Board of Directors

Kabzuag was born in Laos and come to this country as a refugee child with her mother and siblings. She is founder and co-executive director of Freedom Inc. She has dedicated the majority of her life to ending gender-based violence. Her advocacy started when she was 16 years old, assisting and housing at-risk teens, and challenging abusive gender norms within her community.

 

She is a strong believer that those who are most deeply impacted must be at the forefront of the movement. Those who are most impacted must have opportunities and resources to advocate for themselves and tell their own stories. In the past 20 years, Kabzuag has spent her life working to build collective power and social change within Southeast Asian and Black communities.

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Kabzuag is also a co-owner/founder of Red Green Rivers, a social enterprise that works with Artisan makers, most of whom are women and girls, from the Mekong Region in Southeast Asia. She also is a co-founder of Building Our Future, a global community campaign that works to change traditional practices, behaviors, and beliefs that contribute to gender-based violence within Hmong Families while building the leadership of women and girls.

 

Kabzuag is a daughter, mother, artist, and organizer. Her first love is the movement. She can be reach via email at kabzuagvaj@gmail.com.

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M. Adams is a community organizer and co-executive director of Freedom Inc., where she has been for eight years. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Adams has been in Madison since 2003. Adams’s dad has been incarcerated most of her life and she comes from a community that has been the extreme targets of police violence—and in March 2016 Adams’s mother transitioned after fighting cancer and many forms of violence. Adams, herself, also a dad and has her family as a primary motivator for her work. 

 

As a queer Black person, Adams has developed and advocated for a strong intersectional approach in numerous important venues: Adams is a leading figure in the Take Back the Land Movement, she presented before the United Nations for the Convention on Eliminating Racial Discrimination, the co-Author of Forward from Ferguson and a work in progress on Black community control over the police, and author to intersectionality theory in Why Killing Unarmed Black folks is a Queer issue. Most recently, Adams can be seen in person, on TV or in the newspapers giving near weekly presentations, testifying at city council meetings, and energizing crowds at protests.

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M can be reach via email at 

Jenny is the  Gender Justice Director at Freedom Inc. Originally from Cambodia and moved to the United States when she was 14 years old. She works as an advocate for Cambodian women who are survivors of domestic violence and other forms of violence.

 

Jenny is heavily involved with the Cambodian Buddhist Society temple of Wisconsin and helps organize youth dances, healing classes, sowing classes, and other temple events. Jenny has over 15 years of community work. She is committed to the liberation of her people and has worked to end violence against women, girls, fem, queer folks in Cambodian communities. 

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She is a mother and an advocate.

 

Jenny can be reach via email at jsem@freedom-inc.org.

Dr. Xiong is the Executive Director of Cia Siab, Inc. in La Crosse, WI. She has been a long time member of the La Crosse community since her family resettled in the United States in 1987.

 

She has a Bachelor's degree in Art and Philosophy, a Master's Degree in Education from the University of  La Crosse-Wisconsin (UW-L) and a Doctorate in Teaching and Learning from the University of Minnesota-Duluth with an emphasis in Language and Cultural Revitalization. Her research interests include International Indigenous People's Movement, Hmoob women's critical research frameworks, traditional Hmoob oral knowledge, Hmoob education, and globalization and its threat to diversity, Indigenous languages, and Indigenous cultures.

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Dr. Xiong is invested in the movement to end violence against Hmoob women and girls and work to (re)build a vibrate Hmoob community through Cia Siab, Inc.

 

Dr. Xiong can be reach via email at admin@ciasiabinc.org. 

Tammie Xiong currently serves as the executive director for the Hmong American Women’s Association (HAWA) in Milwaukee. HAWA continues to be one of the very few advocacy organizations in the country dedicating all of their resources to support Hmong women and girls, especially those impacted by gender-based violence.

 

She also serves as the current chair for the Viv Ncaus: Hmong Women Giving Circle. It is the first Hmong women giving circle in Wisconsin that has also been nationally recognized by the Asian American Pacific Islander in Philanthropy for their commitment to community-based social justice work. Tammie also has experience in working with Asian refugee/immigrant communities in Milwaukee and developing their capacity through teacher professional development, parent training, literacy development, and social justice advocacy. She holds an M.S. in adult education and program planning.

 

Tammie can be reach via email at tammie@hawamke.org.