(she/her/hers)
Yasmin Yonis is an organizational consultant, facilitator, and an interfaith movement chaplain at Justice for Muslims Collective providing care to organizers. A human rights advocate, Yonis has served in positions advocating for the rights of children at Children’s Defense Fund; lobbying the Obama administration on its foreign policy & advocating for global refugee and asylum rights as a Senior Associate at Human Rights Watch; serving as an organizing fellow at the Black Alliance for Just Immigration; resettling refugees at the International Rescue Committee; and providing spiritual care as a Prison Re-Entry Chaplain at Osborne Association.
Yonis supports groups in the creative re-imagining of how to do justice work in more just ways. She serves as a consultant to organizations and foundations shifting toward more liberatory and collaborative work cultures. She provides training for groups interested in becoming system-shifting networks and facilitates communities of practice. In addition, Yonis mobilizes donor funds to the frontlines of social movements as a member of the Emergent Fund’s Advisory Council and serves on the Board of Directors of Alight (formerly American Refugee Committee). She is currently co-stewarding a $25 million donor fund addressing the US-Mexico border crisis.
Yonis has a Master of Divinity (MDiv) in Christian Social Ethics from Union Theological Seminary in NYC—the home of Black Liberation Theology and Womanist Theology—and received chaplaincy training at The Jewish Theological Seminary. She has Bachelor degrees in Journalism and International Affairs from the University of Georgia. She is currently practicing into the words of the late Womanist Renae Gray who reminded us, “Slow down, we don’t have much time.” She deeply cares about liberatory faith, justice, and helping others reimagine and embody a world in which all life is nourished.