Our staff
Ro (Phoenix) Bersten
xe/xyr | managing director
Ro is a queer Jewish autistic person with ADHD. Xe has been an activist and communications strategist for more than 20 years. Xyr most recent publication was the Pride in Prevention Messaging Guide in collaboration with Rainbow Health Australia. Ro lives on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.
Chloe (Frankie) Dillon
she/they | peer worker
Chloe (sometimes called Frankie) is a queer, neurodivergent young person, who delights in supporting other young people to explore their own identity and space in the world. When they’re not madly finishing assignments, they can usually be found playing celtic fiddle, doing queer partner dancing, or knitting socks. Chloe lives on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.
Ulysses Thomas
they/them | casual trainer
Ulysses is a queer Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person from the Bwgcolman community on Palm Island. Ulysses creates and facilitates supportive networks and programs for queer BIPOC people. Ulysses lives on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.
Rafeif Ismail
she/her | casual trainer
Rafeif is a writer and poet. She is a third-culture child of the Sudanese diaspora, the current managing director of Djed Press and co-editor of Unlimited Futures: Speculative, Visionary Blak+Black Fiction.
Fiona Vuong
she/her | project officer, FUSE
Fiona is the eldest daughter of an immigrant family. She studied social work, sometimes works in women’s health, and has about 5 different craft projects going on at any one time. She feels less hopeless about the world because young people are the best. Fiona lives on the lands of the Bunerong people of the Kulin Nation.
Holly Kemp
she/they | casual trainer
Holly is a queer, nonbinary person who works as a lived experience worker in the public mental health system and identifies as a person with big feelings/ psychosocial disability. They have spent the last 20 years facilitating dialogue in groups; meetings, collectives, workshops, tutorials, councils, research labs, mental health support groups and workplace consultative committees. Holly lives on the lands of the Wongol people of the Eora nation and loves gardening, especially growing flowers.
Our governance team
Rose Durey
she/her | board member, secretary of the board
Jane Chen
She/her | board member
Jane Chen (she/her) is the daughter of Hokkien-Chinese immigrants, born and raised as a settler on unceded Wurundjeri lands. As a social policy scholar-practitioner-activist, her work broadly focuses on understanding and dismantling structural drivers of complex social inequalities. She is currently writing a PhD thesis on how intersectionality is being understood, embedded into process and otherwise applied by public policymakers in so-called Australia.
Tim Hollo
he/they | board member, public fund management committee
Tim is Executive Director of the Green Institute and was previously Communications Director for Greens Leader Christine Milne. He has been a board member of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Green Music Australia (current), the Young Music Society (ACT), and Manuka Occasional Childcare Association.
Tim’s book, Living Democracy: An Ecological Manifesto For The End Of The World As We Know It, was published in 2022.
