Community Accountability Project

Who We Are

Nine women from across Chicago guide our work. We call ourselves the Community Accountability Planning Group:

Jennifer Curley is a member of F.I.R.E. (Female Storytellers Igniting Revolution to End Violence), a survivor-led group taking action against domestic violence at the community level. Jen brings both her experiences as a survivor and in organizing to her work. Jen began her work in this movement in college, organizing students to bring awareness to and stop sexual violence on their campus and has also organized around housing, homelessness, and reproductive rights. Jen holds a Masters degree in Social Service (MSS) and a Masters degree in Law and Social Policy (MLSP) from Bryn Mawr College.

Sabrina Hampton received her BA in Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Seattle. She presently works as the senior Training Coordinator with the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women Network. Prior to her position with the Network, Ms. Hampton spent seven years in the domestic violence field as a counselor, advocate and community organizer with the Chicago Abused Women Coalition. Ms Hampton has facilitated groups for court mandated Batterers’ Education and conducted training on working with Batterer’s Intervention Programs. Ms. Hampton continues her community outreach by participating in numerous committees and presenting to different organizations about social justice issues.

Mariame Kaba has been active in the anti-violence against women and girls movement since 1989. Her experience includes coordinating emergency shelter services at Sanctuary for Families in New York City, serving as the co-chair of the Women of Color Committee at the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network, working as the prevention and education manager at Friends of Battered Women and their Children and being a member of Incite! Women of Color against Violence. Mariame is also a member of the editorial board of the journal Violence Against Women. She is the co-editor [along with Michelle VanNatta] of a special issue of the journal about teen girls’ experiences of and resistance to violence to be published in December 2007. She is currently an adult supporter and ally of the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team. Mariame has been an activist since her teenage years. She is proud to be a founding member and board co-chair of the Chicago Freedom School.

Lu Rocha is an independent domestic violence consultant and trainer. She has been an advocate for survivors of domestic violence for twelve years. This work has included course instruction on Violence Against Women as a Human Rights Violation, as a visiting faculty at DePaul University; work with Take Back the Halls; and board membership at the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Ana Romero is Director of the Centralized Training Institute, at the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network. She is a social justice activist with 20 years of experience working in the anti-violence against women movement. Ana is committed to building up international solidarity among women of color, indigenous people and the working class. She has been actively involved in grassroots organizing and systemic advocacy in her native country Mexico, as well as in Spain, the Philippines and United States. She has served as board member of the Chicago Anti-Racism Institute, the International Coalition to Support the Peoples of Mexico and The Voice of the Oppressed. She is co-founder of the Casa Segura Project, a grassroots initiative incubated in the Chicago Pilsen & Little Village communities, which focuses on violence against women and new models of community intervention.

Ann Russo is Associate Professor and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies Program at DePaul University. Her scholarship and teaching are in the areas of feminist, critical race, and sexuality theories and politics; women, gender, violence and resistance; social justice advocacy and activism. She is the author of Taking Back Our Lives: A Call to Action in the Feminist Movement and co-editor of Talking Back, Acting Out: Women Negotiate the Media Across Cultures and of Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism.  Together with Melissa Spatz, she is co-author of Communities Engaged in Resisting Violence.  She has been active in local and national efforts addressing issues of sexual and domestic harassment and violence in relationships and institutions (education, prison, industry). She currently serves on the board of the Women & Girls Collective Action Network.

Melissa Spatz is the founding Director of the Women & Girls Collective Action Network. She has worked for over 17 years in the areas of women’s rights and community organizing. As a law student, she co-founded the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law; authored an article on legal defenses for wife murder; and interned at Human Rights Watch Women’s Rights Project as well as AGHS Legal Aid Cell, a women’s law office in Lahore, Pakistan. As an attorney in Chicago, she specialized in domestic violence and family law for the Legal Assistance Foundation and Life Span. She worked for seven years at Blocks Together, a grassroots community-based organization on Chicago’s west side, serving as co-Executive Director for 5 years. She is the author of the report At A Crossroads: Youth Organizing in the Midwest, and co-author, with Ann Russo, of Communities Engaged in Resisting Violence.  Melissa served as a founding board member of the Chicago Freedom School.

Michelle VanNatta is currently Director of Criminology at Dominican University. Her teaching and research focus on domestic violence, sexual assault, the social process of criminalization, and abuse of women by the prison industrial complex. She is on the board of Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers, has volunteered as the assistant director for the Illinois Clemency Project for Battered Women, and has served on the editorial boards of Beyondmedia’s Women and Prison Website and the Thora Institute’s Black Directions Report.

Nadeja Wesley has worked professionally on various statewide policy and education initiatives, including family support, anti-violence and affordable housing.  She is an anti-oppression and anti-violence trainer for students, professionals and community-based organizations, and dedicates her activism toward youth, women, members of the LGBTI community and other historically marginalized populations.  Nadeja received her Master of Social Work from the University of Iowa and serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.   She served on the board of directors for the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice and is one of the founding board members of the Chicago Freedom School.