Marya Axner has spent the past 30 years as an activist working against oppression of all kinds. Recently she has been working to address the climate emergency and ending societal divisions that hamper solving this challenge. She speaks and leads workshops on the topic of anti-Semitism and racism on college campuses, at social justice organizations, and at worker organizations. She also works as a parent educator. Fifteen years ago she was the director of a parents program in the Somerville public schools, supporting parents to be involved in their children’s education. More recently, she was the director of the New England Jewish Labor Committee, where she organized the Jewish community to stand up with workers for their rights. Marya Axner has taught listening skills through Sustaining All Life/United to End Racism, projects of Re-evaluation Counseling. Sustaining All Life is an international grassroots organization working to end the climate emergency within the context of ending all divisions among people. United to End Racism is group of people of all backgrounds in many countries who are dedicated to eliminating racism in the world.
Tresa Elguera is a community activist, teacher, staff developer, and parent. In the past 30 years, she has worked as a Latinx community organizer, specifically focusing on developing community among Latinx young people. She has a degree in bilingual education and taught dual-language elementary and high school Spanish. She currently works as a trainer, teaching teachers to support the social-emotional development of young people in the classroom and developing capacity for conversations regarding race, class, gender, climate, and more. Tresa works with Sustaining All Life and uses their climate tools in other climate work as well. She helped found 350Brooklyn Families so that she had a place to engage in family friendly climate work, and participates in Fridays for Future strikes with her climate activist children (ages 11 and 13). She engages in climate activism with them and separately as well, both because it matters and because it matters to her children.