Alisha Taylor

Alisha is currently attending Laney Community College and majoring in nursing. She plans to transfer to Northwestern University in Chicago. If she could change anything about growing up as a young woman, she would ask that there were more programs that she could relate to like an all girls group, and just for someone to show that they cared about what young women are going through. She is currently on the Young Adult Team and hopes to continue her work as a youth advocate.

Cassandra James

Cassandra James is a native of San Francisco and grew up in the Bayview. She attempted to escape the demise of her neighborhood by leaving for college to attend Dillard University in New Orleans. Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina forced her to move back to San Francisco within months of her initial departure. Coming face-to-face with the displacement of friends she had grown to love in New Orleans made her realize that her destiny was to fight the belly of the beast in her native hometown of San Francisco.

She returned to confront issues of violence, gentrification of African American communities, youth housing and employment, community policing and gang injunctions. Instead of trying to escape her environment, she chose to combat San Francisco's mayhem and got active in organizing her community.

Cassandra currently works at The Center for Young Women’s Development (CYWD) as the Girls’ Detention Advocacy Coordinator. Working at CYWD has helped her develop and practice her advocacy skills, be open and willing to learn and also to assert her voice especially when it deals with positive change in her community.

Kat Casela

Kathleen Casela, an emancipated foster youth, has been an advocate for the past 6 years. She initially got her start with the Emancipated Youth Advisory Board where she learned an in depth detail of the foster care system and the needs of foster youth. This led to the start of her advocacy work.

She has been a member of the California Youth Connection, had lead the Young Adult Team of the Transition Aged Youth San Francisco for two years and is an Americorps Alumni. She has worked for various organizations such as ILSP, LSYS and her recent work was with Mental Health Association of San Francisco as the first Young Adult Advocate working to develop policy recommendations for transition aged youth in the mental health system and starting the Mental Health Young Adult Advisors geared for young adults who want to be involved in policy work and reforming the mental health system.

Currently, she is working as a Residential Counselor at LSYS as well as tutoring and will be attending school part time this coming semester. Her passion for youth and personal connection to the struggles that young adults face has led her to continue the path of becoming an avid advocate of youth voice and youth inclusion.

Maya Cameron

Maya Cameron grew up in San Francisco and currently lives in the Mission District. In her teen years, Maya experienced foster care and juvenile systems which have led her to advocate for at-risk youth and prisoners rights. Maya has long believed that more services and support should be provided for those who are thrown out of group homes or foster homes at the age of eighteen without any skills needed to survive. Maya is currently obtaining her AA degree at City College of San Francisco and hopes to transfer to University of California Berkeley in the near future. She is currently apart of the TAY Youn g Adult Team and wants to continue her advocacy for at-risk youth in San Francisco.

Oscar Pena, Jr.

Oscar Pena, 27, is a juvenile justice and immigrant rights advocate for transitional age youth (TAY). He serves as a case manager for the Detention Diversion Advocacy Program (DDAP) out of the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice.  He has worked with the New American Media's The Beat Within, an "in-house" publication made for and written by youth detained at the Juvenile Justice Center.

Policy and systems-building-wise, Oscar is a veteran TAY member of the Mayor's Transitional Youth Task Force and its outgrowth, the Transitional Age Youth initiative of San Francisco (TAY SF). TAY SF is working to create a system of support for young people, aged 16-24, that ensures all youth are successfully transitioning to adulthood.

Oscar is a devoted husband and a follower of Allah. He was born and raised in San Francisco, and is obtaining a degree at City College of SF. Towards this end, he'd like to say, "GO GIANTS!"

Sam Rubin

Sam Rubin was born in San Francisco in 1985 and grew up in the Crocker Amazon (District 11). He identifies as a person with disabilities and has done much advocacy work for youth with disabilities. He is a senior at UC Berkeley majoring in Geography. He is a member of the UC Berkeley Disabled Students' Union. He hopes to go to graduate school in Public Policy.

Sam is currently working as a tutor for Affordable Housing Associates at University Neighborhood Apartments in Berkeley. Sam has been a member of the Improving Transition Outcomes Project (ITOP) since 2005 and has served as a founding member and co-chair of the ITOP Youth Council and as the ITOP youth intern. ITOP is a collaborative project involving an extensive network of community-based organizations, service providers, policymakers, educators, parents, youth, and advocates, with the purpose of improving the overall quality of life of transition-age youth with disabilities in San Francisco.  From 2006 to 2007, he was a Youth Commissioner for the City and County of San Francisco.  He joined the Transitional Youth Task Force in 2006 and stayed on continuously through its transition into TAYSF.

All of these activities, coupled with his own personal life-experiences, have given Sam a deep understanding of the issues facing local youth. He has learned a lot about civic engagement, legislation, policy, advocacy, and community organizing, among many other valuable things.   

Xavier Estrella Schmidt

Xavier was born in 1988 and raised in San Francisco’s Mission District. Born second generation, a native son, he has been an eyewitness to the changes of his community, city, state, country, and world; especially his own inner world.

Introduced to the arts by his mother, Xavier realized that he is a visual thinker. A Visual learner. He feels that painting is music for the eyes, and he wants to compose until his heart stops beating. After a few calls with the law, and his life, Xavier realized that there has to be a better way to push his message on a more social and activist level. He needed to find the true meaning of painting for the people. Now with this newfound knowledge, he began to truly live his life in harmony, with that which he saw around him. He paints what he sees and sees what he paints.

He currently works as a Club Leader at the Cesar Chavez Club in Everett Middle School where he teaches visual arts as part of service learning and community work. He also works with Precita Eyes on various mural projects and events across the great city of San Francisco.