About Us

The Windcall Family is built by the movement, for the movement. Our Board of Directors The Windcall Institute’s board of directors is a strong leadership, governance and fundraising body made up of Windcall alumni. The Board represents and demonstrates our alumni commitment to the role Windcall plays in social justice movements around the country. The […]

The Windcall Family is

built by the movement,

for the movement.

Our Board of Directors

The Windcall Institute’s board of directors is a strong leadership, governance and fundraising body made up of Windcall alumni. The Board represents and demonstrates our alumni commitment to the role Windcall plays in social justice movements around the country.

The Windcall Team

Viviana Rennella, Executive Director

Viviana has more than twenty years of experience leading social justice organizations. Before joining Windcall, she worked as a consultant, expanding her organizational development focus with wellness and mindfulness practices. She is the former Co-Executive Director of World Bridges, an international exchange and leadership development program for young organizers of color. She has also served as Program Director of several community training organizations, such as the Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action, developing organizer networks and social justice leadership programs. She helped launch four of these organizations as start-ups where she honed expertise in systems development.

Viviana emigrated with her family as political refugees from Argentina in 1979. Working with immigrant communities across the country and internationally, she developed trainings and systems for language justice; she was member of the Language Access Coordinating Team for the US Social Forums in Detroit and Atlanta, as well as the World Social Forums in Venezuela and Brazil. Currently based in Oakland, CA, Viviana serves on the board of the East Bay Meditation Center and is passionate about ways for people and organizations to transform the spaces where they live and work into healthy and balanced environments that result in greater organizer resiliency and movements that are truly transformative.

Jayeesha Dutta (Windcall ’19 Alumni)

Program Director

Jayeesha Dutta (she/her) is a multi-coastal, tri-lingual Bengali-USAn interdisciplinary artist, cultural organizer and pop-ed facilitator protecting the waters from the Gulf of Mexico to the Bay of Bengal with nearly 30 years of experience in movement building. She is a co-founding member of Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative, galvanizing folks from across the Gulf South to the Global South working towards a “just transition” for our people and the planet. Jayeesha also serves as co-chair of Eyewitness Palestine’s board of directors. She is an avid traveler, home chef, live music lover, and adores being near (or in) any body of water. She was born in Mobile, raised in New York, aged in Oakland and New Orleans and now calls Port St Lucie home. 

Jayeesha Dutta (ella) es un artista interdisciplinario, organizador cultural y facilitador de pop-ed bengalí, bilingüe, casi trilingüe con cerca de treinta años de experiencia. Es socia co-fundadora de Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative, galvanizando voces y experiencias de todo el Sur del Golfo hacia el Sur Global, trabajando hacia una transición justa para nuestra gente y el planeta. Ella sirve es miembro de la junta directiva de “Eyewitness Palestine”. Jayeesha es un ávido viajero, chef de casa, amante de la música en vivo y adora estar cerca (o en) cualquier cuerpo de agua. Nació en Mobile, se crió en Nueva York, envejeció en Oakland y Nueva Orleans y ahora en Puerto de Santa Lucía.

Dr. Alex Torres

Residencies Coordinator

Alex Torres has over ten years of experience of facilitating and advocating for implementing culturally sustaining and healing-centered educational approaches in public schools and higher education institutions in the Deep South. During her time as an English Learner teacher working with undocumented students, she did organizing work to advocate for improved resources. Alex is an ethnographer and writer whose doctoral work focused on addressing the educational needs of undocumented English Learners through a framework of desire and resiliency. Alex was a founding member of the Baton Rouge Immigrant Rights Coalition, worked closely with the Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants, served as the inaugural Latinx Director for Louisiana State University, was a member of the LGBTQ+ caucus, and co-developed the educational justice non-profit Humanities Amped where she serves on their board. Alex was born in Mexico City, grew up undocumented in rural Mississippi, and happily resides in South Louisiana. She believes in the power of building relationships and recognizes that individual healing is an ongoing process that is tied with the collective healing that our world needs.

Alex Torres tiene más de diez años de experiencia facilitando y defendiendo la implementación de enfoques educativos centrados en la curación y al respecto cultural en instituciones de educación. Durante su tiempo como maestra de aprendices de inglés trabajó con estudiantes indocumentados y abogó por recursos. Alex es una etnógrafa y escritora cuyo trabajo de doctorado se centró en abordar las necesidades educativas de los estudiantes de inglés indocumentados a través del deseo y resiliencia. Alex fue miembro fundador de la Coalición por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes de Baton Rouge, colaboró con la Organización de Luisiana para Refugiados e Inmigrantes, se desempeñó como Director Latinx inaugural de la Universidad Estatal de Luisiana, fue miembro del caucus LGBTQ+ y co-desarrolló la organización justicia educativa sin fines de lucro Humanities Amped, donde forma parte de su junta directiva. Alex nació en la Ciudad de México, creció indocumentada en la zona rural de Mississippi y vive felizmente en el sur de Luisiana. Ella cree en el poder de construir relaciones y reconoce que la sanación individual es un proceso continuo que está ligado a la sanación colectiva que nuestro mundo necesita.

Rev. Sara Green

Staying Power and Operations Coordinator

Sara Green (she/her) is a Unitarian Universalist clergyperson, cultural organizer and artist based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is a connector focusing on food and climate justice through embodied strategy, performance and institutional change. For the last decade, she has been working with groups to create organizational cultures based in sustainability, integrity and holistic well-being. As a storyteller, she leads groups to imagine their way forward with inspiring and transformational narratives surrounding organizational vision and mission, and fundraising based on collective memory and cultural practice. She enjoys pottery, gardening and salsa dancing as practices that center and conjure joy.