Making Another World Possible: Bio of Presenters

Lidy Nacpil
Lidy Nacpil is the international coordinator of Jubilee South, a Philippines-based global NGO monitoring the work of international financial institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the Japanese Bank and the Asian Development Bank and the debt situation in the Third World. The Jubilee South network is in the process of emerging and developing as an international south movement on debt cancellation.Lidy started her career as an activist campaigning for the end of dictatorship in the Philippines. In 1987, her first husband was killed by the military. Left alone with a baby daughter, Lidy continued to work for social justice. Since 1993, Lidy has worked on issues of national debt and economic injustice. Today she is considered one of the international experts on the subject.

Neva Walker
The first Black woman to serve in the Minnesota Legislature in the state’s 145-year history, Neva Walker made history when she was sworn into office in January 2001. Currently, Neva is one of just four people of color serving in the State House of Representatives. A graduate of South High School, Walker now represents the Minneapolis neighborhood in which she was raised, District 61B. A community organizer, Neva is a product of the Sabathani Community Center, where her mother, Clarissa, started and continues to run a program that helps area families with food, clothing and other necessities and services. Neva was part of a staff delegation that visited New Orleans post Katrina. She saw first hand, both the devastation of the storm as well as the one that was man-made. As a strong advocate for Katrina evacuees in Minnesota, Neva is working closely with Sabathani Community Center to organize Katrina evacuees to secure and fight for services and essential resources for the long term.

LaTosha Brown
From her Atlanta home, former Gulf Coast resident, LaTosha Brown and a few friends watched the man-made catastrophe unfold in the wake Hurricane Katrina. Saving Our Selves (SOS) was formed in response to the devastation and the long-term issues which Katrina and Rita revealed and worsened. As a founding member of SOS, LaTosha works with a coalition of more than 115 groups with ties to low- and moderate- income rural communities in the South. SOS works directly to organize Katrina victims and the larger affected communities to fight for access to health care, affordable housing, adequate housing and education, sustainable jobs, and a safe environment. LaTosha Brown has worked as a community organizer and activist for the past ten years throughout the country. She has worked on a variety of social issues including youth development, public housing, felony disenfranchisement, education reform, rural development, civic participation and social program advocacy. She is the founder of the Community Empowerment Project, the Alabama Coalition on Black Civic Participation and the Alabama Alliance to Restore the Vote in her native state of Alabama.

Marcela Olivera
For five years, Marcela Olivera has been a key international liaison for the Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida (Coalition in Defense of Water and Life). Marcela is a leader of the Cochabamba water revolt. She helped to organize the popular uprising against the privatization of their water system by the World Bank and Aguas del Tunari, a consortium of local and international capital, including Bechtel of the US. Water rates skyrocketed up to 200% and people were forced to choose between rent, food and water. Local peasants, incredibly, were forbidden by law from collecting rainwater which henceforth became the property of Aguas del Tunari. Faced with the rebellion, the government eventually caved in. The water project was abandoned. Marcela continues to work to strengthen the water committees in Cochabamba in order to ensure protection of water as a human right.

Angela Sanbrano
For Angela Sanbrano, Executive Director of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) since 1997, personal and community empowerment has been a motivating force throughout her life. In addition to her work at CARECEN, she is a trustee of The Hazen Foundation and sits on the boards of many organizations including the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of L. A. (CHIRLA). Born in Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico in 1945, Sanbrano grew up in El Paso with her parents, six brothers, two sisters and extended family. Following high school, she worked as a sewing machine operator in the garment industry in El Paso. In 1963, she moved to California where she held jobs as a sales clerk and as the secretary for an Elementary Bilingual Education Program. Angela joined the administrative staff of CARECEN and was appointed Director in 1997.