Who We Are
Dr. Michelle L. Cook, J.D.
Lillian Penélope Quero Arauz, Advisor and Strategist (Mexico)
Passionate and committed to the social impact of arts and culture, she focuses her research on the creation and management of cultural projects that build bridges between institutions, civil society, and artists dedicated to social and sustainable development, helping to create a more just social and environmental framework. In 2022, she collaborated with Habitat Oaxaca–CAMPO AC as Co-Coordinator of the Communication and Cultural Outreach Department for the project, “Community Centers for the Generation and Use of Renewable Energy in Indigenous Regions of Oaxaca.” The activities focused on fostering reflective practices regarding the benefits of renewable energy. The project's main objective was to raise awareness about climate change and the use of renewable energy among children, youth, and women in local communities through educational workshops, creative processes, artistic and technological resources, and cultural gatherings at both local and national levels. In 2021, she participated as Co-Organizer of the event Decolonial Projections: Art to Resist, in coordination with UNAM Dance (Danza UNAM) as part of Mexico 500, an initiative promoted by the National Autonomous University of Mexico to reflect on the events that, following the fall of Tenochtitlan five hundred years ago, transformed the history of what is now Mexico. She is the creator of the project Tabaats Tikambaj, developed in partnership with the Ikoots community of San Mateo del Mar, Oaxaca, with the goal of giving visibility to the community’s worldview. The project received support from UNESCO’s International Year of Indigenous Languages 2019 and the Oaxaca Ministry of Culture (SECULTA Oaxaca). In 2020, she organized the lecture series Routes of Social Impact through the Arts. During the same year, she joined the team at The Sustainability Atelier as Coordinator of the ESD Expert Net Leadership Program Mexico, in collaboration with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. She was awarded the Kaena Woman of Value Award 2021 for Cultural Leadership/Dance, presented by the Coahuila Institute for Women and KAENA. In 2019, she received a creative residency in Spain through the Barcelona International Dance Exchange. She was selected as a beneficiary of the PECDA Coahuila 2018 program for her project Training in Cultural Management for Dance and also received Special Support from FONCA in 2018. More recently, she was awarded the PECDA Coahuila 2023 grant for The Weaving of Water (El Tejido del Agua) in the category of Dance for Established Creators. She is currently a member of the Permanent Seminar on Dance Phenomenology Research of the Gloria Contreras Chair at Danza UNAM and serves as Director of the Art and Communication Department at The Sustainability Atelier in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico.
Dr. Michelle L. Cook J.D., is Founder and Director of Divest Invest Protect (DIP) and Co-Director of DIP’s flagship program: Indigenous Womxn’s Divestment Delegations (IWDD), an inter-sectional Indigenous-led international human rights campaign pressuring banks, insurance, asset managers, and credit rating agencies to divest from harmful extraction companies and invest in the cultural survival and self-determination of the world’s Indigenous peoples.
Michelle is an artist, spiritualist, law-trained human rights expert, and an enrolled member of the Diné (Navajo) Nation born of the Honagháahnii (One Who Walks Around You) Clan. For several years, Michelle has worked locally and globally with Indigenous Peoples on issues such as access to justice, customary law, and human rights. She has received major grants and fellowship opportunities, including a Fulbright Fellowship to study Indigenous justice and customary legal systems in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and an Open Society Fellowship. She has testified before U.N. bodies and representatives in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and her work and projects have been featured in TIME, Reuters, GLAMOUR, The Guardian, and Cultural Survival International. In 2015, Michelle received her Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of New Mexico School of Law with a certificate in Federal Indian Law. She was appointed as a Commissioner on the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission from 2016 to 2020. She is a founding member of the Water Protector Legal Collective (WPLC), formerly Red Owl Legal Collective, helping facilitate legal infrastructure for Indigenous Peoples encamped in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, including international human rights work and programming.
Michelle received her Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law and the Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy Program in 2022.
Lynn Ann Currier, Advisor and Strategist
Ms. Currier is a youth advocate and anti-racism activist, educator, filmmaker, choreographer, and mother. Currently, is the director of Skweda Solutions, and the Founder and Director of Haitkaah Social Justice Project and The Boston Arts Project. She holds a BA in Psychology from Adelphi University and an MFA in Film Production from Boston University. Being a Coosuk Abenaki and European-American mother who is from an ethnically mixed family, of Indigenous, African-American, and European-American members, her determination to make positive change continues to be inspired and driven by her love of her 22-year-old son and youth in general. All of her advocacy of the past 17 years has been done while being a mother with virtually no financial support from outside sources, and often done swiftly and quietly, with no fanfare. Only the young people whose lives have been touched, improved, and even saved through her love and bold relentlessness truly know the ripple effect of her work. Through Haitkaah and Skwed Solutions, she has worked tirelessly, doing whatever it took to protect young people of color whose safety and lives were at risk. Throughout her years of advocacy, she has worked with the FBI and State Department to bring an American pedophile in Haiti to justice; has done street outreach with gang-involved youth in Boston and has spent time in her home with many of these youth to understand how best to support them; has gone across the country to meet with NFL legend and activist, Jim Brown, and ex-gang members who have become effective gang interventionists; has advocated for many incarcerated human rights activists, including a youth who has been suicidal due to mental cruelty and beatings from DOC guards for 3 years; has done grassroots lobbying and organized many press conferences demanding an investigation of the MA Department of Corrections, police reform, and criminal justice reform; built relationships with Indigenous youth when suicidal; participated in prayerful resistance at Standing Rock Reservation, where she was almost killed by a concussion grenade thrown by police; has organized a team of activists and journalists to expose a children’s prison in Haiti; organized the feeding of orphans on the streets of Haiti after the earthquake, when UNICEF and Feed the Children refused to; and has grabbed a young Haitian orphan off the street in order to stop a security guard with a drawn rifle from shooting him. Through the Boston Arts Project, she has served mostly low-income youth of color in the Greater Boston area with a summer program, One Voice, and 20 years of artist residencies in schools, offering a broad range of classes in various genres. Over the years, Ms. Currier has spoken at numerous forums and venues, including television and radio broadcasts, press conferences, demonstrations, legislative hearings, and even in prisons. In the past year, she was invited four times, along with educators from around the world, to present papers on women and education at the Oxford International Forum. Currently, she is writing a screenplay on prison and criminal justice reform and writing a book on her life’s work, including how everyday people can fight racism.
Patricia Anne Davis, Advisor and Strategist
Patricia Anne Davis is an Indigenous elder of Choctaw and Dine’/Navajo lineage. Currently, she is a Trustee at the Center for American Studies in Concord, MA. She is on the International Council of First Nations: Commissioner of Ancient Knowledge and Languages as a Speaker/Member. She is an NGO Representative of the World Yoga Community to the United Nations. She is an International Educator and Organizational Consultant who is initiated, trained, and experienced in facilitating her authentic “Indigenous Ceremonial Change Process’ she designed for Wellness Restoration. It is Cross-cultural, Inter-generational, Inclusive, Universal in practical application, and can be translated into any language. She is a Whole Systems Designer, specializing in peace-making leadership, who has worked as an Administrator in Health and Human Services for 20 years. She has traveled to ten countries by invitation to teach and facilitate the ICCP that reframes thinking into an Affirmative thinking system for win-win constructive decisions and outcomes. The purpose is to reframe out of the Inverse thinking system of win-lose and no-one wins, destructive and death-producing decisions and outcomes. She teaches the monthly Zoom event, “Love Currency Embassy, A Sacred Circle Ceremony for Wellness Restoration, sponsored by SINE Network. She has participated in many Zoom events, including the Global Convergence, Enlightening Our Way Together, December 11-22, 2020, Speaker. The Bretton Woods Global Summit, January 6, 2021, Speaker/Member World Indigenous Leaders Conference, 2nd Truth Commission on Decolonization: July 17-18, 2021, Speaker/Member. And, Member of Sovereign Sisters, skills necessary for caring for ourselves and our communities: August 21-24, 2020.
Wašté Win Yellowlodge Young, Advisor and Strategist
Wašté Win Yellowlodge Young (Ihunktowanna Dakota/Hunkpapa Lakota) is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. She graduated from the University of North Dakota in 2001 and the University of New Mexico School of Law in 2022. She worked for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe from 2003 to 2015, including eight years as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. Her family founded the Očeti Šakowin Camp—the epicenter of the indigenous-led resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) at Standing Rock from August 2016 until February 22, 2017, when law enforcement and military forces forcibly removed water protectors. Wašté Win was one of 72 people arrested on February 1, 2017, at Crazy Horse's "Last Child’s Camp" at Očeti Šakowin for peacefully maintaining a physical and spiritual presence on Sioux treaty land. In 2017-2018, Wašté Win, along with other indigenous women whose home lands have been affected by extractive industries, traveled throughout Europe speaking to financial institutions and parliaments that helped finance the Dakota Access Pipeline. This resulted in over 75 million dollars being pulled and divested from DAPL. She has addressed universities, financial institutions, shareholder groups, credit rating companies as well as the United Nations. She was a member of the Moth Collective at the NYU School of Law and a lead plaintiff in the federal civil rights lawsuit against the state of North Dakota for civil rights abuses committed by the state during the NODAPL protests in 2016-2017 (Thunderhawk v. Morton County). She is the lead character in the film “End of the Line: Women of Standing Rock”, which followed her family during the protests at Standing Rock. This film was nominated for a Best Documentary Emmy in 2022. Wašté Win is the mother of four children and is a proud grandma to four dogs and four cats. She currently resides in Albuquerque and works at the University of New Mexico School of Law.
