Meet Our Team
The Organizers:
Jamie Lee Evans
Jamie is a 46 year-old mixed race Asian feminist who has spent the last twelve years inventing and implementing youth leadership development programs for California foster youth and young mental health consumers. She is originally from Los Angeles County and grew up believing what she was told about places like San Francisco, namely that it was in another country! Because of poverty and therefore the limited travel experience of her family, five hours away may as well have been another planet. Jamie’s experience as a former foster child with inadequate stability in her earliest years impacted her likelihood to be adventurous as an adult. She honestly admits that she has been afflicted with a habit to cling to the familiar, and she internalized a fear of the unknown, making “travel” only something that “other people do.” At 44, she finally earned enough cash and gained enough guts to make an international trip and it opened up her perspective more than she could have imagined. (Shout out to personal trainer Dante Rodriguez who made Muay Thai training in Thailand sound like the bomb!) One of her new life goals is to help young people travel internationally and to help build community around learning from travel. The Philippines is the second trip of a hopeful many. She thanks her family of choice and community for supporting this learning exchange. Even just the planning has been mind blowing!
Kate Teague
Kate has been the Bay Area/Central Valley Outreach Coordinator at California Youth Connection (CYC) since Day at Capitol 2006. Kate first became involved with CYC as an Americorp intern at the Bill Wilson Center in Santa Clara County when her then supervisor Deryk Clark (a former CYC board member) told her that part of her job would be to attend CYC meetings. After several years of volunteering as a Supporter with the Santa Clara Chapter, and then the Alameda Chapter, she joined the CYC staff. Outside of working at CYC, Kate is also on the Board of Directors for Youth In Mind, a statewide collaboration of youth impacted by the mental health system working to improve the lives of other youth through education and advocacy.
Rebecca Leach
Rebecca Leach currently works for California Youth Connection as a Regional Coordinator. She is passionate about advocacy, youth leadership development, cultural and travel experiences. Rebecca is an experienced traveler and has traveled to East and Western Europe, Costa Rica, Tanzania, Kenya, Egypt and much of the United States. She enjoys immersing herself in local culture and history and believes international travel is a tool to understanding and navigating the world. Travel has allowed Rebecca to grow into a more environmentally and compassionate person. As an alumnus of the foster care system- she recognizes the importance of exposing other former foster youth to travel. She began traveling internationally with the support of her mentor who encouraged her to broaden her worldview and explore! She joined the Foster Youth Cultural Exchange program because she is passionate about giving young adults the opportunity to discover and learn from other cultures and environments. She looks forward to sharing the work of California Youth Connection and learning about youth movements in the Philippines.
Donte Rodriguez
My name is Dante. I am a native of Oakland, CA. My interest in martial arts and physical fitness began at a young age. It is a passion of mine. As I got older, I decided to make my passion my career. I have been a certified personal trainer for the last 6 years. I work with a vast cliental of all types of people: teenagers, elderly people, expecting mothers, and international music entertainers. I have traveled to Asia to train in Qi Gong in China, as well as Muay Thai kickboxing in Thailand. One of the organizations that I have also worked with, the Y.O.U.T.H Training Project, has illustrated the impact that becoming stronger in body and in mind can have on current and former foster youth. Traveling has been a very rewarding and educational experience for me, and I am excited to work with young people as we travel to Philippines.
The 'Youth'
Ipo Ma'e
Ipo MaŹ»e is a 24 year old former foster youth from the island of Molokai.
Ipo recently moved to California to continue her education in Holistic Health and Wellness. Her goal is to form an intentional community and non profit for transition aged and former foster youth that focuses of indigenous holistic healing alternatives. She hopes that through this cultural exchange she will learn more deeply of t
Emma Ramirez
Emma Ramirez, 23 is a 2013 graduate from California State University, Monterey Bay. Emma’s major at CSUMB was Liberal Studies and her minor was in Spanish Language and Hispanic Cultures. While Emma was pursuing her degree, she worked for several on campus programs like Upward Bound, the Educational Opportunity Program, and the Compass Program. The Compass Program is CSUMB’s support program for former foster youth. In all those jobs Emma realized her passion for helping low income, first generation, and at risk youth. Emma also works at a boy’s group home as a staff, and since her graduation at CSUMB as a house parent.
Emma is a former foster youth from San Diego county and entered care with her three older brothers when she was four years old. She relocated to Monterey County in 2008 to begin her studies at CSUMB. Emma is passionate about education in all aspects. She believes that every youth has the right to receive an education, and has the potential to end the cycle of poverty. Emma is also an advocate for foster youth of all ages, and many of the foster youth that she has worked with have graduated from high school and gone off to college. She is a house parent, tutor, and academic advisor for foster youth in Monterey County.
While in the Philippines Emma hopes to do research on the Child Welfare system, poverty, and education. She hopes to look at what she can bring back to the United States to improve the child welfare system, and hopes to build connections with organizations in the Philippines that serve youth and low income families. She hopes to use the information and research that she collects to help her find the right graduate program to pursue her Master’s degree.
Elias Lopez
Eli recently relocated to San Diego and is excited about international travels. The past few years he has traveled throughout the country speaking and training youth in group homes, foster homes, and high schools. He has met with thousands of “high risk” youth, childcare professionals, Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteers, social workers, and others in the field of social work and mental health; to gain a better understanding of systems that many experience. Eli has also partnered up with many organizations that empower and equip both youth and young adults. His passion and drive is to work with others to help them reach and maximize their full potential.
Marcy
Marcy Valenzuela, 25, was born and raised in East Los Angeles and has never traveled outside of the country. She comes from a family where the only person who traveled was her father, and he did that through the military. Marcy has journeyed throughout California and as far as Washington DC acting as an advocate for foster youth, but she pretty much thought she would need to join the military to travel anywhere internationally. She is the caregiver of her three younger siblings and fought hard to keep them out of the larger foster care system so that she could ensure they felt loved. Marcy works hard to provide them an environment in which they can thrive and grow and demonstrate to them that just because they were raised a certain way, they are not destined to keep living life the same as their parents. Marcy says that growing up poor for most people means you just don't hear about travel, it's just not discussed; and as a foster youth, you grow up in a bubble, hardly able to see outside your immediate circumstances and without much hope. Marcy grew up feeling like international travel was only a dream that would never be realized. She is thrilled to learn about Philippine culture, meet activists and organizers and better understand how a people, who live without many resources she takes for granted, can be so happy and create such strong community. She looks forward to sharing her learnings with her siblings. She is committed to take on the challenge of seeing her privilege as an American and translating her experiences in the Philippines to the advocacy work that she and her siblings lead in California.
Lazara Martinez
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