New York, NY – Partners for Dignity & Rights is proud to share that our Co-Executive Director, Kesi Foster, as well as our Board Member, Sienna Fontaine, have been appointed to Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s Transition Committees on Youth & Education and Social Services, respectively. As Transition Committee members, they will advise on mayoral appointments, policy priorities, and support his administration in ushering in a new era of affordability for New Yorkers.

Kesi joined Partners for Dignity & Rights as the Co-Executive Director in 2022. He brings decades of experience advancing campaigns for education justice, immigration justice, and community safety. Prior to joining the team, he was the Co-Director of the Youth Power Project at Make the Road New York, and previously, he coordinated the Urban Youth Collaborative, the largest youth-led educational justice coalition in New York City, and worked at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Before joining the movements for educational justice, he held positions at the Right to Vote Campaign, and worked with formerly incarcerated individuals and public housing residents in New York City. Kesi graduated from CUNY in 2012.

Sienna joined Partners for Dignity & Rights as a Board Member in 2024. She is the General Counsel at Make the Road New York, a community-based membership organization that aims to build immigrant and working-class power through organizing, education, policy reform and support services. Prior to joining Make the Road, Sienna was the Director of Public Benefits at Bronx Legal Services, where she practiced for 8 years, representing indigent and low-income Bronx individuals and families in civil litigation and administrative hearings to secure access to and maintain public benefits. She began her legal career at Bronx Legal Services as a Skadden Fellow to establish the Bronx Medical-Legal Advocacy Project, a collaboration between Bronx Legal Services and Montefiore Hospital to improve the health outcomes of Bronx residents by providing direct legal services in the medical clinic setting. Sienna graduated from NYU School of Law in 2007.

Founded in 2005, Partners for Dignity & Rights partners with community and worker-led organizations across the globe by providing research, policy and program development, campaign support and coalition-building to shift narratives, win policies and build models that secure and expand social and economic rights. In New York City, Partners for Dignity & Rights has been working closely with local neighborhoods to innovate new forms of participatory governance; and anchors the Dignity in Schools Campaign – New York, which is made up of over 20 local organizations led by students, parents, educators, and advocates working to end the school-to-prison pipeline and implement restorative justice and mental health supports in schools citywide.