Young Leaders Program – Community of Mentors with Kristen Rome, Cymone Fuller and Ghani Songster: Advancing Youth Justice
Bioneers is inherently a community of mentors—people eager to learn, share, explore and create together. The “Community of Mentors” space at Bioneers is an intergenerational container that offers youth the opportunity to be in small group mentoring sessions with Bioneers presenters. The presenters will share their life experience in an interactive dialogue with youth who are seeking guidance on their path to activism.
We are honored to have three accomplished activists and dynamic presenters who weave Restorative Justice, Biomimicry, and ecological wisdom into the work of advancing youth justice—Cymone Fuller, Kristen Rome and Ghani Songster—join the Community of Mentors space this year. We welcome all interested youth to come join the conversation with their thoughts and questions. Hosted by Sam Burris-Debosky and justine epstein of Weaving Earth.
Upstairs in The Marsh
March 29th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Panelists
Cymone Fuller
Senior Director, Restorative Justice
Equal Justice USA
Cymone Fuller, who began her career as a community organizer and spent many years focused on systemic reforms in the youth criminal justice legal system, currently serves as the Senior Director of Restorative Justice at Equal Justice USA, where she supports the spread of community-held restorative justice diversion initiatives across the country.
Kristen Rome
Executive Director
Louisiana Center for Children's Rights
Kristen Rome, JD, a Louisiana-based attorney, doula, and writer, currently serves as Executive Director of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, a client-centered nonprofit law office that represents youth in the juvenile and criminal legal systems. A proud native of New Orleans and a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, Kristen received her Juris Doctor from Loyola University of New Orleans’ College of Law. (lakidsrights.org)
Ghani Songster
Transformative Healing & Restorative Justice Manager
Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY)
Kempis ‘Ghani’ Songster who spent 30 years in prison starting at age 15, is the Transformative Healing & Restorative Justice Manager for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY), which seeks to: “Catalyze the just and equitable treatment of children in the United States by demanding a ban on life without parole and other extreme sentences for children…and create opportunities for formerly incarcerated youth to thrive as adults and lead in their communities.” A founding member of Right to Redemption, the Redemption Project, and the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration (CADBI), as well as a co-founder and director of Ubuntu Philadelphia, Ghani has emerged, since his release in 2017, as an outspoken voice in Philadelphia’s movement to create transformative, restorative responses to harm and violence, including as leader of Philadelphia’s first Restorative Justice Diversion program for youth, Healing Futures.
Sam Burris-Debosky
Weaving Earth
Sam Burris-Debosky, a farmer, carpenter, and rites-of-passage guide dedicated to imagining and building resilient, flourishing communities, co-founded and directed Village Farm at Stanley, in Aurora, Colorado, an urban farm dedicated to food-justice and education. Sam is working at this year’s Bioneers Conference as part of the Weaving Earth team to help host the Community of Mentors sessions.
justine epstein
