Queering the

Resume
Stonewall Youth Co-Director Application 20 April 2009

Applicant
Highlights
country for hundreds of years.
Hava N. Aviv
D
Humanistic Experience ear members of Stonewall
Life Experience Youth Olympia, I am
Aviv understands and accepts that working with
humans is fragile and requires wholistic empathy responding to your available
Ms. Aviv is a woman of
high and unique caliber
& compassion. Co-Director position.
due to her life As
experiences along with you
the value she places on
self- experience as
can
expertise, both in see, I
herself, and others. have
She has been homeless
and an advocate for
homeless youth. She is
openly queer both
personally and
politically. She is
radical in her ideas of
social change based on
her experiences, and
years of reflection on
those experiences. She
understands and values chosen an unconventional method to
the voices of display my letter of interest and
experience that are resume. In this document you will
helping to reconstruct
our society. find my statement of interest, a
summary of relevant experiences
Financial and qualifications as well as the
Experience information found on resumes and a
Aviv has an extensive list of contactable references. It is
amount of experience my intention to display my public
with finances including relations, technical and
the personal, the
professional and the
communication skills through this
political. She believes,
Ranging from living in a collective household
as a queer woman who
is a low-income single
parent, that The State
Let’s Talk About It! to raising a daughter on her own, Hava Aviv
has been using methods of non-violent
is the largest oppressor, communication for well over 10 years. She
and is deeply
committed to ensure has broken many patterns of abuse in her own
that her private life and her communication is no exception to
finances, and those of this ongoing work. She is also very well
non-profits are not
marred by the
versed in the essential art of self- reflection.
oppressive regulations Being able to be self aware of her internal
and stipulations a processes and “what’s really going on” around
government that has her has strengthened both the work she does,
attempted to silence The Art of Communication is not lost. Ms.
and diminish minority and the and
Aviv is an avid supporter waypractitioner.
she implements feedback.
populations in this
format, and hope young women, organizing skills for
that it brings at local youth and know your rights
least a smile to your workshops for recipients of public
face during the assistance) through a feminist and
process of anti-oppression lens and philosophy.
reviewing I have worked within the realms of
applicants for the crisis in a myriad of ways. As a
Co-Director position sixteen-year-old that was homeless
you are seeking to due to coming out to my family, I
fill. Enjoy! have utilized many crisis resources,
and experienced first hand both the
Experience benefits and flaws of the crisis
I have over six systems in place today. As a
years experience in teenage mother, I have exercised
event planning and years of crisis co-counseling with my
education programs peers and the institutional systems
(including domestic that both my daughter and I were
violence & sexual forced to participate in. My
abuse awareness, experience with raising funds is
expressive arts for rounded, grassroots focused and well
practiced. I understand the whole
picture of finances, from the
necessity of it to the oppression of it.
I am committed to private donations,
and maintenance of these crucial
relationships in order to keep
projects like Stonewall Youth alive,
functional and free. My experience
includes: funds development; donor
relations; grant research, writing &
compliance reporting; accounts
payable & receivable; organizing and
maintaining fundraising committees
and liaison relations with an
overseeing board. Another
unconventional qualification I have in
this area is that of being a working
single mother going to school and
managing impoverished finances to
make it through the day, week,
month and year.

Education and workshops focusing on method of connecting theory

Employment poverty, violence against and practice is essential to
MY UNDERGRADUATE degree is women, queer awareness, personal learning and the
from The Evergreen State anti-oppression and multi- implementations of ideas that
College where I immersed cultural awareness through a come from others in order to
myself in compassion and pluralistic practice. My make them one’s own. One of
empathy driven programs. I passion lays in working with my first jobs was as a soda
also participated in a yearlong youth and women through jerk in a busy historic café in
collaborative contract for the education programs, Albuquerque, NM. 66 Diner
beginning advocacy, was where I began to learn
of The outreach and practice multi-tasking in a
Grrrls Rock and social work setting. Some of the
Project work. I customers were regulars, and
where I believe I had a level of expectation that
designed a would was to be met by every staff
not for excel person at all times. Some
profit within The were tourists that had never
project from Stonewall been there before, requiring
the ground service that was friendly,
up. This informative and able to
June I will translate the cultural meaning
receive a of “authentic New Mexican
Masters cuisine” in a primarily white
degree from Antioch setting.
University where I am community, as I truly find this It was while working here
studying systemic thinking, to be a challenging and that I began to attend classes
program design, rewarding career. part time at the local
environmental engagement, I value experience as community college.
reflective practice and another form of education. Balancing motherhood, work,
community building. Other than my formal degrees school, homework, family and
Throughout my and trainings I have had many a social life along with the
educational career I have hands on experiences with trials and tribulations of the
designed and funded what I have learned in the welfare system became my
educational programs and classroom setting. The all-consuming full time job. I

Photo credits are listed in the Office for Mac 2004 Read Me file.
 haven’t stopped multi-tasking
with looming deadlines since.
I have learned to manage the
tensions inside the paradox of
meaningful work and
constraining deadlines
without losing sight of the
original intentions and goals
in the process.
A year after beginning
college at age 24 with no high
school diploma, I began to
work a full time overnight shift
at the Women’s Community
Association. This urban
domestic violence shelter
served the entire state of New
Mexico with crisis and long-
term services. It was here
that I began my deeper
learnings of systems of
oppression first hand.
Working with women of color
and a population that
primarily used English as a
second language AND were
dealing with immigration
paperwork, childcare and
employment issues along side
with domestic violence and
sexual assault was an intense
and unforgettable experience.
As I worked the graveyard
shift, my role was often less
formal than the daytime
workers. It was here that I
began to understand what
social change was, and how
desperately it was needed.
My job included filing papers,
preparing the advocacy office
for day time workers, and
many other menial tasks,
however the real work that
was being done is often
impossible to list within a
conventional resume. The
storytelling had the most
impact on my experience and
education. Realizing that a
“one size fits all” system
cannot be the solution for so
many diverse problems, I
began to stray away from my
formal job description in the
middle of the night with these
women and their children. My
Photo credits are listed in the Office for Mac 2004 Read Me file.
studies at school began to
shift direction as well. I no
longer cared about the piece
of paper that I would receive
at the end of my education as
the most important part.
Instead, I began to see that
the process – how I engaged
with school, my fellow
learners, my professors and
the bureaucratic system that I
now belonged to – was by far
more important. I dropped
my English 101 course and
pursued women’s studies,
feminist history and political
science classes instead.
These changes lead me to The
Evergreen State College in
Olympia, WA.
“There is no such thing
as a single-issue struggle
because we do not live
single-issue lives.” Audre
Lorde
Olympia, WA
THE CENTER FOR WORLD
Indigenous Studies was my
first job in Olympia. For two
years (2004-2006) I worked as
a program assistant. Most of
my learning and work
centered on building and
maintaining a data based
library system – including
developing research methods
for others to use for the
continuation of the systems. I
also developed methods for
training others to use and
feed into the systems. After
the first few months of
bangin' out some amazing
results with the digital library
(that was accessed at an
International level within six
weeks) I began to participate
in the development and
implementation of
international relations for
Indigenous education
programs. From a pluralistic
stance, I worked within a
diverse team of people to do
this. From teenagers in Africa
to members of the Black Foot
tribe just up the road, we
came together to collaborate
in previously uncharted
waters. The results were
astounding. Today, there are
advocates and resources for
First Nation Peoples wishing to
pursue education. This
advocacy includes breaking
barriers and working to end
racism while maintaining
tradition within the local tribes
of Washington. Antioch
University Seattle (where I am
just about to obtain my
Masters degree from) is now
offering the same program to
Washington Tribes on Tribal
land with members of the
Tribes as the primary
educators.
SafePlace Olympia was my
next endeavor. Beginning in
2006 I entered again into the
realm of advocacy for people
experiencing domestic
violence and sexual assault.
Again, the real work being
done was not listed in my job
description in any capacity.
During my tenure with
SafePlace not only did I offer
advocacy to the residents of
the shelter and callers on the
crisis line; I advocated for a
more socially sustainable
workplace in which results are
still visible today. Vicarious
 trauma counseling and In Conclusion within that Stonewall does is
equitable scheduling are just an invaluable practice that I
MY DEEP HUMANISTIC background
a few. I designed the current would be honored to be
and knowledge of issues
Sexual Assault manual, associated with.
facing youth and queers today
making it more accessible to I am grateful for your time,
offers an advantage in better
the public and a staple utility energy and consideration for
understanding the issues and
for the staff through mere this position. I am available
institutional violence against
design only. for an interview at a mutually
the queer youth population as
convenient time.
larger global issues.
The deep importance of
empowerment offered from

References & Contact Information:

Laura Killian (360) 528-0822
Laura and I worked together at the Center for World Indigenous Studies. We also both attend Antioch University
and have worked together in several capacities over the past five years.

Photo credits are listed in the Office for Mac 2004 Read Me file.
 Monica Peabody (360) 352-9716
Monica is the Director of POWER in Olympia. Our relationship is very layered as we have worked together, taught
seminars and workshops side by side and share an intimate community with each other.

Trisha Smith (360) 754-6389 x 102

Trisha was my boss and collaborator extraordinaire at SafePlace. We continue to maintain just such a relationship
today.

“This is not simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible
differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and
into the cheap labor in which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there
will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism.” Gloria
Steinem

Photo credits are listed in the Office for Mac 2004 Read Me file.