Board of Directors
Edwin Argueta
Edwin is an El Salvadorian immigrant rights activist, and an expert in advocacy for documented and undocumented Spanish speakers in New England. He currently works with Massachusetts Jobs with Justice and Welcoming Massachusetts.
Liz Bewsee
Liz is an organizer with Arise for Social Justice, low-income rights and anti-oppression membership organization in western Massachusetts. Arise was started in 1985 by four women on Welfare who met around a kitchen table and decided to organize and advocate for their Rights. Arise has grown over the years.
Bill Creighton
Bill started his activism during the ’60’s marching in Washington against the Vietnam War and for civil rights. Raised in two households with diametrically opposing political and social perspectives he has striven to find a balance between the blessing of being born into economic security and wealth, and the curse of living in a society where injustice and inequality reign. Finding a balanced path has been his life’s work.
Bill’s occupational resume includes boat building, firefighter, EMT, Registered Nurse (ICU, ER, and Home health), carpenter, heavy equipment operator, captain, teacher, small business owner, diver, electrician, plumber, ocean voyager, commercial fisherman. He is a founding Board member of Maine Initiatives, a fund for change and has been engaged with UFE and Responsible Wealth for many years as a donor and collaborator.
Bill's personal resume includes father (2 grown daughters), musician, dancer, singer, sailor, brother, son. He presently lives in Freeport, Maine, with Nina the cat.
Ajamu Dillahunt
Ajamu is the Outreach Coordinator at the N.C. Justice Center in Raleigh, N.C. Before joining the Justice Center in 2004, Ajamu served as President of the Raleigh Area Local of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) for 18 years, where he was also Director of Research and Education for the North Carolina Council of the APWU. Ajamu also sits on the National Coordinating Committee of the Black Workers for Justice and serves as Board Co-chair for the Institute for Southern Studies. He holds a Masters Degree in African Studies.
Jean M. Entine
Jean has spent the past forty years working in the non-profit sector as a progressive activist. She was the Executive Director of Women for Economic Justice and the Boston Women’s Fund and Interim Executive Director of the Island Affordable Housing Fund on Martha’s Vineyard. She also served as Interim Development Director of the Boston Architectural Center.
She is now working with a few select clients on issues of organizational and program development and fundraising planning. Past clients include: Black Belt Community Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation, the Funding Exchange, Piedmont Peace Project, Families USA, and the Public Conversations Project.
Over the years Jean has served on a number of local, state and national boards. Currently she is on the board of Jewish Voice for Peace, the Algebra Project and Grassroots International. A sampling of past board work includes Political Research Associates (secretary 1999-2004), Freedom House, Asian Taskforce on Domestic Violence, American Civil Liberties Union (treasurer 1989-1991), and the Cambridge Peace Commission (vice chair 1988-1992). She has also served on the Advisory Boards of the Center for Popular Economics, Neighbor to Neighbor, and the ACLU.
Jean is the recipient of several awards including the “Changing the Face of Philanthropy” award from the Women’s Funding Network, a “Peace and Justice” award from the Cambridge Peace Commission and the “Lifetime Achievement” award from Rosie’s Place.
Carol Gomez
Carol is the Founder and Executive Director of MataHari: Eye of the Day, a national social justice organization that works with immigrants and communities of color to end violence and exploitation. Her award-winning organization facilitates women’s leadership and provides skills and support to communities organizing for safety and justice. She has over 20 years of work as an educator, workshop facilitator, community organizer, mediator, trauma counselor, advocate and community researcher.
Carol obtained her B.A. in Women’s Studies & International Development from Mt. Holyoke College and an MSW from Simmons School of Social Work. Carol has been adjunct faculty at Boston College School of Social Work and guest lectures at campuses across the U.S. Besides her work with UFE, she currently serves on the board of Imaginaction Theater and is appointed to the Governor’s Council on Domestic and Sexual Violence. Carol was born and raised in Malaysia and immigrated to the US after completing her undergraduate degree. She is bi-coastal, living with her partner, Mark, in Los Angeles and travelling to New England regularly for work.
Carol can be contacted at carol
eyeoftheday.org OR 617-448-0993.
Emily Kawano, Treasurer
Emily cut her activist teeth in the Seabrook anti-nuke movement, where she learned that consensus based decision-making does not mix well with the fast pace of an occupation attempt, especially when one’s affinity group is positioned in the marshes and the incoming tide is about to cut off retreat. Having survived that, she has been involved in social and economic justice issues ever since.
Emily received a degree in human ecology from the College of the Atlantic and a Ph.D in economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the Director of the Center for Popular Economics and the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network. She has been a member of the CPE collective for twenty years and has served as the director since 2004. Prior to that, she taught economics at Smith College and worked as the National Economic Justice Representative for the American Friends Service Committee, where she initiated the formation of ELAN (Economic Literacy for Action Network). It was through ELAN that she first met UFE founder Chuck Collins.
While working in N. Ireland, she founded a popular economics program with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, served on the N.I. Social Economy Network Working Group and worked with two Belfast Community Development Agencies to develop and deliver a social economy training program for community groups seeking to start up social enterprises.
Emily now lives in an old fixer-upper in a bucolic town in western Mass. with the unlovely name of Belchertown, along with her partner, son and dog.
Prakash Laufer, President
Prakash is the former CEO of Motherwear International - a catalog and web company dedicated to the support of breastfeeding and nurturing parenting. Together with his wife Jody Wright they grew Motherwear Inc from 1987 to 2003 and to sales of $11 Million and created the niche of clothing for Breastfeeding Mothers. Jody and Prakash have 5 daughters and are a global family with 5 sets of birth parents - from Africa, the Philippines, Haiti and the US. He is especially interested in how businesses can incorporate socially responsible practices into every area of their activity - from environmentally friendly practices, employee involvement and ownership practices, to creating products and services that are sustainable and healthy for consumers and communities.
For the past 30 years Prakash has been a student of meditation and yoga and of PROUT (the Progressive Utilization Theory) - a spiritually based alternative to capitalism. In the 80s Prakash and Jody published the Prout Journal - integrating spirituality and progressive ideas - in Wisconsin and New England.
Prakash loves to dance - and this has been the focus of his formal education. He began dancing at Dartmouth College in 1970 - attended graduate school in Dance at UCLA (dropping out to become a travelling meditation teacher/organizer) - before completing his masters degree in Dance-Movement therapy from Antioch New England. Over the years he has explored authentic movement, contact improvisation and is currently performing with a dance company that spans multiple generations. He is the organizer of a monthly film series - Another World is Possible - together with the Earthdance Community in Western Massachusetts. He is also the organizer of the annual Earthdance Film Festival - Dance and Music Can Change the World. His passion is the expression of spirituality and service and activism through dance and the arts.
Mike Miller, Emeritus
S.M. (Mike) Miller is a co-founder and long-time board member of UFE. He is a senior fellow at the Commonwealth Institute and a board member of Poverty and Race Research Action Council. He is emeritus professor of sociology at Boston University and in 2009 received the American Sociological Association's award for the Practice of Sociology.
Earlier, he received Guggenheim, German Marshall Fund and Fulbright awards. He has worked with poverty, race, policy and community groups in several nations, including the United States. He is working on a book on long-run policies and politics for the United States. He was on the staff of the Ford Foundation and the board of directors of the Field Foundation. His motto is "Ideas for Action - Ideas from Action."
Mike Prokosch
Mike is a popular economics educator who has worked at United for a Fair Economy, UMass Lowell's Labor Education Program, and now at Community Labor United in Boston. In early 2009 he designed a workshop on the financial crisis and led it for 40 union and community audiences.
Mike has also worked as a typesetter, calligrapher, graphic designer, and an organizer in the Central America solidarity movement. He co-edited "The Global Activists' Manual" (2003) and was a member of UFE's creative action troupe, Class Acts. He lives in Dorchester with his partner Becky Pierce, a carpenter and troublemaker.
Maya Winfrey
Maya is a student at NYU who splits her time between NYC and Western Massachusetts, where she is involved with the American Friends Service Committee, where she served as the interim program coordinator, and other organizations working for social and economic justice.