Who We Are
Supporting Survivors. Cultivating Healing. Building Accountable Communities.
OUR EXECUTIVE CO-DIRECTORS
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Kalayo Pestaño
Kalayo (they/them), a cultural worker and community organizer from Mindanao, Philippines, has been connected to API Chaya since being a volunteer and intern in 2006. In 2013, they came back as Community Organizer and Volunteer Coordinator. They worked closely with Pacific Islander and South Asian communities, building on the Natural Helpers program, as well as long-term survivor and youth leadership projects. In 2015, Kalayo moved into the Community Organizing Program Manager role and, through their leadership, grew our capacity to respond to community needs, through Bonds of Kinship, Community Solutions, Language Access and Disability Justice programs. During this time, Kalayo also co-founded Queer The Land, a QT2BIPOC collective working towards generating resources by and for our communities, including a capital campaign for purchasing property that will serve as housing and work cooperative and a community center.
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Priya Rai
Priya is a mixed race, queer, chronically ill survivor who has been an intern, advocate, organizer, and now Co-Director at API Chaya. Through her leadership, API Chaya developed programs with incarcerated community members across WA state prisons; as well as built programs to develop community leadership to directly intervene in gender-based violence towards healing and accountability. In this role Priya is particularly interested in sustaining the organization, its workers, the movement, and ensuring our programs meet community need. She has been in the anti-violence anti-prison movement for more than 15 years. She is a former board member of the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence; Trikone NW; and is a founding member of Collective Justice. Priya has a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley; and a JD from the University of Washington School of Law.
OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS