Who We Are
Movement Generation is driven by staff, a volunteer Program Committee, and participants in our program.
Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan, Strategy Consultant
Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan brings a love of soil, a passion for strategic thinking, (and sometimes her two lively little ones) to her work for long-term systemic change.
Over the last 15 years, Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan has played multiple leadership roles in the social justice movement in California. Most recently, she was Co-Director of the School of Unity and Liberation, a movement-building training center based in Oakland, California. Prior to that, she worked for more than a decade towards food justice in working-class communities of color. Michelle co-founded and served as director of the Center for Food and Justice in Los Angeles from 1997 through 2001, helping to develop farm-to-school programs nationally and organizing campaigns for food justice in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Michelle was also a Kellogg Food & Society Policy Fellow.
Michelle became active in social justice work through anti-war and labor/community organizing in greater Los Angeles where she was born and raised. She graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in History, specializing in Women’s Studies in 1994 and an M.A. in Urban Planning in 1997. During her time at UCLA, she helped organize the campaign for union recognition of graduate student workers.
Mateo Nube, Director
Mateo was born and grew up in La Paz, Bolivia. Since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, he has worked in the labor, environmental justice and international solidarity movements. He has spent the last decade integrating concepts of popular education into his movement work.
Mateo is the current Director of the MG Justice & Ecology Project and is one of the co-founders of the project. Prior to joining MG, Mateo designed and facilitated political education trainings and conducted staff development workshops for grassroots and community organizations interested in growing their organizing, advocacy, and leadership capacities. He also served as the director of Urban Habitat’s Leadership Institute and served as the Northwest Coordinator of the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute. Mateo is a member of the musical band Los Nadies.
Carla Maria Pérez, Program Coordinator
Carla is a 30 year old, dedicated single mother and community organizer of Native/Latin American heritage residing in Oakland, California. She graduated from UC Berkeley in 1999 with a BS in Conservation & Resource Studies with an emphasis on Environmental Racism. After graduating, she taught two UC Berkeley summer school classes entitled Environmental Science and Thought. She has worked with community groups from Yucatán, Mexico to Contra Costa, California on issues of environmental justice and sustainable agriculture and is a certified in Popular Education trainer and Indigenous Permaculture Design Consultant.
Prior to joining MG, Carla spent 8 years as staff at Communities for a Better Environment (CBE). Most recently she served as CBE’s Northern California Program Director. She also was CBE’s Leadership Training Coordinator and Community Organizer. Carla developed CBE’s Northern California core curriculum for community members and staff, as well as coordinated Leadership Development Programs for CBE organizers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Carla is also a member of the School of Unity and Liberation’s Teacher Collective and a member of the Ruckus Society’s People of Color Trainers Network.
Gopal Dayaneni, Volunteer Program Committee Member
Gopal has worked for social, economic, and environmental justice through organizing & campaigning, teaching, writing, and speaking since the late 1980’s. He has been a campaigner for Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition on human rights and environmental justice in the high-tech industry and the Oil Campaigner for Project Underground, a human rights and environmental rights organizations which supported communities resisting oil and mining exploitation around the world. Gopal has also provided progressive organizations with support in Strategic Communications and Campaign Planning through the Design Action Collective and is an active trainer and organizer with the Ruckus Society and a member of the Progressive Communicators Network. Gopal is also an elementary and early childhood educator, working formerly as a teacher and as the co-director of the Tenderloin Childcare Center, a community based childcare center supporting children and families forced into homelessness.
Dave Henson, Executive Director of OAEC and Program Committee Member
Dave Henson is the Executive Director of the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (OAEC). He also directs the Ecological Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems Program and co-directs the Intentional Communities Program at OAEC. With a background in environmental studies, sociology and law, Dave has worked for 27 years with many environmental organizations, including the Environmental Project on Central America, the Highlander Center, the National Toxics Campaign, and Greenpeace. He has lectured and led activist workshops around the US and in over 20 countries. Dave currently serves on the steering committees of the Wild Farm Alliance, the Genetic Engineering Action Network, Californians for GE-Free Agriculture, and the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy.
Jason Negrón-Gonzales, Volunteer Program Committee Member
Jason Negrón-Gonzales is the former Director of Movement Generation, and a co-founder of the MG Justice & Ecology Project. He began his political work organizing as a student around Puerto Rican community issues. In 1998, Jason received a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from U.C. Berkeley. As a student at UC Berkeley he was involved in building multi-racial student alliances and worked against the ending of affirmative action and the cutting back of ethnic studies. After graduating he began working with People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), a membership based community/labor organization in San Francisco. In his time at POWER Jason served as Organizer, Campaign Director, and Education Director as well as in alliance building work locally and nationally.
