our team
Kevin Aipopo
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A little bit about our program manager, Kevin is a community advocate, storyteller, and student leader based in traditional Kalupuya, Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, and Atfalati lands (Tigard, Oregon). Their work centers around the intersections between their ethnic identity as a Black American and Samoan person and their gender fluidity. Kevin uses their platforms to interrogate systems of power, challenge normalcy, and uplift voices within their communities. Through interpersonal connection, community organizing, poetry, and education, they have found space as an emerging voice for Black, Indigenous, Queer, Trans, and Climate liberation.
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I often dream of a world that is built on a foundation of love, community, and selflessness. There are so many systems that allow for harm to thrive in our world; I want to liberate people from those systems by increasing their access to knowledge and strategies that can help them dismantle oppression. A more just world would be filled with a thriving Earth and Ocean, trust in the humanity of others, and the strength for each person to hold themselves accountable. A more just world would be centered around the rematriation of land and societies. I want to help youth, and all people, understand that they are not powerless in the creation of this future.
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EMAIL: KEVIN@MAPDX.ORG
Uses All Pronouns
Program Manager
Ale gallegos-chacÓn
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(Aww-Lay) uses they/them pronouns in English, and in Spanish Le/Elle. They were born in Quito, Ecuador, and have grown up partially in Chicago, and Cornelius Oregon. Ale graduated from the University of Oregon, where they majored in Ethnic Studies, and minored in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, and Environmental Studies (hello liberal arts kids). They’ve been organizing professionally and on the streets for 9 years, and have found great joy in community building, critical race theory, and leadership development. In their spare time, they enjoy snuggling cats, writing, painting, tending to plants, paddle boarding, and spending time with their queer loved ones.
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I hope a just world looks like a green and thriving planet, where all its inhabitants are happy, healthy, and safe. I hope that our future generations won’t know what starvation feels like, won’t know what imprisonment looks like, and won’t be so scared of what could go wrong if they are different. I hope it looks like people are community-centered in which resources are not only shared but mutually tended for. I hope society’s inclination will be to help one another, even if we are strangers. I hope there won’t be gendered, racialized, and ableist notions of hierarchy, but that people are free of expectations to be whoever they want to be, and do so radically, joyfully, and safely. I see my role as a gardener, healer, and hopefully teacher. I want to grow food with people, hold space for big feelings, and have wildly restorative conversations that allow us to be free thinkers and creative problem solvers.
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EMAIL: ALE@MAPDX.ORG
Uses They/Them
Co-executive Director of Programs, Communications & Development