The fall class of the WILL Empower apprenticeship program is up and running, despite new challenges posed by the global pandemic.  The WILL Empower network of women labor leaders and worker justice activists played a key role in helping to collectively orient and welcome the new apprentices.

Taylor Davis is serving as an apprentice with the National Black Workers Center project in Raleigh, NC where they are developing skills as a strategic organizer and researcher. Tanya Wallace-Gobern, the NBWCP’s executive director and WILL Empower Advisory Council member, is Taylor’s supervisor.  Taylor’s external mentor is Denicia Montford-Williams, Associate Executive Director of the NC A. Philip Randolph Institute and founding member of the NC Bayard Rustin LGBT coalition.  Taylor’s internal mentor is De’Andrea Lottier Ross, Leadership Development Coordinator of the Los Angeles Black Workers’ Center and member of the WILL Empower Emerging Cohort.  Taylor is a recent graduate of Georgetown University, where they were involved with the Kalmanovitz Initiative and focused on building racial equity and addressing health-based injustices in Washington, DC.

Ariana DeLaurentis is doing her apprenticeship with the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Washington, DC office doing work on external relations and policy.  Sarah Morgan, Senior Government Relations Office, is her immediate supervisor.  Ariana’s external mentor is JJ Ronsenbaum, executive director of the newly-merged Global Labor Justice / International Labor Rights Forum.  Her internal mentor is Simrin Singh, director of the ILO’s country office in Sri Lanka and the Maldives.  Ariana is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia where she was active in Workers and Students United and focused on anti-racist organizing.

Taylor and Ariana did a three-day virtual WILL Empower training in September which focused on introducing them to the larger worker justice movement, giving them a larger context for their work, and integrating them into the WILL Empower network. They joined a panel with former WILL Empower apprentices JoJo Morinvil, Genesis Torres, and Ebony Watkins, and a webinar discussion on “leading with your whole self” with WILL Empower Emerging Cohort members De’Andrea Lottier Ross (LA Black Workers Center), Sol Sol Freire Figueroa (United for Respect), and Chama St. Louis (community organizer and mayoral candidate Peoria, Il). They also learned about Bargaining for the Common Good from BCG staffers Sara Myklebust (WE Emerging Cohort) and Lily Ryan (former WE apprentice.)