STAFF

Cecilia Clarke, Founder and Executive Director
Janeen Ettienne, Program Coordinator
Promiti Islam, Program Associate
Shreya Malena-Sannon, Program Director
Tynesha McHarris, Sadie Nash Newark Director
Laura Menchaca Bishop, Program Coordinator
Meera Vaidyanathan, Development Associate

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.  Most recently, Cecilia served 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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Janeen Ettienne, Program Coordinator (PT), Janeen began her leadership work as a participant at SNLP in the summer of 2003. Since then, she has continued to play an active role within the organization. Originally from Trinidad, she earned her BA in Political Science at York College, CUNY.  At York, she was an active member of student government and served on the University Student Senate of CUNY. Committed to a life of service and civic participation, Janeen became an AmeriCorps Service Member as a Public Ally participant and worked as the White House Project as their Leadership Coordinator . While there, she coordinated their signature Vote, Run, Lead training program, providing women with the skills and confidence to run for office. Most recently, Janeen worked as Project Coordinator at the UJA-Federation of New York where she was responsible for creating large scale volunteer initiatives in the areas of hunger relief, nutrition, and job readiness.

Janeen began as Program Coordinator in February 2011. In addition to participating in SNLP’s programs in 2003 and 2004, she has also worked as a Dean for the Summer Institute in 2007, as Associate Director of our Newark launch in summer 2008, and as faculty in the 2010 Summer Institute teaching an academic class called Sex, Power, and Politics. Most recently she served as Faculty for Making Waves, a Leadership Institute class during the 2010-2011 school year. As Program Coordinator she oversees the Summer Institute, Community Action Placements, and supports the Program Director in overall programmatic function and advancement.

Promiti Islam, Program Associate (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 that April. In September 2010 she was promoted to Program Associate. She supports the Program Director in all programmatic aspects of SNLP and serves as co-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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Laura Menchaca Bishop, Program Coordinator (FT), has been teaching in formal and non-formal educational spaces for over six years.  She started her career as an English as a Foreign Second Language Instructor working with international students, immigrants, and refugees, and since then, has worked in a variety of educational contexts ranging from piloting and coordinating a family literacy program in Harlem to directing a summer teacher education program in the Dominican Republic.  Most recently, Laura served as a Social Justice Educator for the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDCO) in the South Bronx and as the Service-learning Coordinator for the Peace Corps Fellows Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Laura has an MA in International Educational Development with a focus on Peace Education and is currently working toward a Masters of Education in the same field.

Laura began as Program Coordinator in April 2011.  In this position, Laura oversees our ELLA Fellowship program and Sadie Nash Partnership Program and supports the Program Director in overall programmatic function and advancement.

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Meera Vaidyanathan, Development Associate (FT), has over 5 years non-profit development experience. After graduating from the University of California in Berkeley in 2001 in Peace and Conflict Studies, she served as Development Associate at the University Students' Cooperative Association, helping to provide affordable housing as well as fostering cooperative values in college students. In 2008 she moved to New York City and worked at Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, fundraising primarily for arts education for low- income youth. Meera is also a lifelong dancer, and was a member of Bharatnatyam and Bhangra dance companies, and is currently studying West African dance.

Meera joined SNLP in January 2011 as SNLP's first dedicated Development professional. Meera works closely with the Executive Director and Board of Directors to develop and meet fundraising and communication goals.