OUR PEOPLE
TAMISHA WALKER
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Tamisha Walker is a founding member and Executive Director of the Safe Return Project, a campaign to secure the freedom and liberation of formerly incarcerated individuals. She has been a Richmond-based community organizer and well-respected advocate on issues related to mass incarceration and racial disparity in the criminal justice system since her release from incarceration in 2009. Tamisha organizes and coordinates the Safe Return Project and its campaigns at the local, state, and federal levels. As a formerly incarcerated woman, she shares a powerful personal story about the journey to healing and successful reentry into society. Tamisha has years of community organizing experience in a city impacted by trauma and economic inequality, including her own personal experience with trauma and poverty growing up in Richmond, California. Her educational credentials include professional training in research and advocacy for the formerly incarcerated and their families, violence prevention strategies, and conflict mediation to reduce urban gun violence.
Contact:
CHALA BONNER
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT ORGANIZER
Chala Bonner is a Civic Engagement Organizer at Safe Return Project. Her passion for helping others in her community shines through her work with SRP. She works hard to level the playing field for formerly incarcerated people of color. Her goal is to build equity in the community by helping folks overcome the obstacles and challenges that come with incarceration and reentry and bring healing to those who have had traumatic and stressful experiences. Her motto is “Don’t let your past dictate your future.”
Contact: (510) 497-1538
CARLOS FERNANDEZ
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER
Carlos Fernandez is a Jr. Organizer and Credible Messenger mentor with the Safe Return Project. Carlos was raised in Richmond, spent most of his teenage life in juvenile hall, and now advocates for the decarceration and healing of young people impacted by the criminal legal system.
Contact: (619) 756-3269
ADEY TESHAGER
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER & ADMIN ASSISTANT
For Adey, the Richard Boyd Fellowship paved a second chance. As a formerly incarcerated woman, Adey faced many barriers including employment, housing, racial profiling, trauma, and lack of access to services and resources. In 2018, the Re-Entry Success Center connected her to the Safe Return Project, where she learned about the disenfranchising mechanism of incarceration that kept women like her surviving, not thriving. Now a graduate of the fellowship program organized by the Safe Return Project, she is a community engagement organizer advocating with Women & Young Girls impacted by the criminal justice system.
Contact: (510) 775-3060
Mica Herrera
Organizer
Mica Herrera is a new organizer and 2019 alumni of Safe Return Projects Richard Boyd Empowerment Pathway Fellowship. Mica was inspired by her experience in the fellowship to keep working with directly impacted people like herself and to give back to those in her community as a changemaker. Mica started working with the Safe Return Project a month before her acceptance into the fellowship using her direct experience to inform Safe Return's gender equity work which lead to the publication of an Arresting Trauma report that highlighted the trauma that women, girls, and nongender conforming individuals face in our communities, during incarceration, and upon reentry.