equitable place and get us all more comfortable with hard conversations. Their 15+ years of training and facilitation experience has yielded a range of successful collaborations with clients ranging from Departments of Health and Ivy League institutions to small grassroots organizations and neighborhood associations. Mx. Manduley is also known for launching Rhode Island's first Sexual Health Education and Advocacy Program housed at a domestic violence agency in 2011, which included groundbreaking data-collection on LGBTQ domestic violence and building the infrastructure to provide on-site HIV testing. Past projects include crisis-response with victims of sexual assault, consulting with state departments on LGBTQ health, and extensive leadership on a number of national and regional coalitions on HIV & STI prevention, BIPOC development, sexuality education, and anti-violence. As a Boston-based therapist, their practice focuses on trauma and communities marginalized due to gender, sexuality, and race. However, they are also devoted to merging clinical acumen with macro efforts through involvement in various projects exploring community-grounded and alternative responses to violence since 2011—including the more recent development of Cambridge HEART and its Mental Health Working Group—as well as the development of clinical treatment guidelines for stigmatized communities.

Ms. Mejia, long-time Cambridge resident and an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, worked as a Social Worker for the Commonwealth, and as a bilingual and mono-lingual teacher in the Boston Public Schools for many years. She was a co-founder of the Community Academy, a school for non-traditional students, and served as a middle school girls soccer coach. She has Masters in Remedial Education from Cambridge College and a Masters in Bilingual Education from Boston University. Ms. Mejia was in the Haymarket People’s Fund board (Jamaica Plain) and with the Cambridge Women’s Commission, the Affirmative Action Committee and for the CEOC, being the interim director for several months. Ms. Mejia hopes to expand awareness of CIRC among Spanish-speaking communities about the work of CIRC and Cambridge resources for Immigrants.

President

Betsey Chace (she/her) is a Cambridge community member and parent of two young adults educated in the Cambridge schools. She was raised in the suburbs outside of Boston, has a BA from Wesleyan University in East Asian Studies and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School. Her career has focused on social service and social justice, both locally and internationally, working primarily in grants, finance, budgeting, and program management roles. Most recently, she directs her efforts to ending the harms of prison and policing. She is the treasurer of Cambridge HEART.