Who We Are
Nziki Wiltz
Nziki Wiltz is a native New Orleanian, mother, educator, and community advocate. She taught in New Orleans public schools for 25 years until she was maliciously sought after for charges she did not commit in Orleans Parish. Her personal experience with the criminal legal system made her turn to community organizations that were invested in fighting for directly impacted people and their families. She beat the false charges, but it changed the trajectory of her life forever. Nziki is deeply committed to empowering her community to vote for elected officials that have the people's best interest at heart, and ensuring that all people are provided the resources they need to thrive. She works full time at VOTE-Nola as a Political Regional Coordinator. Nziki believes that if we change the hearts of people who oppress us, we can change the way they make laws and policies that dictate our livelihood. She zealously fights to get men and women out of prisons across Louisiana.
Grace Bronson
Grace Bronson is a criminal defense attorney based out of New Orleans. For the past 10 years she has worked in communities that are purposefully under resourced, devalued, and surveilled by state actors and has seen the extreme harm that our systems cause on individual lives. She uses her legal experience to ensure that directly impacted families are empowered and know their rights. Her commitment to freedom is rooted in a moral revolution. She believes that a system created to out of slavery to incarcerate black and brown and poor people at exponentially higher rates will never make us safe. Grace envisions creating a beloved community through collective organizing, empowered awareness and knowledge, and equitable resource sharing. She is honored to work with women and families of RISE Collective to build a healing space for those directly impacted by carceral violence and fight for true justice.
"No one is free until everyone is free." —Fannie Lou Hamer
Danielle Metz
Danielle Metz is a native of New Orleans, who was sentenced to three life sentences plus 20 years in federal prison. After serving over 23 years, President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017, and she was released from prison to rejoin her community and family in New Orleans. Danielle vigorously started working on the front lines of criminal justice reform and advocacy for the rights of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women. She an activist, abolitionist, and a voice for those that the justice system has made invisible. She advocates for all of the women she left behind bars. She is a community health worker for the FIT Clinic and the Director of Clemency for the National Council for Incarcerated Women and Girls. She is the subject of Nailah Jefferson’s documentary “Commuted,” which premiered in 2023.
“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.” — Coretta Scott King
Kim Robinson
Kim values communication and outreach. During her time as a contractor with Shell Oil Company for nearly 2 decades, she, along with other former colleagues, were instrumental in ensuring that the needs of constituents in select communities were met. Kim embodies the notion that vibrant and healthy communities benefit everyone. Kim then dove into matters of public health, labor education reform, civic engagement, workforce development and advocating for rectification of injustices and inequality in diverse communities. Kim has organized and participated in numerous community meetings to foster relationship building, collaboration, and equitable services. Kim worked with Step Up Louisiana, focusing on labor and education justice, and VOTE-Nola (Voice of the Experienced), a organization led by formerly incarcerated people. Kim is a member of the board of Council of Children of Incarcerated Parents and Caregivers, and has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal & NPR for her contributions and passions towards community activism.
Dominique Minor
Dominique Minor is a native New Orleanian artist and advocate who has been involved in criminal justice work for over a decade. She has worked with organizations like the Orleans Public Defenders, Re-entry Mediation Institute of Louisiana, and other community advocacy groups that support families with incarcerated loved ones. She has a strong passion and focus for uplifting stories of survivors and advocating for young people impacted by punishment systems in our community. She currently works as the Volunteer Coordinator with Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, where she partners with the Justice and Accountability Center to provide free expungement support. Her true full-time job is being a parent to a first-generation college student at Notre Dame University and a band mom with Girls Play Trumpet Too in New Orleans Public Schools.
Hannah Rose Groedel
Hannah Rose Groedel (she/they) is the Program Manager of the Impacted Leaders Initiative with the Louisiana Parole Project, which provides leadership opportunities for formerly incarcerated people and is underpinned by the belief that those most affected by incarceration are best positioned to lead our movements for social change.
Before joining Parole Project, Hannah Rose worked with the Tulane Law School Women’s Prison Project to address the abuse-to-prison pipeline. Using trauma-responsive restorative justice practices, Hannah Rose collaborated with “inmate counsel” at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women to provide legal education, develop resources, and facilitate learning exchanges between incarcerated legal experts and law students.
After graduating from Tulane Law School in 2015, Hannah Rose spent six years working with Southeast Louisiana Legal Services advocating for survivors of violence. Her experience as an attorney who has advocated both for people who have been harmed and people who have caused harm has shaped her professional identity and informs her commitment to challenging legal system binaries and amplifying marginalized voices.
Hannah Rose is humbled and grateful to be a co-founder of RISE Collective, cultivating the reciprocal relationships that will set us free. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, reading science fiction, and spending time with her cat, Fela Kitty.
“We do this til we free us.” — Mariame Kaba