OUR TEAM
OUR TEAM
Conversations. Ideas. Community.
We are a multigenerational community of students, parents, educators, artivists, activists, community advocates, and other professionals, each committed to racial healing, justice, and education as liberation.
Conversations. Ideas. Community.
We are a multigenerational community of students, parents, educators, artivists, activists, community advocates, and other professionals, each committed to racial healing, justice, and education as liberation.
Meet Our Leadership Team
Click on the Bios below to learn more about the women leading change for justice with Code Switch.
Shakala Alvaranga
Shakala Alvaranga
Shakala Alvaranga received her Bachelor of Science degree in broadcast journalism at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. She served as a television news anchor in Massachusetts and worked as a television news reporter at CBS in Las Vegas, Nevada. Over the years, she has covered a wide array of issues affecting girls of color. She invests in Black Girls because their voices deserve to be heard. Through her work with Code Switch, she hopes to empower and uplift other Black girls.
Naika Belizaire
Naika Belizaire
I stan for black girls because they are everything; The foundation and future of our community! I dream that all black girls will learn to love themselves and be unapologetically black women. I hope that my work with Code Switch will help to achieve that dream, step by step.
Acacia Dorsey
Acacia Dorsey
My name is Acacia Dorsey and I am a former k-12 Special Educator currently working towards my doctorate at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I was inspired to join Code Switch because of my own life experience with inequities in k-12 education as well as my apprehensions about placing my young Black daughter in the k-12 system due to the inequities that remain. I am honored to join a team aiming to eradicate those inequities and aspire to use my creativity to aid in the facilitation of social transformation as well as team building within the organization. Justice to me means Black Girls and Women not having to wonder if they are enough and feeling as though the intersections of their blackness and their womanhood are burdens instead of blessings.
Danae Dunlap
Danae Dunlap
As a young black woman, I stand for Black Girls because I don’t want things to be as hard for the next generation of black women. I don’t want my little sister to have to deal with the same level of colorism, sexism, misogynoir, etc. that I have to deal with. I don’t want young black girls putting themselves into boxes of what they can and can’t do. I don’t want young black girls to feel inferior to their nonblack peers. And I believe that Code Switch gives me the opportunity to do so.
Deja Dunlap
Deja Dunlap
I stand for black girls because I am a black girl, and I believe that they should be fought for, protected, and loved the same way any other person would be.
Alicia Johnson
Alicia Johnson
I am a special education teacher and youth mentor that has a strong passion for Black Girls and Womxn having a voice and a space to be authentically themselves.
Khalila Lomax
Khalila Lomax
I attended the #BlackGirl Magic, Code-Switchin’, & Walking Back In! How Black Girls ‘Pushed Out’ Push Back workshop in 2017 at the Free Minds Free People Conference. Since then I have followed the work of Code Switch. I want to participate in setting long-term priorities to ensure long-lasting change, development, and growth for Code Switch. I am a student, educator, and researcher. I am involved in education on multiple fronts. I use my professional and personal experiences to build meaningful relationships, solve critical issues, and implement racial equity within non-profit and educational institutions. I will do the same as a Code Switch Board Member.
G’Yanna Perry
G'Yanna Perry
Hello! I am G’Yanna Perry! I attend high school at Advanced Technologies Academy, double majoring in Biomedical Engineering and Engineering, hoping to pursue Biomedical Engineering as I progress and develop as a young woman in society! While I have a passion for the medical field and hope to venture into other fields of science I have a great passion for advocacy primarily for girls of color and various gender-expansive youth! With my time in Code Switch I’ve been able to not only expand my knowledge of the black community but also expand my advocacy for black girls and youth who look like me and that has been the greatest reward of all. I will strive and make it my mission to incorporate lessons of Restorative Justice that I have learned in my first year of Code Switch into my personal passion project aimed to help young girls affected by the school to prison nexus! As well as echoing the love, support, grace and unity that has been given to me by my fellow sisters in Code Switch! With my time outside of Code Switch I’ve been able to instill grace and poise into my life from experiences I’ve had in Code Switch, which in total has allowed me to unlock a whole new realm of solidarity for myself! I also enjoy all forms of literature, art and music to find that solidarity, with my favorite book being Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes!
Monique Raven
Monique Raven
Hello! My name is Monique Raven, and I am a fourth-year student at UNLV majoring in Secondary Education,- ELA. Born and raised in Henderson, Nevada, much of my life interactions have been in a predominantly white community. After graduating high school in 2019, as a first-generation high school graduate, I began college majoring in Political Science. My initial belief in freedom dreaming was that making a change can only be achieved in a political setting. After taking an African American Studies course, my freedom dream transformed. I realized that the erasure of the Black American experience in U.S. education is real and very dangerous. The stories behind the identities of students of color are rarely ever explored in high school. My introduction class to African American studies helped me discover that change goes beyond judicially and politically. My freedom dream today is to show up in education and implement all identities and stories into learning.
Shanice Stevens
Shanice Stevens
I’m a Las Vegas native, graduated from UNLV with an undergraduate degree in journalism and media studies with a concentration in integrated marketing communications. I received my graduate degree in organizational leadership from National University. When I’m not working, I enjoy traveling, mentoring youth, community service, and spending time with family and friends. My current volunteer activity positions include executive board member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., Las Vegas Alumnae Chapter; collegiate advisor and educational development committee chair for the Dr. Betty Shabazz Delta Academy; charter member of the Southwest Las Vegas Chapter of Kiwanis International; Nevada Promise Scholarship mentor for the College of Southern Nevada; and COLA Connections – volunteer mentor with the UNLV College of Liberal Arts. I joined the Code Switch Board because I believe that a strong leader is not born overnight; it takes time to cultivate leadership skills. I want to be the community advocate and leader that inspires Black girls and young women to fulfill the vision that they see for themselves. I want to ignite passion in community partnerships, students and teachers, to go beyond their own self-doubt, and encourage them to see their own potential to do the same for the girls they serve.
Jahnisha Thomas
Jahnisha Thomas
I stand for Black Girls because there’s no other beautiful being like us. I want all Black Girls to have the respect, love, and care they deserve. I am also a mental health advocate, and believe that Black Girls need a space to be their authentic selves, heal traumas peacefully, set boundaries unapologetically, and be able to communicate their wants and needs openly and without fear.
Tonya Walls
Tonya Walls
I began my teaching career in the same community that I grew up in. I walked the same hallways as a teacher that my own elementary teachers once walked when I was a wide-eyed student at Lockwood Elementary in Oakland, California. Those beautiful Black and Asian Womxn – Ms. Lim, Ms. Atkins, Ms. Perry, Ms. Skillern, Ms. Adams – modeled for me what culturally responsive teaching looks and feels like. I was a little Black girl who was never supposed to BECOME, but their Warm Demander ways, combined with the radical love of the village that raised me, loved me into my life purpose, and now I get to serve as a Teacher Educator and fierce co-conspirator of education for liberation! In this work, I dream of a world where Black Girls are free to be and become whomever they want to be; one where they are free to dream, and create, and tap into the power and majic already living inside of them. This is why I teach. It’s also why I am committed to the work of advancing girl’s rights through Code Switch. I can only hope that I am using the gifts gifted to me, to leave the world just a little bit better and a whole lot brighter than when I was born into it.
Tina Zhang
Tina Zhang
I am a conflict management specialist, helping individuals have difficult conversations. I mediate a variety of cases related to divorce, housing, small claims, and workplace disputes. I have extensive training as a victim-survivor advocate, and volunteer for S.A.F.E. House, a domestic violence organization in Henderson, Nevada. I believe girls of color can change our collective future for the better. That they are wise and creative beyond common imagination! I am here to learn from them and to witness their growing power and presence.
Why I Joined Code Switch…
Freedom Dream & Build With Us!
Are you a people person that is a highly organized self-starter with excellent communication skills and a positive outlook? Then Code Switch is the space for you.
