Over the last few months, ORAM’s team has grown by 33 percent. With the addition of three new staff members, ORAM will now be able to serve more of the LGBTIQ refugee community and continue to grow as an organization, too. Our Mexico Program Officer and Communications and Development Coordinator, Alexandra and Katie, are ORAM’s two most recent hires.
Alexandra Rodríguez (she/her) is based in Mexico City and started in February as ORAM’s Mexico Program Officer. At the age of 16, Alexandra moved to the U.S., where she found herself at an intersection of identities. Exploring those identities helped her to find meaning in community and advocacy and to develop both personally and professionally – skills that she took with her when she returned to Mexico years later. Alexandra is known for her ability to mobilize and organize her communities – which include transgender people, people living with HIV, trans sex workers, and trans migrants – in order to advocate for human rights and gender equality.
Katie Miller (she/her) is ORAM’s new Communications and Development Coordinator. She lives in Los Angeles and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy and Spanish from the University of Maryland (UMD). Katie is an activist and writer who recently worked for a nonprofit that provides pro bono legal aid to immigrants. Before that, Katie wrote columns for The Washington Post and served as an organizer for political campaigns ranging from local to presidential. She also held roles in communications and research at UMD, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the House of Representatives.
Alexandra and Katie have their work cut out for them. Alexandra will focus on expanding ORAM’s programs in Mexico City and Tijuana, creating new programs in other parts of the country, and facilitating corporate mentorships to help prepare LGBTIQ asylum seekers to enter the Mexican job market. In Los Angeles, Katie will manage communications efforts, help to oversee fundraising and development, and assist with administrative tasks.
When it comes to learning the ins and outs of ORAM, Alexandra and Katie are not alone. Both new staff members can turn to Winfred Wangari (she/her), ORAM’s Kenya-based Livelihoods Officer, for advice and support, since she recently onboarded, too. Based in Nairobi, Winfred has eight years of experience in livelihood programming. Winfred holds a bachelor’s in social science from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, a degree that she has applied over the years to advocate for the economic and financial inclusion and self-reliance of refugees in Kenya. Now, she is pursuing a Master of Business Administration in Global Business and Sustainability, Social Entrepreneurship.
As ORAM’s Kenya-based Livelihoods Officer, Winfred manages ORAM’s economic empowerment programs in Nairobi and at Kakuma Refugee Camp. Winfred is currently working to expand the skills training and seed funding programs that ORAM provides to individuals and micro-enterprises, and her work is enabling the LGBTIQ refugees whom ORAM supports to venture into several new industries: cosmetics, graphic design, tailoring, and catering and food production.
ORAM is lucky to have all three new hires – Alexandra, Katie, and Winfred – please join us in welcoming them to our family!
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