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Irene Juaniza

Irene Juaniza was born in Uptown Chicago and is of the Batangue–a and Waray tribes of the Philippine Islands. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois in Urbana.-Champaign and currently serves as the Executive Director of Blocks Together (BT), a multi-issue grassroots direct action organization based in West Humboldt Park. She joined BT in 2003 and steered the organization through an organizational development process to insert a social justice analysis.

Prior to that, she spent several years working for a national racial justice organization, the Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO) based in Oakland, CA. At CTWO, she coordinated the Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program, a national internship that trains people of color in community organizing. There, she also worked as an organizer for their welfare campaign, focusing on passage of the federal Racial Equity and Fair Treatment Bills.

Within the next 5 years, she’d like to work with leaders to unite the diverse residents of West Humboldt Park to fight displacement and assert their right for community control. Irene believes that "Our ability to create movement is only effective as our own personal struggle to understand our authentic self."