MEET THE TEAM
Lorena Quiroz
Founder/Director
Lorena Quiroz is a 25-year Mississippi resident. Born in Ecuador, by way of New York, she’s an organizer and mother of three amazing girls; first generation Afro Latinas born in the beautiful Delta flatlands. She is the founder of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, an organization whose purpose is to amplify the voices of marginalized, multi-racial, and immigrant communities by active participation in civic engagement in deconstructing barriers that perpetuate racial, xenophobic, socio-economical, and gender identity and sexuality disparities and oppression.
Promotora Manager
Yudenia Tiza Rodriguez
Yudenia Tiza graduated from Cuban Medical School in 2021. With experience in family medicine for over 10 years in Cuba & Venezuela (2004-2007). She became a first degree specialist in Comprehensive General Medicine in 2005, a teacher since 2009, and graduated as a 1st degree specialist in Intensive & Emergency Medicine in 2015 in Havana. Her experiences as an immigrant linked her to OTCC's bilingual tutoring program for the Latino community in Ridgeland. She joined the Madison county school's system as an ELL tutor during 2018-2021. In 2022, she joined IAJE as a preventive medicine consultant, where she currently manages the "Promotoras de Salud" program, a health prevention platform with educational interventions aimed at the family.
Isela Gonzalez
Lead Promotora
Isela Gonzalez is an immigrant of Mexican origin, who graduated from the Instituto Tecnológico del Mar Veracruz as a Business Administrator. She emigrated to the U.S. 20 years ago and has made Mississippi her home. A mother of 4 children, Isela has been very involved in the affairs of the community in which she lives, raising her voice for fellow immigrants like her.
In 2021, she joined IAJE as a Community Health Promoter, (Promotora de Salud), and graduated with the first group of Health Promoters. Currently, she continues to work with her colleagues and coordinate health activities and events in the communities of central Mississippi and the Delta.
In addition to being a community leader where she lives, she continues to help her people to stay organized.
Lauren Lewis
Operations & Rapid Response
Lauren Gabriela Lewis is a Delta native with experience in advocacy work around public health safety, herbalism, reproductive justice and healing as abolition. As an organizer, Lauren has interviewed for MS Black Women’s Roundtable, Top of Mind Podcast, and was a panelist at the Yale School of Public Health at the height of the Jackson Mississippi Water Crisis. Lauren uplifts food sovereignty as a founding member of Jackson's Food Policy Council and beginner farmer. Lauren has affection for youth and in the future hopes to have her own after-school space to teach growing minds. She believes children are entitled to a safe space where they can learn the value of imagination, music, critical thinking, and reading while applying social and comprehension skills.
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Newest Team Members
Team Member | Name | Role | Email |
|---|---|---|---|
Sasha Lewis | Youth Organizer | sasha@iajems.org | |
Veronica Ponce Deleon | Cultural Organizing | cultura@iajems.org | |
Crystal Lopez Salinas | Youth Organizer | crystal@iajems.org |