In September 2008, GFC will embark on our National Tour Presented by the Sephora Project. The tour includes Change Your World Trainings at more than 25 schools and organizations across the country! Meet the social change agents who will facilitate the GFC trainings:

Patricia Torres

Patricia is passionate about partnering with youth to create social change in cities across the U,S.! She has just completed a master’s program in International Urban Planning at the London School of Economics focused on infusing the voice and power of historically marginalized communities (ethnic minorities, women, youth) into city planning processes across the globe. Prior to that, Patricia spent three years with Girls For A Change Silicon Valley (GFC). Working her way from Program Manager to Program Director, she helped secure annual partnerships with over 60 schools and community-based organizations, and to recruit over 2,500 youth to the program. Prior to joining GFC, Patricia worked in Mexico City. She served as a grant writer and workshop presenter for SIEMBRA, an organization which partners with entrepreneurial indigenous girls and women in micro-enterprise, leadership skill development and reproductive-rights awareness building. In 2002, Patricia graduated with high honors from UC Berkeley with a major in Gender and Comparative Urban Studies, where she identified girls’ and women’s empowerment as key to democratic planning for healthy cities worldwide. As a student, she participated in numerous community projects ranging from teaching a class on local and global activism, advocating for local homeless communities, to collaborating with youth on environmental justice campaigns. Patricia is also fluent in Spanish.

Kelly C. Weiley

Kelly is excited to meet and work with amazing women and girls on the GFC National Tour to create social change! Kelly is currently a member of Adjunct Faculty at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota teaching courses that focus on race, class, and gender in the United States. Kelly was awarded her Master of Science in Social Responsibility from St. Cloud State University in 2007 concentrating her studies on multicultural and social justice education and indigenous and international service-learning. She has published two book chapters on her research that suggest that globally-focused service-learning projects with a social justice, anti-racist, anti-colonial, liberatory framework demonstrate potential to move students away from a   charity-based model of doing-for to a solidarity-based model of working-with. After completing her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University, she volunteered for two years completing over 12 different service projects in communities throughout the Western United States with AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps. Following AmeriCorps, she lived in Boston, MA partnering with the Boston Private Industry Council and Boston Public Schools Year 13 program working with students from mostly low income, immigrant, and refugee families and received the prestigious PIC Achiever Award from the Boston Private Industry Council for her commitment to youth. Kelly also serves as an active board member of an international non-profit organization, Fifty Lanterns International, whose goal is to offer safe, reliable, solar lighting to people in areas of strife and conflict prioritizing women and child headed households around the globe.