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What do our advocacy efforts look like beyond the legislative visit and the leave-behind? How can we work to center impacted communities, especially the voices of people of color and immigrants, in our advocacy efforts? Join us for this crucial conversation on embodying solidarity in our work, featuring our special guest speaker and winner of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development’s 2021 Cardinal Bernadin New Leadership Award, Ogechi Akalegbere! Ogechi will share with us her experiences as a community organizer with Action in Montgomery (AIM), a CCHD-funded organization in the Archdiocese of Washington, and reflect on the importance of bringing the Catholic principles of solidarity and subsidiarity to our advocacy work.

Ogechi Akalegbere is a Nigerian-American, Catholic young adult leader who is passionate about the faith call to do justice. With AIM, , Ogechi trained low-income and immigrant parents to advocate for equitable access to resources in schools so their children could thrive. Now an AIM board member, she continues to help local communities give witness to the needs of their members. Ogechi also leads trainings on equity for parishes with Catholics United for Black Lives. After several incidents of national unrest, Ogechi took inspiration from Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA, and founded a small group for young adult women of color to discern their response as people of faith. Ogechi works as the Christian Service Coordinator at Connelly School of the Holy Child, and serves as a catechist, lector, and pastoral council co-chair at St. Rose of Lima parish.