Tersita Batayola is being honored as a Health in the AAPI Community Champion of Change.

Last Thursday, parents, youth, advocates and community and national leaders came together from across the country at the White House to honor nine Champions of Change who have dedicated their lives to innovative approaches to reduce gun violence and make our communities safer.

Sarah Clements founded and serves as Chairwoman for the Jr. Newtown Action Alliance (Jr. NAA). She is a senior at Newtown High School in Newtown, CT. On December 14, 2012 her mother survived the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. After the shooting, Sarah began using gun violence prevention advocacy to transform her painful experience into positive action. Jr. NAA is the student branch of the Newtown Action Alliance, and the group focuses on educating, empowering, and collaborating with other Millennials to address gun violence in every type of community, through legislative action, cultural change, and bridge building.

Nosheen Hydari, AMFT, is a crisis therapist for the Emergency Services On-Call team at Community Counseling Centers of Chicago (C4). C4 is a leading community mental health agency in Illinois, providing a comprehensive range of mental health services, crisis intervention and substance use treatment to more than 10,000 low-income children, adults, and families each year. In her role at C4, Nosheen provides crisis assessments for hundreds of children and adults in severe psychiatric distress, many of whom are victims and/or perpetrators of violent acts.

John Woods, Ph.D., graduated from Virginia Tech in May 2007, just weeks after the worst mass shooting in American history. As a doctoral student in molecular biology at the University of Texas at Austin, he became involved in the gun violence prevention movement after members of the Texas Legislature tried to use the Virginia Tech tragedy to push an ideological agenda having nothing to do with campus safety: forcing colleges and universities to allow guns in classrooms. Texas violence prevention advocates successfully organized against the so-called “campus carry” bills in three consecutive legislative sessions and several special sessions, despite a majority of Texas lawmakers registering as sponsors of the legislation.

Rev. Glenn Garrett Grayson, M.Div is currently the Pastor of Wesley Center A.M.E. Zion Church in Pittsburgh, PA and also served for 17 years as the presiding elder of the Pittsburgh District. In 2000, Rev. Grayson founded a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, The Center That C.A.R.E.S. (Children/Adults Recreational and Educational Services). Presently, The Center That C.A.R.E.S. is highly noted for its after school tutorial and enrichment programs, serving over 125 families from grades Pre-K through college throughout the Hill District Community of Pittsburgh.

Stacey Young-McCaughan, RN, Ph.D., U.S. Army Colonel (retired), Professor, School of Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (San Antonio, TX) Dr. Stacey Young-McCaughan serves as Director of Research in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio for the STRONG STAR Consortium. STRONG STAR, or the South Texas Research Organizational Network Guiding Studies on Trauma and Resilience, is a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional research consortium designed to understand, prevent, and treat combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and comorbid conditions among military Service Members and recently discharged Veterans who have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Luis Urrieta, Jr., Ph.D. is the Associate Professor and Program Director for the Cultural Studies in Education Program at The University of Texas, Austin and Coordinator of the Cultura en Acción Culture in Action After School Program. He has dedicated his life and career to raising awareness about Latina/o community issues, especially immigrant, and indigenous communities. As the son of Mexican immigrants from rural Michoacán, his motivation for advocacy and work with communities stems from his family experiences dealing with the perceptions and often hostility toward immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants. His professional and academic work in education have been dedicated to raising awareness and valuing Latina/o immigrant family and community knowledge as well as the importance of nourishing and supporting strong ethnic and linguistic identities in Latina/o children and youth, while promoting and creating the conditions for high academic achievement.

Khin Mai Aung, JD, is the Director of the Educational Equity Program at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) in New York City, NY. AALDEF's Educational Equity Program advocates on issues such as bilingual education, language access, bias-based harassment, school discipline, post 9-11 and gang profiling, affirmative action, and school integration in kindergarten through 12th grade and higher education. Under Ms. Aung's direction, AALDEF launched the first National Asian American Education Advocates Network with affiliates across the country, and filed Supreme Court amicus briefs supporting affirmative action, school integration and English Language Learner rights.

Helen Gym is a community and education leader whose work across different organizations supports the right to a quality public education for all children. A former school teacher and journalist, she leads the board of Asian Americans United, a 28-year old organization serving Philadelphia’s diverse Asian American and immigrant communities. At AAU, she has organized against predatory gambling and led a campaign to address human rights issues in immigration and deportation practices. She helped found a Chinatown-based charter school serving many immigrant families and anchored a successful federal civil rights case focused on the responsibility of adults to create safe school environments free from bias and harassment.

Herb Lee, Jr., is the Executive Director of the Pacific American Foundation (PAF) and a Native Hawaiian that has led multiple, highly successful youth leadership programs, career planning and development, environmental education and culture-based curriculum projects including the award winning “ Kāhea Loko and the Aloha ‘Āina” projects. His programs have trained over 3,500 teachers and benefited over 70,000 students throughout Hawaii, spanning grade levels K-12. PAF has been recognized as one of the leading non-profits in the development and training of rigorous culture-based education programs for both Native Hawaiians and non-Hawaiian students.

Martha Daniel’s 35 years career in Information Technology began during her time as a Cryptologist in the U.S. Navy and has spanned both corporate and government sectors. In 1992, she founded Information Management Resources, Inc. (IMRI), to provide technical support for the financial industry. Today, IMRI delivers comprehensive technical and engineering support services specializing in cyber security, data center operations and consolidations, program management, and telecommunications for the federal government and civilian agencies as well as the private sector.

Stacey Young-McCaughan, RN, Ph.D., U.S. Army Colonel (retired), Professor, School of Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (San Antonio, TX) Dr. Stacey Young-McCaughan serves as Director of Research in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio for the STRONG STAR Consortium. STRONG STAR, or the South Texas Research Organizational Network Guiding Studies on Trauma and Resilience, is a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional research consortium designed to understand, prevent, and treat combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and comorbid conditions among military Service Members and recently discharged Veterans who have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Coral Wong Pietsch serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and has had a lifetime of distinguished public service at the state, national and international levels. She began her public service when she joined the military and served on active duty in the United States Army as a Judge Advocate. Later, she continued her service in the U.S. Army Reserve and rose to the rank of Brigadier General, becoming the first woman in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps to be promoted to general officer and the first woman of Asian ancestry to be promoted to general officer in the Army. In 2007, as a Department of Defense civilian, she volunteered to deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and served as Deputy Rule of Law Coordinator for the Baghdad Provincial Reconstruction Team.