IDJ Leadership Action Team

Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams, M.A. (she/her/assa pronouns) is a Prevention Specialist at Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence whose work focuses on primary prevention with people with cognitive and developmental disabilities who remain underserved by the movement to end violence and marginalized by systems inequities like differential access to opportunities and resources. Cierra co-founded and co-facilitates Indiana Disability Justice with Skylar Ashton Kantola and four cross-sector stakeholders to support statewide efforts to prevent violence and enhance independence and wellness among people with disabilities. As an active member of the state of Indiana Sexual Violence Primary Prevention Council, Cierra works collaboratively with the Coalition prevention team and ICADV disability consultants to develop, implement, evaluate, and report on strategies supporting Indiana’s sexual violence primary prevention plan. 

I have been working with ICADV/IDJ since 2020. I have several disabilities, Cerebral Palsy and recurring depression. Working with and helping others are my favorite activities. I believe in promoting equality, equity and justice among all marginalized people. Faith is very important in guiding me through enjoying what life has to offer.

Jody Powers is a self-advocate and a woman with cerebral palsy who is visually impaired and who uses a power chair for mobility. Jody is a disability advocate for people with disabilities and is growing her advocacy skills to specialize in developmental disability. Jody is a licensed minister whose motivation is to promote the human dignity of all people. Jody is the board chair of the Indiana Governor’s Council on People with Disabilities.

Skye Ashton Kantola (she/they) is a Co-Founder and current Co-Leader of Indiana Disability Justice. Skye currently works as the Equity and Inclusion Coordinator in the College of Agriculture at Purdue University where they established and continue to facilitate the Becoming White Allies and Accomplices Talking Circle to engage other white people in racial justice work. She also served as the Assistant Director at the Multicultural Efforts to end Sexual Assault (MESA) for 8 years and an engaged artist at Faerie Bear Art which they established in 2016. They served as the Communications Director at Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc. (PTO) from 2015-2021 and helped establish and continue leading the transformative justice working group at PTO.

Skye’s passion for violence prevention and anti-oppression work is rooted in their experiences a disabled trans person, a survivor, and borne in part from their experiences with guerilla crisis intervention and community organizing work in Texas and Indiana. Skye develops versatile engaging and experiential curriculums that connect violence prevention, holistic justice, and transformative accountability in movement building work and facilitates workshops on these practices. In her free time, she enjoys compassionately disrupting complacency, doing positive dog training, studying/intervening in white identity extremism, and caring for the earth.

I am a person with an invisible disability. I live with many privileges including: race, education and gender expression. I am a parent to three grown children and have three grandchildren. I am blessed to be married to an amazing, kind, loving, patient person. When I am not working, I enjoy weaving, quilting, sewing and reading.

Yeni Bencomo-Suarez (she/her/ella) is a radical Caribbean Latina, bilingual, cross cultural community organizer, and an unapologetic feminist, socialist, and abolitionist. Yeni is from Louisville, Kentucky where she grew up in a working class, immigrant neighborhood and is the daughter of Cuban refugees. Yeni has organized and fought for a variety of social causes including labor rights, reproductive, climate, and racial justice. Most recently, Yeni’s strengths are in curriculum design, intercultural communication and exchange, strategic planning, public speaking, grassroots fundraising, direct actions, workshop facilitation, and learning languages.

Yeni has raised tens of thousands of dollars for housing, food, rent, and bail funds during the dual pandemics of police violence and COVID-19. Yeni She strives for liberation and justice within a collective of social movements within an intersectional and internationalist framework. Yeni is rooted in building multiracial, working class social movements as her theory of change. Prior to attending college, Yeni obtained a full-ride scholarship from the State Dept., National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) and lived in Marrakech, Morocco studying Arabic.

Yeni is fluent in English, Spanish and speaks conversational Arabic. Yeni afterwards attended the University of Louisville and received a B.A. in Latin American/Latino Studies with a minor in Middle Eastern/Islamic Studies. In 2019, Yeni received the Activist on the Rise award from the Kentucky Alliance against Racism and Political Repression. Yeni is currently program coordinator at Multicultural Efforts to End Sexual Assault (MESA) housed within Purdue university. Email: jbencomo@purdue.edu