The people behind MOSAIC

Michelle Falcón Fontánez

Michelle Falcón Fontánez is an award-winning storyteller working in photography, film, theater, and installation art. Michelle has witnessed and personally experienced injustices that have shaped her views of the world, motivating her pursuit of making change through art. Her artistry has primarily focused on social issues, where she has created work to amplify voices that have not been heard. 

Michelle’s projects have received support from Art Workspace Easthampton (AWE) Studio Residency Program, ECA Artist Grants Initiative, El Corazón/The Heart of Holyoke, the New England Foundation for the Arts’ Public Art for Spatial Justice Program, with funding from The Barr Foundation, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and the City of Boston, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, 2020 ValleyCreates Rapid Response, The Ethics and the Common Good Project, CBD Project Grant, The Sander Thoenes Research Award, Elma Lewis Community-Centered Grant, New England Film Star Finalist, Cambridge, and the Cultural Councils of Holyoke, Springfield, Northampton, and South Hadley. Michelle holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Hampshire College with concentrations in Business Management and Film. Currently, she is strengthening her artistry as a candidate in the MFA Film and Media Arts Program at Emerson College.

Florence Afanukoe

Florence Afanukoe is a Pittsfield High School Alumni who was born in Côte d’Ivoire and moved to the United States in 2008. Currently, she is a junior at the University of Bridgeport, studying Health Sciences with a concentration in Public Health. Florence is a strong advocate for social justice and equity and hopes to continue using this passion in her future career to help diversify healthcare systems and solve health inequalities in her community.

Rhonda Anderson

Rhonda Anderson is Iñupiaq – Athabascan from Alaska. Her Native enrollment village is Kaktovik. Her life work most importantly is as a Mother, as well as a classically trained Herbalist, Silversmith, and activist. She works as an educator within area schools and the Five College Consortium near her home in Massachusetts. Rhonda has sat on several Indigenous panels and roundtables to discuss how to implement the Hyde Amendment within all IHS institutions across the United States, how to better educate Native students in Massachusetts, issues regarding Native teen drug and alcohol use, land acknowledgments, land back movement, Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, and reproductive rights. Her activism ranges from removal of mascots, Water Protector, Indigenous identity, and protecting her traditional homelands in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from extractive industry.

Rhonda is Western Massachusetts Commissioner on Indian Affairs, founder and Co-Director of the Ohketeau Cultural Center and the Native Youth Empowerment Foundation. Rhonda has been recognized for her work by the Massachusetts State Senate and the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women as a 2021 Commonwealth Heroine.

Dayna Campbell

Dayna Campbell is an Assistant Professor at American International College in the School of Health Sciences, Public Health program in Springfield and Adjunct Instructor at Holyoke Community College in the Foundations of Health, Community Health Worker certificate program. She is currently the President of the Board of Directors and Co-Executive Director of the Women of Color Health Equity Collective (formerly MotherWoman, Inc.), a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the empowerment and resilience of Women of Color, families, and communities.

Dayna is a trainer in cultural humility and community-based participatory research and has spent the past two decades training future public health professionals, especially in the areas of population health, health education and promotion, and program planning and development. Dayna is an experienced lecturer, trainer, and researcher in the areas of diversity and inclusion, cultural humility, culturally responsive planning and evaluation, and disparities in health status and outcomes. Women’s health has dominated her research, particularly as it relates to reproductive health and pregnancy outcomes. She received her Graduate degrees from the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina.

Lynnette Elizabeth Johnson

Lynnette Johnson is a local poet, performing artist, voice actor, and event host. She is a mother, a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, an avid napper, and a taco connoisseur. She has published four collections of poetry, and her most recent book—”Supreme”— was also a one-woman show. Lynnette’s primary focus in poetry is to edify women and Black folk. She discusses relationships, injustice, God, love, and unlove with a little humor and plenty of vulnerability. Lynnette looks forward to continuing to use her art to uplift and connect.

Ysabel Garcia

Ysabel Garcia is a first-generation Dominican immigrant with a bold and ambitious mission to dive heart first into raw and honest conversations about mental health, equity, and suicide prevention. She is a social justice educator, skilled dialogue facilitator, wounded healer, and disruptor of systems of oppression.

As a psychiatric system survivor, Ysabel has witnessed the harmful effects of mainstream mental health practices, which often ignore the social and cultural factors underlying mental health issues. Still, she shows an endearing sense of humor during typically dark discussions, and her ability to talk openly about her experiences of pain inspires others to do the same.

Her messaging and personality come to life as the founder of Estoy Aqui LLC. This organization provides suicide prevention training and social justice education to institutions primarily serving Latino/Latinx and Black communities that prioritize socially just and culturally congruent services.

Ysabel has earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Child Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Bay Path University. She enjoys listening to South Korean Pop, watching documentary films, and connecting with friends at her favorite cafe bookstore.

Vanessa Martinez

Originally from San Sebastian, Puerto Rico, Vanessa E. Martinez-Renuncio, PhD, is a Professor of Anthropology and the Honors Program Coordinator at Holyoke Community College. As a professor, she engages students as storytellers, and question askers and knowledge producers, showing how learning and critical thinking flow in multiple directions, whether it is teacher-to-student, student-to-teacher, student-to-student, and/or student-to-self. She is also the Director of Operations, Clerk, and Research Chair for the Women of Color Health Equity Collective.

Vanessa has served on numerous committees, both in her role at Holyoke Community College and in her work with the larger Connecticut River Valley community. She is a trained cultural and medical anthropologist whose community-based research specializes in health equity and culturally responsive pedagogy. Vanessa is an experienced teacher, trainer, and researcher in the areas of anti-oppression and equity, cultural humility, community-based participatory research, and culturally responsive pedagogy as it relates to health, education, and other social issues, including policing and immigration. Vanessa received her Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology from Columbus State University, her Master of Arts degree in Applied Anthropology from Georgia State University, and her PhD in Anthropology from UMass Amherst.

Alisha Rodriguez (she/her)

Alisha is a 2021 graduate from Springfield High School of Science and Technology. She is an Aquarius but also has quite a bit of fire placement (astrologically speaking). She likes fashion, reading, and walking on nice thick grass. According to Alisha, if you google “hippie witch,” you will find a picture of her. Along with being an interviewer in the film, she is a member of the Youth Health Equity Advisory Board.

Arthur Wright

Arthur Wright grew up in Elizabethtown, North Carolina, in a segregated community. In his boyhood, he attended school for half days and worked in his father’s pulpwood business in Conway, South Carolina, using a cross-cut saw. In his teenage years, he became a bus driver for the public school system. In the late 1960s, Arthur migrated North to Berkshire County, where he lived and raised his family. He started out working as a chef at locations throughout the Berkshires. He then created his own business — “You Call We Haul” — hauling junk cars, while also working as an elevator operator at a local manufacturing business. After leaving that position, he created another business of his own as a limousine driver. He later partnered with Mark Formel, continuing to haul junk cars. Retiring at the ripe old age of 90, Arthur now spends his time enjoying his family and his home. BRIDGE became a comfort and support to him when no one was listening.

Brenda D. Evans, MPH

Co-Chair of the WMHEN Film Summit Planning Committee

Brenda D. Evans is a lifelong resident of Springfield, Massachusetts, and a double alum of UMass Amherst. She has more than 20 years of education and experience in the public health field, which includes training, healthcare workforce development, and community engagement. She is dedicated to population health and health equity via advocacy and intersectional systematic change to achieve optimal health for all.

Brenda’s public health career includes more than 10 years at the City of Springfield Department of Health & Human Services and serving as Director of the Pioneer Valley Area Health Education Center (PV AHEC), a healthcare workforce development program with a youth component and an adult workforce component. She was a founding member and the director of the Community Outreach Worker Network (COWNT) Coalition of Western Massachusetts, providing support, training, and networking opportunities for Community Health Workers from 2006-2016. She is currently Community Research Liaison for the Center for Community Health Equity Research at UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences, connecting faculty researchers with community-based entities with aligned interests to perform community-based participatory research or community-engaged research. She is also the founding director of the Community Health Workers Coalition of Greater Springfield.

Sasha N. Jimenez

Co-Chair of the WMHEN Film Summit Planning Committee

Sasha N. Jimenez has been an advocate in her community for a decade. Born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, to a Puerto Rican mother and Dominican father, she serves as the Community Outreach Manager for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. Her work includes leading HIV prevention efforts in Springfield, as well as collaborating with community partners around the importance of sexual and reproductive health. Sasha currently resides in Holyoke and hopes to expand sexual and reproductive health access to all, regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, gender identity, and immigration status.

Tiarra Fisher

Film Interviewer, WMHEN Film Summit Planning Committee member, Co-Founder of the Youth Health Equity Advisory Board

Tiarra Fisher is a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, born and raised in Worcester. Currently she is a Masters of Public Health student at UMass Amherst, focusing on community health education. She has an interest in participatory action research surrounding the identification of root causes of health inequities to implement long-term, sustainable solutions for communities in Massachusetts.

Over the past few months, Tiarra has assisted with the facilitation of the Youth Health Equity Advisory Board under the Western Massachusetts Health Equity Network (WMHEN); she also participated in this film project as an offscreen interviewer. She has enjoyed learning from participant experiences and engaging in visioning activities with Youth Advisory Board members to imagine a better and healthier future. In a world without White supremacy, Tiarra envisions communities built from relationships of reciprocity, where the unlearning of oppressive frameworks is continuous.

Risa Silverman

Coordinator, Western MA Health Equity Network, a project of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts

Risa has more than 35 years of experience working as a community organizer and public health networker throughout Western Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and California. She founded and directs the Office for Public Health Practice and Outreach at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health & Health Sciences, building connections among students, faculty, and community partners for the past 25 years. She created the Western Massachusetts Health Equity Network (WMHEN) in 2014 to address this region’s unique health equity and justice issues. She teaches Community Development in Health Education to UMASS Amherst undergraduates, and she has served on boards and committees of Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture and the Massachusetts Public Health Association Policy Council. Most recently, Risa began to serve as an ally with the Women of Color Health Equity Collective.

For two years of the pandemic, Risa served as Co-Chair for the Professional Staff Union alongside her day job. She has a Master of Public Health degree from UMass Amherst along with bachelor’s degrees in both Peace & Conflict Studies and History from the University of California Berkeley. When COVID became an obstacle to holding the 2022 Western Massachusetts Health Equity Summit, Risa led the effort to commission the film MOSAIC as a centerpiece for smaller events being held throughout the region. In her spare time, she is learning the art of pastels and cooking new foods whenever possible.