Pono

To be in right and harmonious relationship –

We foster the capacity to understand justice, feel hope and express compassion toward others by bringing our best to the table and assuming that others are bringing their best as well.

Ho’omau

Perseverance and persistence that results in lasting positive impact –

We ask of ourselves what we ask of clients: to show integrity and accountability through active and dedicated participation.

Our Team

Our partners each has over 20 years of experience working with international, national, and statewide organizations as well as local community-based efforts.

Kevin Kahakula’akea John Fong

Founder and Principal

Kevin is a nationally recognized and respected cultural translator, facilitator, trainer, and speaker in transformative justice, leadership development and organizational design.  He has extensive experience in working with clients in the public and private sector, especially with diverse, multicultural/multi-lingual groups.

In recent years, Kevin has been called to facilitate community healing circles around the country, including: St. Louis|Ferguson, MO; Flint, MI; Dallas, TX; New Orleans, LA; Baltimore, MD; Sacramento, CA; Charleston, SC; and Los Angeles, CA, and throughout rural communities in Mississippi, New Mexico,  and Colorado.

Juanita Capri Brown

Juanita Capri Brown specializes in racial equity and healing.  She supports the public and non-profit sectors, and communities across the nation to undertake breakthrough dialogues and processes. Her work results in staff, students, parents, educators and executives more productively agitating systems and transforming relationships in their respective contexts.

Puanani Burgess

Puanani (Aunty Pua) is a community building facilitator, poet and cultural translator noted for her experience in community, family and values-based economic development, mediation and storytelling processes as part of conflict transformation, and developing community-based organizations.   Based in Hawai`i, her work takes her all over the U.S., the Pacific and other parts of the world.

Chris Messinger

Chris Messinger has been working for racial and economic justice for more than twenty years as a social justice educator and community organizer. Over the last decade in his role as Executive Director of Boston Mobilization, Chris has supported teens and young adults to build multi-racial coalitions to organize for justice on the issues that matter most to them, including jobs, environmental justice, progressive taxation, public education, closing the opportunity gap, and expanded youth voting.

Mee Moua

Mee was born in Laos and came to the United in 1978 as a refugee. She grew up in the mid-west, attended Brown University as an undergraduate student, received her MPA from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and earned her JD from the University of Minnesota Law School.

Simran Noor

Simran is an independent consultant focused on strategy development, institutional change/organizational development and movement building with a focus on developing processes and setting clear outcomes to achieve racial equity.  She brings over ten years of experience working directly with impacted communities, developing policy and strategy, leading organizational change processes and serving as staff within the philanthropic sector.

Michelle Otero

Michelle is a writer, community-based artist, and facilitator, who utilizes creative expression and storytelling as the basis for organizational development and positive social change. Her process of engaging individuals and communities through the expression of shared story has found a wide range of applications, from helping local governments better serve immigrant and refugee communities to helping people heal from trauma. She is the author of Malinche’s Daughter, an essay collection based on her work with women survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Oaxaca, Mexico as a Fulbright Fellow.

Maggie Potapchuk

Maggie is founder of MP Associates, Inc., a national consulting practice that works in partnership with individuals, organizations, and communities to align, deepen, and sustain their work to advance racial equity and address privilege issues. She works with organizations seeking to align their policies, programs, and culture with their value of racial equity; works with communities to assess racial dynamics; designs and facilitates workshops and retreats; designs curriculum and tools on structural racism, white privilege and change processes; and builds networks and communities of practice to increase individual learning and collective action for racial justice.

Joe Weston

Joe is an international workshop facilitator, author, consultant, coach, and advocate for lasting peace. His book, Mastering Respectful Confrontation, is selling throughout the world. Joe has almost 30 years of experience in providing training to corporations, government agencies and non-profits around the world, adapting the approach to the needs of each particular organization.

Administrative Team

Christopher Caldara

Christopher brings twenty-five years of systems and business management expertise in support of the Elemental Partners team. He manages the company finances and is the team’s point of contact for questions related to invoicing and contracts. In his spare time Christopher volunteers with various charitable organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly those serving the HIV community.

Amro Radwan

Amro is a San Francisco Bay Area native who began working in the IT field in the 1990’s. Amro’s commitment and dedication to social change and helping others led him to seek and nurture partnerships in the social justice-nonprofit sector helping organizations focus on their missions by building sustainable IT infrastructures and offering sometimes around-the-clock service.

Karen Rezai

Karen serves as the Executive Assistant for Elemental Partners. She is passionate about community leadership, and has worked for years empowering multicultural communities around women’s health, cancer prevention, and tobacco-free living.