Governance

Martha Collins is an advocate, human rights activist and experienced nonprofit leader who has dedicated her career to working for social justice organizations that focus on building power within marginalized communities. For over two decades, Martha has had the opportunity to collaborate and strategically develop several coalitions to help create public policy groundwork for advancing social and economic agendas. She has extensive fund development and nonprofit advocacy experience. In 2015, Martha led a successful coalition to prevent the Wisconsin Family Medical Leave Act from being repealed by the state legislature. During 2016, she led the largest “Fight for $15” rally in Wisconsin and developed and implemented a community-focused program which trained and employed over 200 Milwaukee residents as Peacemaker Ambassadors. In 2017, Martha served as a Commissioner on the Equal Rights Commission with the City of Milwaukee and introduced a resolution for the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Martha actively serves on the United Nations Association Women Affinity planning committee working towards build awareness of the Cities for CEDAW campaign. Since joining WILPF, she has actively served in various leadership positions with the local WILPF Milwaukee Branch and on the WILPF US Advancing Human Rights and Women, Money & Democracy issue committees.

Shilpa Pandey holds a Master’s in Business Administration with over 15 years of experience in International Corporate and Non-Profit Management. She has been actively involved in human rights advocacy work and has served on various non-profit boards, international advocacy groups and committees.

She believes in sharing her knowledge, professional skills and experience in the areas of project management, non profit boards leadership, volunteer development, human rights advocacy and community outreach by actively serving in volunteer run organizations.

She has also travelled extensively to various parts of the world where she has volunteered her time and skills as well as represented various nonprofit working groups in the international forums and conferences. Her passion lies in advocacy for climate justice, human trafficking and nuclear disarmament from a feminist lens.

My activism started through the Social Action (S.A.) committee in my Unitarian Universalist (U.U.) society. A group of us brought food and prepared it for dozens of woman, some unhoused, all struggling to survive in Boston. During this time, Nancy Wrenn, a WILPF member also in the S.A. group, began educational meetings on the unjust prison system in Massachusetts. I admired and liked Nancy. When she invited me to a weekend WILPF Boston retreat in 2015, I immediately joined WILPF because I met so many other women like her- friendly, knowledgeable, and passionate about matters I cared about. I immediately volunteered for the job as secretary. Two years later, when the WILPF national office was moving from Boston to DesMoines, Jan Corderman asked me to apply for the WILPF US secretary position. Since the end of my three year term I’ve been involved in a number of WILPF administrative and issue committees. My other WILPF activities include attending the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women four times and, in 2023, being a representative in our WILPF U.S. Local to Global program. In 2024 I worked on the program committee for the WILPF 35th Triennial Congress: Water on the Frontiers for Peace. Locally, I am co-chair of my Boston WILPF branch, and am active on anti-nukes, drones & war, and environmental issues.

Marybeth grew up in New Jersey and pursued journalism and advertising as a career goal. She changed course to work in non-profit public relations and marketing. And during the 80s she moved to Macon Georgia and started working to secure funding and help organizers provide services to migrant farmworkers. She served as director of the Peace and Justice Center of Central Georgia. All the while, she was involved on the periphery of human rights and civil rights in what was still a pretty segregated part of Georgia. In 2000 her husband’s job took the family to Iowa where she imagined a departure from activism and took some writing courses at the University of Iowa. But after 9/11 she found herself drawn back in to peace and justice work. In 2003 she found WILPF and served first as Co-President of the Des Moines branch; and then, in 2014, she joined the WILPF US Board as Development Chair. Also, she currently chairs the Women, Money & Democracy Issue Committee. Having served in commercial marketing, non-profit marketing, and organizing at the community, WILPF branch and WILPF issue committee level, she brings a multi-faceted approach to fundraising and looks forward to working with her Development Co-Chair, Martha Collins, to create a culture of philanthropy among the whole Board and all members of WILPF. Fundraising at WILPF is everyone’s job. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa, with her husband of 40+ years, just two miles from her daughter and grandson.

Julie Leak grew up in Charlotte, NC in the 1960s and moved to Atlanta to work as a legal secretary and then to Houston where she worked again as a secretary and then nine years for IBM as a marketing support representative. She graduated from the University of Houston in 1982 and transferred with IBM to Raleigh, NC in 1984 before setting out on her own as a training consultant. Here she became involved with ending apartheid in South Africa before moving to Washington, DC and finally New York City in 1989. Living in DC and then NY, the belly of the beast, changed all this and her eyes were opened. There was a Town Hall in Manhattan with a call to action for two important issues — health care and housing. This became a defining period in her life. In those days it was not Medicare for All but Single Payer and she joined the fight learning, engaging and eventually running into the Raging Grannies, singing their clever songs about health care and other issues. She had never heard of WILPF except that they were influential in establishing the Raging Grannies in New York City. Singing about all the issues became a real education and expanded her engagement totally. The issues of social justice that she sang about became the primary focus of her life. Naturally some touched the heart more than others given the circumstances and two of those were the Occupation in Palestine and the Blockade of Cuba. She finally made it to Cuba in 2021. Julie currently lives in New York City; however, she has family in Charlotte and a home in Raleigh. Depending on the circumstances she may be in either of those places but easy to contact.

Tina Deshotels Shelton grew up in Louisiana and has lived in Texas, Oregon, and in Pennsylvania, where she learned about WILPF. She works in the mental health field, and is an advocate for better services. In addition to WILPF, she is active in her com-munity, with Girl Scouts, and local community activism. She and her husband have three children, and they have been involved in Scouts, band, and other activities. She enjoys gardening, teaching rational thinking skills, and helping people make connections. Finding WILPF after 9/11, she has been active in the local branch along with many passionate and interesting women and men. As most WILPFers, she is grateful for the leadership, mentorship, and progress of those who worked before. She continues to have a leadership role in the Greater Philadelphia Branch, including coordinating with coalitions and bringing the strengths of WILPF into these areas. She is passionate about living peaceably, anti-militarism, anti-racism, immigration concerns, sustainability, creating a nuclear-free world and building relationships to sustain us and move us toward our goals. She is excited about the transformative movements we see all around, especially those that are women-led and build on our feminist strength.

When she joined WILPF in 1969, Ellen was the youngest member of the San Jose branch. Now she is nearly the oldest member of the Sacramento branch, and can’t figure out how that happened.

In between, she has served as branch chair, branch newsletter editor, chair of WILPF US Policy Committee, WILPF Western Region newsletter editor, occasional Triennial Congress newsletter editor, Congress Registrar, chair of CongressCommittee, WILPF US Treasurer for ½ a term (finishing an unfinished term), WILPF US Program Chair (finishing another ½ term) and starting in 2024, chair of the WILPF US Nominating Committee (finishing another unfinished term!).

Ellen was born in Chicago, and while in college was involved with the campus chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality. Her greatest admiration was for an artist named Sophie Wessel, who produced silk screen designs for protest signs.

Ellen would think, “Look, Sophie makes these signs, everybody worships her, and she doesn’t have to actually go to the protests, never mind the planning meetings. That’s what I want to be when I grow up.” It hasn’t worked out that way, but it is still her ambition.