Maya Sheppard

Executive Director

Born and raised in CT and currently serves at the Executive Director of Hearing Youth Voices. Maya delights in making music, writing poetry, art and memories with her children and her people. With over 15 years of experience in youth development, organizational building, and grassroots advocacy, Maya has spent her career building equitable, anti-racist systems through radical love, community investment, and strategic organizing.

Before her leadership at HYV, Maya spent 10 years as a mentor and creative instructor through SECT, where she developed foundational skills in community-based instruction, leadership, and youth advocacy. This deep background in creative education informs her current leadership style, characterized by a commitment to fostering youth leadership and sustainable, community-driven solutions.

Nicole Broadus

Organizing manager

Nicole Broadus is a mother of two boys ages, 14 and 10 and has been working in the New London community for over 15 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. As a part of her work, she worked to create the first 18+ membership team titled the Freedom Warriors- young adults who are working to develop other leaders in their community by facilitating political education workshops, participating in community outreach and running local campaigns in the areas of racial, economic and gender justice.

In addition to being an Organizing Manager, Nicole also works at New London Youth Affairs and also represents New London County on The New London Youth Diversion Team, working with other community members to support and find resources for youth who need redirection. When Nicole is not working, she directs the youth choir at Shiloh Baptists Church where she also sits on the board.  

Damoya Nelson

finance and operations manager

Damoya Nelson builds things that last. Her career, grounded in a Business Administration degree from Ithaca College. She has transitioned from corporate sales at SHRM and PCC Structurals to the frontlines of community transformation. Her work is fueled by a singular conviction: that it is our birthright to live freely and lead boldly because liberation isn’t a wage to be earned. Damoya is a builder of equitable systems, a protector of sensitive information (managing HYV's Emergency Fund), and a student of life. She believes that we cannot achieve radical change without first showing radical love through responsible stewardship, and that means providing the financial and operational support necessary for our communities to thrive. She is dedicated to using her skills in financial literacy and operations management to build a world where giving people what they need is the standard, not the exception.

Being an immigrant woman and having grown up in New London, her work is deeply personal. Damoya is driven by a mission to dismantle oppressive systems and rebuild them in a way that serves the liberation of her people. Her experience at SHRM, where she analyzed global market segments to enhance member value, informs her understanding that community work exists within a larger, interconnected world. She sees her role at HYV as a duty to lift as she climbs, creating the financial and operational stability that allows organizations to do their most transformative work. She envisions a world where resources are poured into communities as an act of radical love, and she is dedicated to creating the infrastructure that makes that vision possible.

Genesis Cubilette

mARKETING & communications manager

HYV Publishing Sector Editor-in-Chief

Genesis Cubilette is a co-founder of Hearing Youth Voices, a creative nonfiction writer, and an artivist who believes that every campaign, design, and story is an opportunity to move people toward liberation. Born in Miami, Florida, and now rooted in New London, Connecticut, she has spent more than a decade in the organizing field.

For Genesis, marketing and communications are more than tools for sharing information—they are spaces where movements can inspire, educate, and build power. She is passionate about creating communications that are as intentional as the organizing behind them, using storytelling, design, and language to make justice feel human, accessible, and impossible to ignore. Whether she's developing a campaign, writing a story, designing graphics, or shaping a brand kit, she believes beauty, creativity, and strategy belong in the work of liberation.

Genesis earned her bachelor's degree in Africana Studies and Gender, Sexuality & Intersectionality from Connecticut College and her master's degree in Creative Nonfiction Writing (Publishing Concentration) from Emerson College. Her work is grounded in a deep commitment to communities long pushed to the margins—including Black communities, disabled people, young people, women, survivors, and neurodivergent people—and to building a world where everyone has the opportunity not only to survive but also to create, belong, and thrive.

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.