STAFF

Cecilia Clarke, Founder and Executive Director
LeeAnn Fletcher, Senior Program Manager
Promiti Islam, Program Assistant
Shreya Malena-Sannon, Program Director
Tynesha McHarris, Sadie Nash Newark Director
Marisol Zacarias, ELLA Program Coordinator

Cecilia Clarke, Founder and Executive Director (FT) has over 20 years experience in non-profit management.  She began her career as a social worker, counseling women at Fountain House, a residential “club house” program for the mentally ill.  Cecilia then became the Manager of Government Grants at The Brooklyn Museum of Art, where she raised close to $2 million annually.  From the Museum, she moved to The Drawing Center, a not-for-profit exhibition space, as Director of Development, and later was promoted to Associate Director.  At The Drawing Center, Cecilia succeeded in closing an inherited deficit and increased the overall operating budget by 50%.  After three years there, she was appointed Executive Director of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, an organization serving young emerging artists.  During her 5-1/2 year tenure, Cecilia made many financial and infrastructure improvements:  she erased a long-standing deficit, oversaw a highly successful capital campaign, found new and expanded support for scholarships, expanded the Board by 30%, increased the School’s services to its alumni, and improved working conditions for staff members.  During that time, Cecilia also served as an Adjunct Professor in New York University’s School of Education, teaching graduate level non-profit studies.

In addition, Cecilia continued to work with women, volunteering extensively for the Park Slope Safe Homes Project, a community-based domestic violence program.  She also currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy. DMI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to operating in the spirit of the civil rights movement with the goal of fostering courageous leadership, informed citizens and sound public policy.  Cecilia received her B.A. in 1984 from Georgetown University, majoring in History and Art History, with an emphasis on 20th Century American social history.  She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and 24-year-old daughter, Allegra, her 7-year old daughter, Josephine, and her 4 year old son, Simon.  Her first-hand experience as a single-mother raising a teenage daughter provided her essential experience and enthusiasm for this project.

Cecilia founded SNLP in May 2001 and still serves as Executive Director.  She supervises all programmatic and administrative aspects of the organization. She is directly and primarily responsible for fundraising, Board development, administration and management, and program strategy, evaluation, and advancement.

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LeeAnn Fletcher, Senior Program Manager (FT) first came to the Sadie Nash Leadership Project as a Dean for the 2004 Summer Institute.  For SNLP, LeeAnn has also served as a teaching assistant for the Nash University Public Speaking class and taught a Nash U. theatre class. After relocating to New York in 2004, LeeAnn joined the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a progressive public policy think tank, as their Operations Manager / Development Associate.  Originally from Nebraska, LeeAnn is a Cum Laude graduate of Hastings College, where she earned her BA in Communications and Theater Arts. There she was a student leader with the Campus Acquaintance Rape Educators, Girl Power, Public Relations Council, and the Hastings College Artist Lecture Series.  LeeAnn is currently the co-founder of the Vision & Voice Collective, an organization designed to pursue social justice themes through artistic means with youth. 

LeeAnn began full time December 2006 as Program Associate supporting all programmatic aspects of SNLP. In April 2009 she was promoted to Senior Program Manager, overseeing Summer Institute and providing senior level supervision of other programs.  

Promiti Islam, Program Assistant (FT), Promiti moved to NYC after graduating in 2008 from Wesleyan University, where she earned degrees in Anthropology and American Studies. There she was the lead organizer of the Women of Color Collective, founder of the Alliance of Progressive South Asians, member of a Poets Collective, a Wesleyan Diversity Education Facilitator and Dean’s Office Intern for the University Organizing Center. Promiti currently still performs in local artist spaces and is working in conjunction with a local library to begin a reading club for youth interested in literature on social justice and activism.

Promiti first worked for SNLP as a Dean in the Summer Institute in 2008. She began working part time in January 2009 (to cover a maternity leave) and was hired full time as of April. She supports the Senior Program Manager and Program Director in all programmatic aspects of SNLP and serves as Deputy Director of the Summer Institute. She also assists with overall organizational and administrative function.

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Shreya Malena-Sannon, Program Director (FT), is originally from New Delhi, India.  Over the past 10 years, she has worked directly with youth and has learned alongside them.  She co-founded the Baltimore chapter of Peace by P.E.A.C.E., a creative conflict resolution program.  She also worked at Teens Against Gang Violence in Dorchester, MA, a culturally based youth activism program.  In New York, she developed Teen Programming at the Incarcerated Mothers Program; and led year-long co-ed leadership and activism groups as well as a girls group at SAYA! (South Asian Youth Action). She has also assisted with curriculum development on sexual health and teen dating violence for organizations such as the Asian/Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA) and CONNECT, a family and gender violence prevention organization.  In 2005, she returned to India to work at Shikshantar, an applied research institute where she explored urban farming, theatre, video, and art workshops, and natural medicine. Most recently, Shreya worked at Global Action Project as a media educator, working with youth on the production of social justice youth media.

Shreya received her B.A. from Barnard College, with a combined major in Psychology and Sociology and her M.A. from Harvard University Graduate School of Education, with a focus on Risk and Prevention in Adolescence.  She is currently learning about herbal medicine and homeopathy; and through trial and error, teaching herself video production and editing, vegetable farming, and composting. 

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Tynesha McHarris, Sadie Nash Newark Director (PT), started at SNLP spring 2009. Originally from the Bronx, but moving to Newark during high school, at 21 Tynesha became the first Executive Director of Bethany Cares, an organization which provides services to 200+ families in Newark, NJ each year. Over the course of three years, Tynesha helped to create paid summer internship opportunities for almost 100 high school and college students from the greater Newark Area; she provided hundreds of Newark children with supplemental academic programming; and created opportunities for young people in New Jersey’s juvenile justice system to learn about systems of oppression. In 2006, Tynesha co-founded the Bethany Freedom School, a summer literacy program operated under the umbrella of the Children's Defense Fund. Tynesha graduated from Rutgers-Newark University with a BA in Political Science and Sociology.

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Marisol Zacarias, ELLA Program Coordinator (PT), beginning fall 2008. Working directly with ELLA Fellows, she provides 1-1 project assistance and professional development. She brings strong youth organizing and training skills through her work at the Urban Youth Collaborative supporting youth activists around issues of educational justice. She has also worked as a community organizer in Los Angeles through her work at Community Coalition, and organized youth to plan L.A. County Youth Rise Up, a conference in response to student walkouts.

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