Facilitators & Teaching Artists

 

Here are some of Power of Hope's familiar faces you might recognize at summer camp!

SARA KENDALL
Sara is a facilitator, artist and activist. Currently, Sara is a Lead Facilitator with Power of Hope, the Director of Programming at Leave Out Violence (LOVE) BC, and the facilitator of a community choir called the Cultural Medicine Cabinet.

Sara’s experience in arts-based youth empowerment processes, international solidarity, alternative media production and civic activism conspire with her practices in circus, hip hop and interdisciplinary performance to create a working life that is dedicated to serving community with passion and joy.

 Sara is a Lead Facilitator at camps and other Power of Hope programs.

RUPINDER SIDHU
Rupinder Sidhu is a Vancouver-based performance artist and facilitator. Rup leads programs with a variety of organizations including Power of Hope; Safe Teen, a violence prevention and gender awareness program; Access to Media Education Society, an organization dedicated to putting media tools in the hands of marginalized people: The Sarah MacLaughlin Music Outreach, a free inner-city music school; and his own initiative Metaphor, a program dedicated to bringing hip hop performances and workshops into schools, detention centers and rural communities.  Rupinder has been lead hundreds of programs around the globe for the past 13 years.

Rup is a Lead Facilitator at camps and other Power of Hope programs.

GINA SALA
Gina Salá is a singer, chant leader, vocal coach, and composer with a repertoire spanning the world.

She has performed at the US Pentagon, the US Capital, the United Nations, and served as principal vocalist for Cirque du Soleil's "O." She has collaborated with numerous artists on recordings, including Seattle's Peter Buck (of REM), Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees), and Tulku and is featured on the documentary "Sing: A Healing Community Celebration.” She also leads tours and chanting internationally and works regularly with youth through The Power of Hope.

Gina is a Lead Facilitator at camps and other Power of Hope programs.

MAUREEN NELSON
Maureen first joined POH as an AmeriCorps member in 2006.  Since those two years coordinating the regular in-school and after school programs, Maureen has experienced practically every realm of POH's work: training and guiding the new Americorps teams, lead facilitation of camps and school year events, new program creation and coordination, staffing youth events, administrative work and more. Originally from Seattle, she graduated from Western Washington University in 2003 with a B.A. in Theatre Education. She has worked with youth in a variety of schools, camps and in-patient facilities, sharing her passion for the arts, youth work, community change and more well-rounded school curriculums and environments.

Maureen is a Lead Facilitator and veteran Teaching Artist (Theatre) with the Power of Hope.

NADIA CHANEY
Nadia Chaney is a poet, writer and arts-based empowerment facilitator focusing on issues of identity, diversity, participatory process and non-violence. Her workshops have reached many communities, from Portland OR to Cortes Island, BC to Johannesburg, South Africa. She has worked with youth in detention, rehab, on probation, in foster care, in US “failing schools," in local community centers, at camps, at conferences, and at almost every school in the BC Lower Mainland. She was named one of BC’s 100 most influential Indo-Canadians in 2008.

 Nadia is a Lead Facilitator for the Power of Hope.

SHERRY SIMON
Sherry Simon (T'selpinek) is from the Skeetchestn Band in the Scewepemc Nation, B.C. Whether with youth or adult groups of 30 to 500 participants, she is an inspirational and dedicated professional who develops and delivers innovative courses. She uses a variety of methods including writing, art, movement, role-plays and creative visualization. Sherry offers a strong Aboriginal role model, advocate and mentor for participants on a journey of self-discovery and personal empowerment.

Sherry is a Lead Facilitator and Teaching Artist with the Power of Hope.

EDUARDO MENDONCA
A native of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Eduardo traces his lineage to a royal African family bearing the hereditary title of Mama Beka ("prophet of the royal court"), as documented by the Instituto Geográfico e Histórico da Bahia. Eduardo Mendonça has lived for the past ten years in the Seattle area. He began performing in Seattle, and traveling throughout the United States and Canada with the Bakra Bata steel drum band. Now, he has his own group known as  Show Brazil!, which has gained much recognition in the past eleven years. Show Brazil! has played throughout Western Washington and Brazil at events and locations such as the Folklife Festival, Bumbershoot, Seattle Children's International Festival, BrasilFest, Redmond Arts in the Parks, Taste of Bellevue,  Hispanic/Latin Month, Fiestas Patrias, Fall Fandango, Fat Tuesday, Sundiata Festival, World Rhythm Festival, Earth Day Festival, West Seattle Street Festival, Marymoor Heritage Festival, Brazilian Carnaval and the Catholic University of Salvador (Brazil).

He also had the honor to play for Pope John Paul II’s welcome to Brazil, former South Africa President Nelson Mandela, Brazilian President Joao Baptista Figueiredo and the 14th Dalai Lama. Eduardo is a voting member of National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences for the GRAMMY awards. Eduardo has been recognized numerous times by myriad cultural, journalistic and educational groups for his significant contributions to the Brazilian community and the community of the Pacific Northwest.

Eduardo is a veteran Teaching Artist (Music, Brazilian Drumming and Percussion) with the Power of Hope.
 

MARIKO IHARA
Mariko is Victoria B.C. native who is honoured to have joined the co-lead team at Power of Hope(as of summer 2008), and is also a dance artist and musician commited to community activation, intergenerational and intercultural alliance and the transformative power of creative play.  She earned a BFA from the University of Utah, and she has been balancing youth work with travel, study, teaching, performance collaboration, cooking, respite care, self-sufficiency life practice, and adventures in Nature.  She has recently returned from an ancestral exploration journey in Japan and looks forward to sharing the harvest with the POH family.

Mariko is a Lead Facilitator and Teaching Artist with the Power of Hope.

JAMIE ROSE EDWARDS
First encountered Power of Hope as a youth, when she attended a summer program in 2000. She has since returned to the organization as a mentor, summer camp manager, and Americorps Volunteers.  Throughout her youth education career, she has coordinated programs on a variety of subjects, such as: mural-arts, creative writing, literary magazine production, and reading literacy. As a graduate in Peace and Global Studies and a recipient of a “Grant for Peace” from Davis Foundation, Jamie-Rose believes that the arts are a powerful medium through which constructive social change may be inspired. 

Jamie Rose is a Teaching Artist (Visual Art) with the Power of Hope.

PEGGY TAYLOR
Peggy Taylor, M Ed, is a writer, musician and creative development specialist with a gift for designing and facilitating programs for diverse groups. She is co-founder of Power of Hope and for many years served as co-director. In 2007 she co-founded PYE Global (Partnership for Youth Empowerment), an international training organization dedicated to supporting communities globally in providing arts empowerment programs for their youth. Peggy is co-author of Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life, which has sold over a quarter of a million copies worldwide.

 
HANIF FAZAL
Hanif Fazal is a Power of Hope lead facilitator and owner and director of Inside Out Development, a training organization based in Portland, Oregon. Hanif has extensive experience working with youth of all levels of risk ranging from gang affiliation to sex offenders to some our most socio-economically privileged youth. Hanif works throughout North America providing empowerment, diversity, and intervention trainings for middle school and high school students, teachers, and youth work professionals.