The Speakers

For over 15 years Dr. Baté-Ambrus has been a leader in the health, human services, education, and non-profit sectors. She has been an active member of several health organizing collaborations involving academia, government, faith and community-based organizations, hospitals, and hospices. Dr. Baté-Ambrus is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Dominican University’s Graduate School of Social Work where she specializes in integrated health and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Understanding the need for culturally responsive healthcare, Venoncia has been a longtime champion of Community Health Workers (CHWs). She began her career as a CHW specializing in end-of-life care and since then has been an advisor, advocate, researcher, and educator of CHWs at local, state, regional and national levels. Dr. Baté-Ambrus has authored works on CHWs in various publications. She has served as an American Public Health Association (APHA) Governing Councilor representing the CHW section and served as the CHW policy committee co-chair. Dr. Baté-Ambrus is a co-chair of the Community Health Interest Group of the American Psychological Association’s Division 27: Society of Community Research and Action. She has earned a BA in Multicultural Psychology from Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), a MS in Organizational Leadership from Dominican University, a MA in Pastoral Counseling from Loyola University and a PhD in Community Psychology from National Louis University, as well as several graduate certificates in mediation, conflict resolution, health psychology, health mission leadership, marketing and fundraising. Dr. Baté-Ambrus is a trained in restorative justice and circle keeping and in Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation pedagogy.

Stephanie Zavala-Guzman is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, raised in the southwest of Chicago. She graduated from Dominican University in 2015 with a Bachelor’s in Sociology and Studies of Women and Gender. Stephanie is now on Staff as Program Director for Dominican Volunteers USA, a post-grad service program. She shares DVUSA’s vision of a more “just and humane society”, rooted in the liberation of Black and Brown communities that continue to be at the mercy of a racist society.

Stephanie shares her story, inspirations, and activism experience as it relates to community organizing and immigration. Stephanie’s lived experiences as an undocumented immigrant trying to navigate the higher education system is what encouraged Stephanie to begin organizing, and although her college career lent insight on how to analyze the society that we live in, Stephanie talks about what it looks like to organize outside of an academic setting in order to achieve liberation. It is through an incredible network of friends and family, social media accessibility, vulnerability, and unapologetic honesty, that Stephanie continues to be inspired to reimagine a liberated world achieved through collective work.

The Chicago-Kent Law School Immigration Law Society is a student-led organization dedicated to exploring substantive issues involving immigration law as well as the practice of immigration law. In March of 2018, ILS sent the first group of 12 students to Dilley, Texas to volunteer with the CARA ProBono Project at the South Texas Family Residential Center. Dilley is the largest detention center in the U.S. exclusively detaining women and children seeking asylum in the United States. At Dilley, students work directly with women and children who are seeking asylum by helping them to prepare for their credible fear interviews and accompanying them to their interview with asylum officers or before immigration judges. In order to best prepare their detained clients, students ask such women to recount traumatic experiences, which range from gang-related violence, rape, domestic violence, and persecution for political opinion, religion, sexuality, and nationality. The students ability to speak Spanish, and many other languages have been key in their success in helping over 700 women know their rights, feel understood and in many receive positive legal outcomes. ILS members are devoted to ensuring that their work in connection with Dilley continues as long as necessary, sending additional groups of students in January 2019, and most recently January 2020.