Our team
Chancy Bhatt
Chancy celebrates the fluidity of all beings, works to unlearn the socialization that all things exist within a binary, and remembers that our struggles are interconnected. She has experience as a Kindergarten and 1st grade teacher, an instructional coach, curriculum designer, and social justice facilitator for both young people and adults, focusing on intersectional justice and community building. The young people in her life have taught her about love, patience, accessibility and reciprocity in the realest of ways. These lessons are forever ingrained in her heart and inform the way she moves through the world. To Chancy, community is the heartbeat of any sustainable change; it is a muscle that needs tending, and when nourished, it is magic.
Nkosi Anderson
Nkosi is a PhD student in Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, NY. His dedication to youth education and human relations spans over twenty-years. Nkosi has worked in public education, government, academia and with nonprofit, community, and religious organizations. He holds a BA in Political Science and an MA in African-American Studies, both from Columbia University. Nkosi also received his MDiv and MPhil from Union Theological Seminary, NY. He believes that community is sustained by individuals committed to the perpetual process of attuning themselves to the experiences, desires, and needs of others. To this end, he remains active in a number of movements for social justice.
Maria Irene Lopez-Nuñez
Maria grew up in Bushwick and remembers going back to Honduras as a kid to connect with her roots and swim in her rivers. Being displaced multiple times by colonization, racism, and violence sparked her commitment to fight multiple extractive industries and end sacrifice zones once and for all. She is also on the board of the Climate Justice Alliance which unites communities for a Just Transition. You can catch Maria and her team at the Ironbound Community Corporation in action in the 2020 film, The Sacrifice Zone or at Down Bottom Farms planting new futures with youth and elders. To Maria, community is interdependence.
Henaz Bhatt
One of the most memorable lessons Henaz learned as a kid was: don’t touch the plants after sundown; they need sleep, too! This value—that all living beings are interconnected and worthy of respect and responsibility--guides her life and work. Henaz has been facilitating experiences with youth and adults on issues of identity and social justice for 20+ years and practicing traditional medicines, including acupuncture, yoga, reiki and ayurveda for the last decade. Henaz firmly believes that our liberation is intertwined and that our healing is at our fingertips and in our breath. Unlearning, returning and healing happens best in community—and ROOTS has been that for her. Community, to Henaz, is about connection--any moment of reciprocity and seeing/being seen or feeling/being felt between any living beings.
Nicole Mulligan
Nicole’s passion for justice and equity first sparked when she was in high school. A long-time youth counselor, she has extensive experience designing and facilitating social justice curricula. Nicole works every day to create inclusive spaces in her first grade classroom in New York City. She believes that a great amount of work, learning, and unlearning must yet be done: within herself, her family, and her community in order to create a more just, sustainable, and equitable world. To Nicole, community is a place where we can grow, make mistakes, be vulnerable, and nurture and love ourselves and one another.