Anny Martinez was the Special Donor Assistant at the New England Office of the Institute for Policy Studies in Boston.
She directed the Jamaica Plain Forum and launched its YouTube Channel, enabling some of these fascinating discussions to reach a wider and national audience. She’s produced over 30 events. Some highlights include the 10th Year Anniversary of the JP Forum: Celebrating a Decade of Community Conversation with the powerful speaker, Winona LaDuke founder of Honor Our Earth, and welcoming UK health leaders Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett at Inequality and Our Well-being with many other national recognized speakers such as Sandra Steingraber, Didi Pershouse and Tim DeChristopher. Founder of 350.org Bill McKibben graced the JP Forum at the State of our Union was Wrong event. She also produced events on a wide range of topics and concerns – ranging from a special event to commemorate the 1 year Anniversary of Hurricane Maria, We Will Not Forget Puerto Rico to the Flint Water crisis. The forum rolled out its second series of screenings of films as part of the “Dismantling White Supremacy Film Series” with facilitated discussions. Anny has hosted several 2018 election-related forums including an environmental town hall forum and a program on Transgender Rights (building support against bad ballot initiative in MA). Many of the programs focused on climate change solutions, including a Teach-In event on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and National Climate Assessment.
Prior to joining IPS, Anny worked as an environmental justice organizer with several organizations, including facilitating Interfaith & Environmental Dialogues with the Coalition against the Pilgrim Pipeline and Food & Water Watch.
Anny recently appeared as a panelist for A Primer for Activists, hosted by Emerson College as part of it’s Teach In On Race 2018. She appeared alongside Juma Inniss from The Message, Chelsey R. Cartwright, aide to Ayanna Pressley and Deputy Political Director to Elizabeth Warren. The panel was moderated by Alexis “Lex” Fernander, co-chair of POWER.
She is founder of the poetry group Spoken Word that empowers writers from all walks of life while raising funds for social change. Anny is the author of Black Start, a book for adolescents about how hope can overcome fear against the backdrop of a power outage. In her spare time Anny enjoys using different creative outlets to inspire her two sons. She loves travel, exploring culture through culinary adventures, yoga and being outdoors.
