Maya Sheppard

Executive Director

Maya is a Connecticut born and raised advocate, mentor, poet and creative instructor and most recently was appointed to be HYV's Executive Director in the Summer of 2022. Maya joined the HYV team in 2018 with 10 years of youth development, facilitation & org building experience. She comes from a large, tight-net family and seeks council in her older sisters for just about everything. Fun fact - she is one of seven siblings! The youngest sister. Maya believes in the intentional and accountable investment in the leadership of Young Black and Brown people and has served as HYV's Youth Organizer to support HYV's campaign for Black History &  Ethnic Studies in New London & in partnership with the SEJ and the CT BBSU on HB 7082 for statewide implementation. As Director of Organizing - other campaigns include the #FEDUPNL Campaign resulting in a Board of Education vote for Police Free Schools in New London and over $400,000 of New London's budget being reallocated to youth & human services.

Nicole Broadus

Organizing manager

Nicole Broadus is a mother of two small boys ages, 6 and 10 and has been working in the New London community for over 10 years. Graduating from Central Connecticut State University, Nicole went on to intern for Safe Futures where she began teaching as a Violence Prevention Educator. Later, Nicole went on to work for New London Public Schools where she saw the need to change the ways the school system was functioning and how they do not benefit young people, especially young people of color. In the summer of 2022 Nicole began working as Organizing Manager for Hearing Youth Voices where she hopes to influence positive change for the youth in her community as well as youth in Connecticut. In addition to being an Organizing Manager, Nicole also works at New London Youth Affairs and also represents New London County on Connecticut’s Parent Cabinet Committee which serves as a parent advising committee for the state. She also directs the youth choir at Shiloh Baptists Church where she also sits on the board, and Co-chairs the governance committee with Safe Futures Board of Directors.

Damoya Nelson

finance and operations manager

After graduating from New London High School and studying Business Administration at Ithaca College she was challenged to create her own analysis of the world and systems that she saw operating around and against her. She is committed to her life’s mission to building equitable, anti-racist spaces and communities that create opportunities for the leadership, development, and freedom of BIPOC because it is our birthright. Her purpose is driven by her love for financial literacy and commitment to empowering the work that needs to be done for the youth and her community. She often spends her time re-imagining the world and what it would be like if we simply gave people what they needed to survive. As a beneficiary of HYV’s work alongside like-minded organizations, she believes it is her duty to join the fight for my people and lift them as she climbs. If we want to see the radical changes we speak of we must first spread radical love. We must pour into our people so that they may pour into others.

Genesis Cubilette

mARKETING & communications manager

HYV Publishing Sector Editor-in-Chief

Co-founder of HYV, creative non-fiction writer, and life Artivist! Genesis was born in Miami, Florida, but along her journey in life, she became a resident of New London, CT. There, she dedicated 9+ years to social justice and youth advocacy through organizing work in issues from sex education, to restorative justice. She graduated from Connecticut College with a degree in Africana Studies, and Gender, Sexuality & Intersectionality, and got her master’s degree in Creative Non-Fiction Writing from Emerson College. Her passion is design. Everything that she creates is for the people of her many communities; for the empowerment of her people (including but not limited to: Black, disabled, women, survivors, and neurodivergant people,) and the destruction of everything that tries to work against us! She wants to literally make the world more beautiful and accessible within the reach of marketing and communication… something we all interact with every day!

CJ Parker

education justice youth organizer

CJ Parker, the Education Justice Youth Organizer, was born and raised in New London before studying sociology at Northeastern University where he entered the organizing realm as Lead Organizer of the Massachusetts coalition of Students For Education Reform (now known as Our Turn) during the fall of 2015. As someone who grew up attending a variety of types of schools in New London such as the Regional Multicultural Magnet School, Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School, The
Williams School, and New London High School, CJ recognized inequities in education through his personal experience and grew passionate about creating change in education as this system directly correlates with life outcomes. With this mindset, CJ has supported young people in a variety of roles in Boston Public Schools, New London Public Schools, Norwich Public Schools, and a previous stint with Hearing Youth Voices which began the summer of 2020. While working at New London High School, CJ led a group of six students who submitted a proposal aimed
toward improving student and staff relationships which earned $20,000 through the Voice4Change grant. His goal is for society to become a place centered around community and sustainability through the liberation of BIPOC and low-income communities as well as the dismantlement of racialized capitalism.