Soraya Senosier is a Social Specialist in the Environmental Safeguards and Social Unit at the Inter-American Development bank where she works to ensure that large development programs do no harm to communities that surround them through the management of social impact assessments, social audits, and resettlement and rehabilitation plans.
She holds a BA in Political Science and an Executive MA in Cities, as well as an MA in Peace and International Development.
Soraya has been working in International Development for over 15 years for large NGOs and Inter-governmental organizations. Prior to settling in Washington, D.C., she lived in Mexico, Honduras, Spain, the Dominican Republic, Kosovo and Haiti. It is her firm belief that real development must be sustainable and provide the opportunity for every human being to live with dignity in a society that benefits one and all.
Soraya hails from Montreal and has always been active in the Haitian diaspora community.
April J. Mayes focuses her research on the Dominican Republic and teaches courses in Colonial Latin American history, Afro-Latin American history, women’s and gender studies, and Africana studies. A graduate of Pomona College, Mayes was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship she used to examine Protestant women’s social justice movements in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Ecuador. Afterwards, she attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where she earned a Ph.D. in history (2003), with an emphasis in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, gender, ethnicity and race in the Americas, comparative post-emancipation studies and anthro/history.
Mayes is the author of the book, The Mulatto Republic: Class, Race, and National Identity in the Dominican Republic (University Press of Florida).
As co-chair of the Haiti-Dominican Republic section of the Latin American Studies Association, Mayes, in collaboration with Prof. Kiran Jayaram, increased section membership and the section’s visibility through social media. Mayes is one of the co-founders of the Transnational Hispaniola collective, an intellectual initiative that serves to promote social scientific research in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic as well as cross-national dialogue and intellectual exchange.
Roberta Wall is a retired Deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and a retire educator with over 20 years experience in the classroom and 12 as a school principal. Here education includes a BA in French (not a fluent speaker) and a CA Teacher Certificate form CSUSB, a Master’s Degree in Learning and Behavior Disorders from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Administrative Credentials for California, and a Master’s Degree in Christian Ministry with an emphasis on Evangelical Justice, from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, CA.
After her retirement, Roberta became an active volunteer in justice work, focusing on issues that affect immigrants in this country. She is the secretary on the HBA Board and co-leader of the ELCA AMMPARO Network for Southern CA. Roberta is an active member of her congregation in San Clemente, CA. With her husband of 49 years, Roberta enjoys hiking, biking and spending time with her 5 grandchildren and one great grandbaby. She also enjoys sewing and crocheting, especially for the grandkids, and reading mysteries.
Ms. Dessources is an experienced international lawyer and public administration Professional with consolidated experience in providing capacity building in contract negotiation, monitoring, and evaluation of program performance, compliance of program implementation to conform to regulatory compliance requirements by Federal Agencies, and improving productivity and efficiency in operational management while mitigating risks. She has more than 13 years of experience in the international environment of Assistance and Acquisition Management, with deep compliance and cultural understanding of context, people, and cultures.She has been a Legal Analyst and Advisor for International Transactions, a Commercial Lawyer at law firms such as Will Mc Dermot & Emory LLP, Legal consultant for PriceWaterHouseCoopers for VAT harmonization evaluating aspiring countries to the European Union (EU), in Brussels, Belgium. She also consulted with Marveaux & Associates LLP on private-sector mapping for ACP countries on behalf of the European Commission (EC). She has been an international compliance verification analyst for a large international insurance company (AIG- North America Group). Currently, she consults and contracts with many international developing firms in Washington DC on development policy in West African countries (MSI, FHI360, Kaiser Associates, and Tetra Tech). Ms. Dessources has developed regulatory compliance and risk mitigation expertise for multiple non and for-profit organizations such as ]FHI360, PSI, PAE, etc. as well as large to medium private firms such as NetCentrics where she held a senior contracts manager role. She currently holds the position of lead contracts and compliance manager at TRG. Inc. where she manages a portfolio of over $120 million funding sources.
Sophie holds a Law Degree in International Commercial Law from the University of Brussels (ULB), and a Master ‘degree in Public Administration with a trade and investment policy concentration from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, CA.
Sophie was the Executive Director of the Haiti Renewal Alliance, where she was also a board member from November 2014 to February 2023. Sophie Dessources is currently a Board Member of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a non-profit based in San Diego, CA, since Spring 2023.
Allen Orr is the founder of the Washington, DC-based Orr Immigration Law Firm PC, a minority-owned law firm. His practice is focused on US immigration compliance for US corporations, including visa applications for immigrants and non-immigrants. In addition to serving on and chairing several national and local committees, he has written numerous articles and regularly speaks at immigration conferences. Before founding Orr Immigration Law Firm, Allen Orr worked for an international global law firm in their immigration department for over 12 years. Mr. Orr received the 2009 Joseph Minsky Young Lawyer Award for contributions made in the immigration law field. He is listed in The International Who’s who of Corporate Immigration Lawyers and The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers. He is the Immigration Section Chair for the National Bar Association and the National President of the Board of Directors for AILA. He is the first black President of AILA in its 75-year history.
Mr. Orr received a BA in Philosophy from Morehouse and a JD from Howard School of Law. He is an active member of the DC, Virginia, and National Bar Associations. Mr. Orr has appeared on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), MSNBC, FOX News, and Deustsche Welle (DW), and is a frequent national and international speaker on US immigration and policy.
Wade McMullen is an experienced human rights lawyer whose legal and advocacy work in service of grassroots activists and social justice movements has spanned the globe.
Wade currently serves as SVP of Programs & Legal Strategy at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, where he leads the organization’s strategy across programs working with frontline advocates to topple systemic injustice and foster a new generation of human rights defenders in the classroom and on college campuses. A seasoned human rights litigator, Wade has argued high impact cases against state-sponsored repression and discrimination before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Commission, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission, and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. He has represented high-profile prisoners of conscience and led human rights investigations in the United States and over two dozen countries.
Wade previously co-directed the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law and was a supervising attorney for the Civil and Human Rights Clinic at Howard University School of Law. Raised in Texas, Wade received his J.D. from New York University School of Law, and currently resides in Washington, DC.