Leadership

Silvestro Akara Bakhiet, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board

Silvestro Akara Bakhiet is a Sudanese national having many family members who were persecuted, killed or displaced in the civil war in Sudan fought from approximately 1983 to 2005. He fled his village of Pageri in Eastern Equatoria, Sudan, went to Egypt, eventually arrived in the United States, and became a U.S. citizen in 2009. Silvestro is the founder and Chairman of New Sudan Generation, a non-profit organization dedicated to rebuilding his native home. He is also a frequent lecturer on Sudan.

Mohamed E. Suleiman, Director and President

Mohamed Suleiman is a native of North Darfur and a member of the Zaghawa tribe. He is currently a resident of Northern California and a member of the Darfur Leaders Network. His village, Umbarow, was burned and destroyed by the Goverment of Sudan and Janjaweed. Mr. Suleiman lost members of his family in the Darfur genocide; his mother and siblings still reside in Darfur. Today, 13,000 individuals reside in a camp for displaced persons near the remains of Umbarow. Mr. Suleiman’s activism includes spreading awareness of the depth and extent of the genocide through his blog, “While We Wait” at www.whilewewaitsudan.org. He also translates English language news and advocacy into Arabic and posts these materials on the Internet. He was named a “Darfur Hero” by the Save Darfur Coalition in October 2007.

Martina W. Knee, Director and Secretary

Martina Knee has been a part of teams that organized numerous awareness and educational events and participated in lobby efforts for Darfur and Sudan on Capitol Hill, at the U.S. State Department, the California legislature and the City and County of San Francisco. She is a 2009 Carl Wilkens Fellow of the Genocide Intervention Network (GINet) and a member of the Advisory Board of the Human Rights Center at University of California, Berkeley. Martina was the Northern California Director of GINet’s 2009 Pledge to Protect National Canvass, an effort to build a broad base of support in advance of legislation implementing key provisions of the Genocide Prevention Task Force Report of 2008. She is a member of the Jewish Community Relations Council and a recipient of the JCRC’s 2008 Honorable Tom Lantos Memorial Humanitarian Award. She was named a “Darfur Hero” by the Save Darfur Coalition in October 2007. Martina is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and the descendant of six Holocaust victims and works to end and prevent genocide in honor of her ancestors. She previously practiced corporate and securities law for over twenty years. She earned her J.D. from The UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law and her B.A. from The University of California, Berkeley.

Gerri Miller, Director and Vice President

Gerri Miller is an educator and community organizer who has worked for the end of the Darfur genocide since 2003. She is the founder and coordinator of Dear Sudan, Love Marin, a grassroots organization which has mobilized residents of Marin County, California, to work toward the end of genocide in Darfur. She has served on committees which have organized rallies, vigils, educational events, art exhibits, films, and other events about Darfur and Sudan. She has participated in lobbying events with Congress and the California state legislature. Gerri is a member of the Jewish Community Relations Council and in 2008 was a recipient of the JCRC Honorable Tom Lantos Humanitarian Award.

Stephen McNeil, Director and Treasurer

Stephen McNeil is Assistant Regional Director for Peacebuilding Work with American Friends Service Committee, a non-sectarian Quaker organization that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. He is on the Board of Directors of the Friends Committee on National Legislation in Washington, DC, a Quaker lobby in the public interest that has a Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict Program (www.fcnl.org) and Volunteers in Asia which supports exchanges and placements in Asia. Since 2004 he has served with the San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition.

Nikki Serapio, Executive Committee Member

Nikki Serapio has been involved in Sudan advocacy since 2004. He was a founder and lead coordinator of Stanford’s chapter of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, and currently maintains the Sudan advocacy and community organizing resource OurPledge.org. He is especially interested in using technology and new media to help strengthen and scale both the Sudan and anti-genocide movements.

Charlotte Hill, Committee Member

A recent graduate of UC Berkeley’s Peace and Conflict Studies department, Charlotte spent the past several years studying how student activism in the U.S. has helped drive the movement to end genocide and mass atrocities. In the process, she served both locally and nationally with STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, facilitating the creation and maintenance of youth activist networks across the country.

Charlotte currently serves as the social media fellow for EARN and co-manages an internet-based start-up, Charlotte’s Web Strategies, providing social networking and media management for non-profit organizations and socially minded businesses. She writes daily for Change.org’s Poverty in America and Human Rights causes and continues to stay active in the anti-genocide community through her service as a 2010 Carl Wilkens Fellow with the Genocide Intervention Network.

Janet Bran, Executive Committee Member and Web Support

Janet Bran is a technical writer and web designer. She has provided pro bono communication and web service to non-profits for many years. ”The San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition leadership teams personal connection with Sudanese people, ability to educate people about Sudan, and commitment to advocate policy to U.S. leaders has inspired me to support the people of Sudan and people in the world who suffer from genocide.”

Andrei Glase, Executive Committee Member

Andrei Glase serves as liason to various faith communities in the Bay Area. She created the first interfaith prayer service for Darfur in San Francisco in Sept. 2006. She attends interfaith meetings and events including Pacifica Institute, Interfaith Center at the Presidio, North American Interfaith Network, and San Francisco Interfaith Council. Most active in Church Women United, a national organization of Christian women devoted to prayerful action, she attended its national Gathering in 2008 when she proposed a policy resolution on Darfur which was passed and accepted by the national leadership. Andrei is currently working on a multigenerational art project advocating world peace.

Meet Martina and Gerri. The following interview video is from The Honorable Tom Lantos Memorial Humanitarian Award given to Martina Knee, Gayle Donsky, and Gerri Miller. Our own Martina Knee and Gerri Miller talk about what makes them get involved in Sudan and care about the plight of people around the world.