ABOUT RAPHEAL & JOIA

Rapheal Randall is a trained designer, urban planner, and political worker who specializes in strategy and organizational development.

While with Michael Graves Design Group in Princeton, NJ, he co-designed products as varied as low-cost teakettles for Target to swanky furniture for resorts in Singapore. As an urban planner and designer with Interface Studio LLC in Philadelphia, PA, he drafted community revitalization plans for nonprofits and neighborhood groups throughout the tri-state area. During this period, Rapheal took part in local anti-displacement fights and minimum wage campaigns, utilizing his skills as a community planner in these organizing efforts. These experiences led him to Youth United for Change (YUC) in 2014, where he spent seven years as Executive Director rebuilding the organization through a dialectical process rooted in rigorous experimentation. The lessons his team learned through this approach are captured in two self-published books -- Y’all Tryna Win or Nah?! and Doin’ The Work -- which challenge the common sense about organizing, leadership development, and power-building within youth organizing and social movements in the U.S. as a whole.

Joia McManus is a community and youth organizer, educator, and international peace worker from Philadelphia. Receiving both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in peace and conflict resolution, she specializes in political analysis and strategy, international diplomacy, and conflict mediation. She has previously worked for international organizations in Rwanda and Bolivia building local organizational capacity and engaging in restorative justice and community development efforts. Upon returning to the US, Joia worked as an educator and administrator for a charter school in Wilmington, DE. While searching for an outlet to improve our communities' material conditions, she found herself as an organizer and political educator at Youth United for Change (YUC) during the pandemic in 2020. There she engaged in base-building, civic engagement, and campaign work fighting to build power and win resources for the community of Kensington, Philadelphia.