Welcome Zave and Carolina: 2022 Storytelling Interns

November 10, 2022

Intros

We’re excited to welcome and introduce two Storytelling Interns who have joined team next up for the next couple of months: Zave and Carolina.

They will support online content creation, storytelling and story collection from our base members, and donor appreciation during our end-of-year fundraising campaigns. Meet each of them below.

Carolina Ruiz

Carolina Ruíz (she/her/ella) studies Hispanic Studies at Lewis & Clark College. This internship drew her in particularly because of Next Up’s mission to empower youth to build political power. She is excited to start working with Next Up and hopes to learn about fundraising and storytelling through an equitable/transformational lens. In her free time, she dances to bachata and salsa and hopes to travel all over the world to learn more about these genres and their diverse styles.

Zave Payne

Zave (they/he) is a queer Black activist and organizer. Born in Detroit and raised in rural Northwestern Ohio, they moved to Portland in 2021 to attend Reed College. At Reed, Zave is currently a sophomore majoring in Political Science. They have been an active youth leader in their community since middle school, organizing walkouts, protests, and rallies for gun reform, climate change awareness, and social justice issues with OHYCJ (Ohio Youth for Climate Justice) and the organization he co-founded in 2020, RENEW (Rise. Empower. Nurture. Educate. Wake Up!). They are committed to empowering the voices of fellow BIPOC peers as well as encouraging civic participation among youth, and are thrilled to continue to do so at Next Up!