Milena Velis

Milena Velis is a movement storyteller, filmmaker, organizer and educator. Milena spent eight years at Media Mobilizing Project, training and supporting movement media makers and producing media, telling the untold stories of everyday people fighting for a better world. Previously, Milena worked as a local news reporter for Al Día, a Spanish-language weekly newspaper covering Philadelphia’s Latino community. She has also built community radio stations with the Prometheus Radio Project, taught journalism at Temple University, and interpreted between Spanish and English in courtroom, community, and healthcare settings.

Milena will produce a series of audio documentary pieces telling the stories of a cross-section of Philadelphia leaders who are working for grassroots social change. She will focus on the personal process of transformation that leads individuals to become community leaders and explore the various paths to leadership emerging from the grassroots level. Through these stories Milena hopes to show that leaders are made, not born, and that by extension everyone has the potential lead change in their communities. The series will eventually be broadcast on air via Media Mobilizing Project’s Labor Justice Radio, On Blast, and Tlacuache programs on WPEB 88.1 and on the internet via G-Town Radio.