Alycia Gay is an Apprentice Community Organizer in Hartford, CT.

Marketa Edwards is an Apprentice Community Organizer in the Capital Region. 

Yonah Zeitz is the Policy Coordinator with the Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice. He is committed to transforming the criminal legal system and creating community solutions that focus on resources and healing; not cages.

Prior to joining Katal, Yonah worked as a Project Associate at The Bronx Freedom Fund, a nonprofit bail fund operating in the Bronx and Queens, NY. He worked to post bail for hundreds of individuals unjustly incarcerated because of their race and poverty. Advocating for systemic change of the money bail system, he represented the Freedom Fund in numerous coalitions including the #CloserRikers campaign, the #FreeNewYork campaign, Queens for DA Accountability, the National Bail Fund Network, and CourtWatch NYC. Previous internship experiences at the DC Public Defenders Service and the Maryland Office of the Public Defenders, shaped his commitment to dismantle our current punitive and racist legal system.

Yonah is originally from Maryland and is a graduate of St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He holds a BA in Political Science and Public Policy, with minors in Economics and Democracy Studies. In his free time, Yonah enjoys spending time with his four brothers, dancing with friends, playing soccer, being in nature, and reading.

A veteran community organizer, Lorenzo Jones is the cofounder and co–executive director of the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice. Katal works at the municipal and state level in Connecticut and New York to build leadership and organizing capacity to end mass incarceration and the drug war. 

Lorenzo brings more than 25 years of experience organizing communities to influence the political process and bring about systemic change. He has developed, coached, and mentored thousands of grassroots leaders for social justice. Lorenzo has worked as an organizer, trainer, and strategist with groups across the United States and globally. He has served as an adviser and consultant to organizers and campaigns for criminal justice and drug policy reform. His leadership strategy focuses on teaching everyday people that they can make the change they want to see, and helping organizers understand the political terrain around them.

Before launching Katal, Lorenzo served for 10 years as executive director of A Better Way Foundation (ABWF), a drug policy and criminal justice reform organization based in Hartford, Connecticut. Under Lorenzo’s leadership, ABWF passed numerous reform bills in the legislature, mobilized thousands of Connecticut residents, and set the statewide agenda for ending the drug war and mass incarceration. 

A sought-after trainer, Lorenzo partnered with the Perrin Family Foundation in 2013 to develop and launch the Building Leadership and Organizing Capacity (BLOC) program to train young people and others as new organizers. Now Katal’s flagship training and leadership development program, BLOC continues to train organizers, including participants from local queer, Black, Latina, and youth communities. 

Lorenzo began his organizing career in 1991 in Hartford with the Asylum Hill Organizing Project. In 1994 he joined United Connecticut Action for Neighborhoods under the mentorship of veteran organizers. He learned the science and art of community organizing by building campaigns led by residents fighting for police accountability and public safety, expanding alternatives to incarceration, and securing resources for community development. 

From 1997 to 1999, Lorenzo trained community policing grantees on community organizing and self-advocacy through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 2002 he started the BROTHERS group, bringing formerly incarcerated men who were living in shelters and assisted living into the political process in the Connecticut State Capitol for the first time. The next year, Lorenzo launched Create Change, a group of predominantly Black Connecticut adults and young people dedicated to ending the war on drugs and mass incarceration. From 2004 to 2008, Lorenzo wrote a weekly column about civic engagement and community power in Northend Agents, the state’s largest, oldest Black-owned newspaper.

From 2006 through 2015, Lorenzo served as an adviser to the Drug Policy Alliance, shaping the organization’s work with local community groups. He cofounded the National Network for Justice, the #CLOSErikers campaign, and has consulted and advised numerous foundations, organizations, and networks, including the Formerly Incarcerated & Convicted People’s Movement, Open Society Foundations, and the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe. 

Lorenzo serves on the board of the Chicago-based Workers Center for Racial Justice, and on the advisory board of the Center for Prison Education at Wesleyan University.  He is a member of The Keepers, a group of entrepreneurs, organizers, researchers, artists and authors who found each other through The Nantucket Project and meet regularly to discuss making the world a better place. Lorenzo lives in Hartford with his wife, Kimberly. They have three children—Jordan, Lorenzo Jr., and Loren. Born and raised in Chicago, Lorenzo is an avid fan of the Bears, Bulls, Fire, Sky, Sox, and the Blackhawks.

Selected writing and video:

• Lorenzo Jones: video on bail reform
  
• “George Floyd and Racism in America: The Time is Now”
• "Key to Communities of Color: What doors does that key open?"
• Connecticut Criminal Justice Reform Field Scan
• Reflections and Lessons from the First Two Phases of the #CLOSErikers Campaign: August 2015 – August 2017

gabriel sayegh is the cofounder and co–executive director of the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice. Katal works at the municipal and state level in Connecticut and New York to build leadership and organizing capacity to end mass incarceration and the drug war. 

A community organizer and strategist for more than 20 years, gabriel has contributed to a wide range of collaborative grassroots movement efforts as a trainer, facilitator, and partner. He has developed and led campaigns to roll back the Rockefeller drug laws, prevent overdose deaths, end racially biased marijuana arrests, close the Rikers Island jail complex, pass bail reform, and more. 

Before launching Katal, gabriel served as managing director of policy & campaigns at the Drug Policy Alliance, a national organization dedicated to ending the war on drugs. His work experience includes stints as staff in the Washington State Senate, as a research assistant, as a waiter and line cook, and in construction. gabriel was fortunate to have mentors who steered him into community organizing for racial justice, queer rights, ending domestic violence, and establishing fair economies.

gabriel and his work have appeared in a wide range of broadcast, online, and print media, including The New York Times, NY1, NBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, Newsweek, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, and the BBC. He served as an adviser on The House I Live In, a Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary about the war on drugs. gabriel has been a guest speaker throughout the United States and Europe. In a 2014 TEDx talk, he described his own struggle with drug use and the connections among addiction, the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and systemic racism. 

gabriel serves as a trustee and executive committee member of the New York Foundation and sits on the board of the Chicago-based Worker’s Center for Racial Justice. Thanks to Pell Grants and the guidance of elders, he attended community college and later obtained a bachelor of arts degree from The Evergreen State College. He holds a master’s in public health from the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy. gabriel grew up in California’s Sacramento Valley and lives with his partner and child in Brooklyn, New York.

SELECT PUBLICATIONS BY GABRIEL SAYEGH

• Making Sense of the Fight over NYC Jails 
• Making Sense of Bail Reform In NYS, Part 1 and Part 2
• Connecticut Criminal Justice Reform Field Scan
• “Making Drug Policy Reform Work for Meaningful Decarceration,” a chapter in the book Decarcerating America: From Mass Punishment to Public Health (edited by Ernest Drucker)
• Reflections and Lessons from the First Two Phases of the #CLOSErikers Campaign: August 2015 – August 2017
• Blueprint for a Public Health and Safety Approach to Drug Policy (the subject of a New York Times editorial)
  
• Healthcare Not Handcuffs: Putting the Affordable Care Act to Work for Criminal Justice and Drug Law Reform
• One Million Police Hours
  
  

Kenyatta Thompson is the Lead Community Organizer with the Katal Center for Health, Equity and Justice. Her experiences in her native Brooklyn, New York exposed her to disparities in police surveillance, access to educational opportunities and overall outcomes for those in her neighborhood. These early experiences remained with her, and propelled her to challenge the justice system.

Prior to joining Katal, Kenyatta worked as a Workforce Developer at Roca Inc. in Springfield, MA. There, she facilitated Workforce Readiness groups with young people who had been incarcerated. The disparities that existed in Brooklyn were present in Springfield, which in turn, shaped Kenyatta’s path towards justice. Previous internship experiences have also shaped her path. Kenyatta has worked with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention on prison suicide prevention strategies, the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services on statewide suicide prevention policy and with State Senator Eric P. Lesser (D-Longmeadow, MA) on criminal justice reform and constituent cases in his district.

A self-described east coast nomad, Kenyatta also holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree from Juniata College in Huntingdon, PA and a Masters of Social Work from the University of Connecticut School of Social Work in Hartford, CT. Outside of work, Kenyatta enjoys long walks on the beach, skateboarding through her neighborhood and re-runs of MTV’s Daria.