Denisse Sandoval

Denisse is a migrant woman from New York. She was born in Chile and her parents left their home country during the Pinochet dictatorship.

Living in New York as a young person, she saw first-hand the impacts of racism, over policing, and under-representation that occurs in marginalised communities of colour. Because of this experience she decided to become a community organiser.

Denisse is a skilled community organiser. With over ten years of experience, she has extensive knowledge as a trainer and facilitator at the grass-roots level. She has worked with a broad range of people in the social-change sector, including migrant workers in the US and Australia, African American pastors, homeless youth, and with policy makers at NGOs. Her skills and wisdom in strategy for social change spans over 15 years. She is the founder of Community Coalition Victoria, a grass-roots movement building community group.

Denisse is experienced in various styles of community organising including:

• Co-design approaches to program planning 
• Issue-based community organising
• Conducting impactful and fun focus groups
• Electoral campaign management
• Faith-based community engagement or congregation based organising
• Road-based institutional coalition building