About Us
Facilitate Change’s (“FC”) founder, Andrea Gómez, has over 17 years practicing anti-oppression facilitation. In 2019, she turned her independent consulting experience into an opportunity to train and grow a team of facilitator/coaches through FC.
Change Facilitators
Andrea Gómez (she/her/hers) is a formerly undocumented bisexual femme from Peru that grew up in the West End of Providence. She has over two decades of experience as a community and campaign organizer as well as a dialogue facilitator focused on issues of identity, privilege, oppression, and equity. Andrea has led leadership development programs focused on social justice and community organizing for both youth and adults in Rhode Island and Arkansas. She recently founded Facilitate Change, a consulting firm whose mission is to dismantle systems of privilege and oppression through community organizing and dialogue-based education. Andrea’s philosophy is that we must approach this work with a focus on the intersections of our identities, placing equal value in all stories and helping participants understand how these systems of oppression impact us all. She currently serves as the Founder & Senior Facilitator for Facilitate Change.
Victoria Rodriguez (she/they) is a mixed neurodivergent queer femme, descendant of colonial Christian settlers, African Diaspora and Indigenous Maya. Born to the Southside of Providence and the child of newly arrived immigrants of São Miguel & Guatemala, Victoria has evolved into an Intersectional Human and Environmental Rights Activist and Community Organizer. She has worked for over a decade in direct service to RI’s most marginalized communities in a variety of capacities gaining access with a BA in Sociology from Albertus Magnus College. For the past five years Victoria has focused her activism as a Social Justice Facilitator co-founding Facilitate Change where she uses the power of community organizing in her mission to reclaim access to a healthy quality of life, for all kin across the four directions. She currently serves as Co Founder & Change Facilitator for Facilitate Change.
Kunal Vasudev (she/her) is a Southern person from the wonderful city of Charlotte, NC, where her passion for creating spaces for storytelling and social justice was sparked during her high school days. Throughout her brief time in the world, she has worked directly with young people and created and implemented operation systems at City Year, managed federal grants for Providence Public Schools, and researched and developed policy for Providence City Councilors. All of her work is tied together with a single thread: to support, elevate, and bring people to the table, especially those who are normally refused a seat. She is driven by the belief that true change, whether personal or systemic, can only happen through bringing people together and hearing all voices and stories. Only then can a common purpose be found and connection be created. She holds a Master’s in Urban Education Policy from Brown University and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from NC State. Kunal currently serves as a Change Facilitator for Facilitate Change.
Sophia Wright (they/them) is a native Rhode Islander with a background in anti-racist community organizing. In 2013 Sophia graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in American Studies, Comparative Race and Ethnicities. Through their studies they were introduced to Critical Race Theory and developed the strong conviction that all radical work must happen in community with others. Since then they have engaged in community spaces doing organizing and political education around various social justice issues. They have 5 years of experience with facilitating in community organizing spaces and facilitating educational workshops on the histories of race, identity and oppression. Their organizing work has ranged from work with immigrants and undocumented folks, to work with formerly incarcerated folks–demanding their rights outside of the prison and challenging the inhumane conditions within the prison–to organizing against police abuse and racial profiling in Providence.
Through their community organizing work Sophia has developed an acute awareness that sustainable change–whether systematic, institutional, or individual–is only possible after a process of unlearning has occurred. They place a high value on each individual’s journey to decolonize the mind. Their approach to decolonizing the mind begins with unlearning the lies that they have been fed and finding where untruths have taken root in their relationship with the world and the people around them. Their passion for this work is fueled by their desire to see their BIPOC community thrive in public spaces and able to stand in its own power. Sophia is a person of Black, Indigenous (of so-called MA & RI), and white ancestry. Sophia has worked as an organizer with the Behind the Walls Committee at Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) and as a founding organizer of the Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance (also known as the AMOR Network).
Sól Gonzalez (they/them/elle) is a mixed and white nonbinary, neurodivergent queer femme born in Venezuela and raised in South Florida. Their people come from the coastal waters, rivers, mountains of the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, the Canary Islands and southern Spain, and what is now known as Lebanon, and other beautiful lands. They carry with them histories of flight, resistance, assimilation into whiteness, poverty and class ascension, harm doing and receiving, retribution, land loss, land love, colonization, and a reclamation of cultural memory.
They are a community organizer, liberatory life coach, group facilitator, campaign strategist, and anti-oppressive organizational consultant working with individuals and collectives in weaving their everyday lives with their highest values, visions, and desires. They work with leaders, worldbuilders, healers, organizers, program directors and anyone wanting to cultivate more care, curiosity and intentionality in their lives and ecosystems. With a focus on transformation, right relationship with self/land/other, and the embodied practice of liberation, Sól and their collaborators create courageous 1-1 and collective spaces that cultivate loving awareness and values-aligned change.
Sól is a 2022-2023 Coaching for Healing, Justice, and Liberation 9-month cohort graduate, 2022 Certified Life and Executive Coach with Institute for Coaching Excellence, a 2019-2021 graduate of Gibran X. Rivera’s Evolutionary Relationships program and 2018 Evolutionary Leadership program. They also completed the 2020 Intro to Liberatory Coaching Program with Coaching for Healing, Justice and Liberation. Sól is a 2015 graduate of Northeastern University’s Cultural Anthropology program with a focus on Cultural Production and Power in Social Movements.
Justice Gaines (xe/xem/xyr) is a genderfluid Black woman raised in New Jersey and nurtured by a political and artistic home in Providence, RI. Over the past decade, xe has engaged as political educator and organizer around issues of trans-inclusive gender justice, queer housing stability, and community safety beyond policing. In facilitating youth spaces, xe witnessed how avoiding confrontation exacerbates conflicts rather than diffusing them. Xyr practice aims to build common language and understanding to help folks move through confrontation with complexity and compassion. Xe previously served as the Queer Justice Director at Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM) and as an organizer at RI Jobs With Justice. Xe studied Sociology four years at Brown University. Justice is also a published poet and spoken word artist whose work seeks liberation in times of apocalypse. Xe currently serves as a Change Facilitator for Facilitate Change.
Change Consultants
Rosangela Ramos Mbengue (She/Her/Hers) is a first generation immigrant from the Dominican Republic. Rosangela and her family migrated to the U.S when she was 10 years old. She has lived in Providence, RI ever since and attended the Providence Academy of International Studies ’13 and graduated from Providence College ’17. She has been active in the Youth Development field since high school, as an organizer and a youth activist. In her post-college professional career, she continues to engage youth in the greater Providence area through her social and racial justice framework centering the voices of Black and Brown youth in the public education system. She has over 10 years of experience in youth organizing and youth development. She is committed to elevating the voices and experiences of youth of color, their healing and facilitating dialogue to reimage liberation for themselves and their communities.
Kevin Pajaro-Mariñez (he/him/his) is a first-generation Black Latino with Colombian and Dominican roots. He was born in Queens, NY, but was raised in the wonderful city of Providence, RI. Kevin attended the University of Rhode Island, where he earned his bachelor’s in Communication Studies. Thereafter, he attended Michigan State University where he earned his master’s degree in Student Affairs Administration. Currently, Kevin serves as the inaugural Assistant Director for Equity and Inclusion at Phillips Exeter Academy, an independent boarding school in Exeter, NH.
In June 2020, Kevin founded a community-based virtual reading group called the Black Men’s Reflection Group (BMRG) where Black men come together to think expansively about masculinity. The goal of BMRG is to cultivate a space that pushes Black men to embrace emotions, reflect on life experiences, and build capacity for deep connection through dialogue. Ultimately, Kevin strives to use the BMRG framework to help other men create spaces for conversations about masculinity in their respective communities.
Outside of his professional and intellectual pursuits, he enjoys dancing bachata and salsa, collecting cool socks, and playing video games.