Founded in 2003, A Long Walk Home, Inc. (ALWH) is a 501 (c) non-profit that uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to end violence against girls and women. ALWH features the testimonies and art by survivors and their allies in order to provide safe and entertaining forums through which the public can learn about healing from and preventing gender violence.

In 1997, Scheherazade Tillet learned that her older sister, Salamishah, was a rape survivor. Seeking to help Salamishah heal from sexual violence, Scheherazade turned to photography and began documenting the various stages of Salamishah's recovery. At the end of the project, Salamishah and Scheherazade decided to team up to write and direct, Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS), a multimedia performance that stars a diverse cast of musicians, dancers, and stage performers, who bring Scheherazade's photographs and Salamishah's story to life.

In 2003, the Tillet sisters co-founded A Long Walk Home, Inc. (ALWH), the only organization in the country that uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to end violence against women and girls. The vision of Scheherazade Tillet, a professional art therapist and rape crisis counselor, and Salamishah Tillet, an Ivy-League feminist professor, ALWH partners with rape crisis centers, universities, high schools, and state coalitions to provide innovative and inclusive programs for underserved communities.

Through our national and local programs, multimedia performances, summer and after school youth institutes, campus trainings and workshops, ALWH has educated over 100,000 survivors and their allies to build safe communities and end gender violence.

Scheherazade Tillet, M.A.A.T., is the co-founder of A Long Walk Home, Inc. (ALWH). Since 1998, she has been committed to creating a national platform that speaks out against sexual violence against women and girls. In 1998, under the tutelage of social documentary photographer, Steve Hart, she began Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS) as a mini social documentary/art therapy project in which she intimately examined her sister's recovery from sexual assault. In 2003, she co- founded and became the Executive Director of the national non-profit organization, A Long Walk Home, Inc. For her work to end gender violence, Glamour Magazine nominated her for the “Woman of the Year: Reader’s Choice Award” in 2010.

Scheherazade is also the artistic director of the award wining multi-media performance, SOARS, and the coordinator of the summer program, Girl/Friends. She is currently the coordinator and rape crisis counselor/art therapist at YWCA Metropolitan of Chicago in the Lawndale area.

Through the use of art, she counsels adolescent girls, women and men who have experienced adult and/or childhood sexual assault. In addition to being a therapist, she is currently the sexual health coordinator at North Lawndale College Preparatory Charter High School (NLCP) where she leads a comprehensive sexual health education program. She received her B.A. from Tufts University and earned her Masters in Art Therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Scheherazade initiates creative and innovative ways to provide psychological health services and counseling to underserved populations and communities of color.

As one of the foremost feminist advocates of her generation, Scheherazade received the prestigious Moxie Award for Excellence and Creativity from Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault (ICASA) in 2007 and was a finalist for Founders’ Award for Young Advocate from Chicago Foundation for Women in 2006. She is also the recipient of the Rape Victim Advocates 2010 Visionary Award. Her photographs have been featured in Cambridge Documentary’s "Rape Is," Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ documentary NO!, John L. Jackson’s books, Harlemworld and Real Black. She is currently working on a social documentary project on gentrification and the Cabrini Green public housing development in Chicago.

Salamishah Tillet, Ph.D., is the co-founder of A Long Walk Home, Inc. (ALWH). Presently, she is the writer and producer of the award-winning multi-media performance, Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS), and an educator in Girl/Friends, a sexual assault prevention and sexual health education summer institute for underserved adolescent girls. For her work to end gender violence, Glamour Magazine nominated her for the “Woman of the Year: Reader’s Choice Award” in 2010.

Her poem “Do You Know What Rape Feels Like?” is performed alongside her testimony, in the award-winning Cambridge Documentary Film “Rape Is…”. In 2006, Salamishah appeared in and was the associate producer of Aishah Shahidah Simmons’s groundbreaking documentary “NO!: The Rape Documentary.” Salamishah is a regular contributor for the online magazine, TheRoot.com. In 2006, Ebony named her one of America’s top 30 Black leaders under 30.

In fall 2007, she joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania as an Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies. In 2010, she served as a Woodrow Wilson Foundation fellow at the Center of African American Studies at Princeton University. Salamishah is the author of Peculiar Citizenship: Slavery and the Post-Civil Rights Imagination (Duke University Press). She is currently working on a book on the civil rights icon, Nina Simone.

Salamishah received her Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Harvard University and her Masters in the Art of Teaching from Brown University. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania where she received her B.A. in English and African-American Studies.

Between Friends is a nonprofit agency dedicated to breaking the cycle of domestic violence and building a community free of abuse.

Loyola University Chicago's Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL) is a non-traditional interdisciplinary university research center that develops that develop equal partnerships between the university and community-based organizations across metropolitan Chicago. CURL is currently partnered with A Long Walk Home to develop a multi-year evaluation, dissemination, and replication plan for The Girl/Friends Leadership Institute.

North Lawndale College Preparatory Charter High School (NLCP) is a Chicago public high school that prepares young people from under-resourced communities for graduation with the academic skills and personal resilience necessary for successful completion of college. NLCP provides the students, facilities, and technical support for the Girl/Friends Leadership Institute.

Rape Victims Advocacy (RVA) is an Illinois not-for-profit organization made up of many individuals with two primary goals: to assure that survivors of sexual assault are treated with dignity and compassion; and to affect changes in the way the legal system, medical institutions and society as a whole respond to survivors.

School of the Art Institute of Chicago Master of Arts in Art Therapy (MAAT) Program provides a comprehensive art therapy education that emphasizes development of the artist/art therapist, prepares graduates to function as art therapists in a variety of settings, and fosters critical engagement within social and cultural contexts. The MAAT program provides art therapist interns and staff for the Girl/Friends Leadership Institute.

Leah Gipson, M.A.A.T. is the program coordinator of the Girl/Friends Summer Institute Program. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Central Florida and her Master of Arts in Art Therapy from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her professional work and community outreach over the past several years have centered on health, education, justice, and leadership. After relocating to Chicago in 2008, Leah became invested in using art as a tool for self-expression, social activism, and overall mental health and wellness. She has worked in the Expressive Therapies department at Michael Reese Hospital, offering expressive therapies to adult and adolescents with a mixture of trauma histories, mental disorders, and behavioral issues. In the past year, she has provided rape crisis counseling to women and adolescent girls who are survivors of sexual assault. Her most recent work has involved creating and altering shoes with survivors. Leah’s approach to art therapy is informed by her personal experiences, memories and relationships with everyday objects.

Régine Michelle Jean-Charles, Ph.D., is the program coordinator of the Fi/Zanmi Summer Institute for Haitian teenage girls. As a foremost Haitian-American feminist scholar and activist, Regine is trained rape crisis counselor and an active member of the Boston's Haitian community through her work with AFAB the Haitian Women's Association of Boston and Women Beyond Mountains, a group she co-founded to address the needs of Haitian women in the aftermath of the recent earthquake. Regine is also an actress who tours with the Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS) and has been a board member of A Long Walk Home, Inc. since 2004. Régine has starred in the groundbreaking plays “VENUS” and “For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Isn't Enuf.” She received her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University in 2006 and her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000. Her current book project, Conflict Bodies: The Politics of Rape in the Francophone Imaginary discusses the representations of sexual violence in francophone literary and cultural studies. She is an Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures at Boston College.

R. L’Heureux Lewis, Ph.D., is the program coordinator for the BROTHERS Summer Institute for teenage boys. As a leading scholar and activist in education, gender equality, and public policy, he serves on the Board of Directors for the Achieving Leadership’s Purpose (ALP) program in Harlem where he designed a curriculum that builds high school students leadership skills awareness about issues of racism and gender inequality. L’Heureux has been trained by Men Can Stop Rape and is also an active member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement – a human rights group – where he works with building student activists. Lastly, he runs a rites of passage at the City College of New York that focuses on the healthy transitions to manhood for college aged men of African descent. His commentary has been featured in media outlets such as US World News Report, Diversity in Higher Education, National Public Radio, theRoot.com, Slate.com, TheGrio.com, The Atlanta Post, Houston Chronicle and the Detroit Free Press. L’Heureux holds a Bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College and a PhD in Sociology and Public Policy from the University of Michigan. His book Inequality in the Promised Land looks at the ways suburban school districts and families deal with issues of racial and economic diversity. He is an assistant professor of Sociology, Black Studies, and Public Policy at the City College of New York CUNY.

Nia Austin-Edwards began her dance training in Atlanta, GA at Total Dance/Dancical Productions, Inc. She majored in dance at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is a member of ASE Dance Theater Collective under the direction of Adia Whitaker and Jamal Jackson Dance Company. Joining A Long Walk Home, Inc. in 2009, Nia performs to Nina Simone's “Four Women” and Aretha Franklin's “Spirit in the Dark” in SOARS.

Hettie Barnhill performs for the Tony Award winning Broadway Musical FELA! as well as for her Company, The Just Movement Collective. She received her degree in Dance from Columbia College in Chicago and has received several dance scholarships, including the Young Artist Scholarship (American Dance Festival); The Wiesman Grant for her choreographic piece (Homegrown). Joining A Long Walk Home, Inc. in 2007, Hettie performs to Nina Simone's "Four Women" and Aretha Franklin's "Spirit in the Dark" in SOARS.

Na Tanyá Daviná Stewart is a cultural worker, writer, and performer from Gary, Indiana. She is an Artistic Associate at the South Shore Centre for the Arts in Gary, IN were she teaches creative writing and performance poetry. She is a member of the Central District Organizing Project, which organizes Gary residents to mobilize and take action on the issues they face. Joining A Long Walk Home, Inc. in 2004, Daviná performs the poem “Do You Know What Rape Feels Like?” and “I Was Born and Died on the Same Day” for SOARS.

Logan Vaughn is a Chicago based casting director and director. Currently the Casting Associate at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Logan has worked with several companies including Lookingglass Theatre, Court Theatre, Second City Theatre, The Cardinal Stage and Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival. Logan received her degree in Film from Columbia College Chicago and in 2008 was awarded the Goodman Theatre's prestigious Joyce Arts Fellowship in Casting. Joining A Long Walk Home, Inc. in 2004, Logan performs her self-choreographed dance to Nina Simone's “Four Women” in SOARS.

Ugochi is singer/songwriter from Chicago and Nigeria. Critics described her debut album, “African Buttafly,” as “lively, energetic music that makes your feet move and heart think.” She recently released her second album, A.S.E. (Afro Soul Effect), a riveting blend of Afrobeat, hip hop, R&B, and classic soul. She has shared the stage with established artists such as Common, Eric Benet, John Legend, and Femi Kuti. Joining A Long Walk Home, Inc. in 2003, she performs “Strange Fruit” and her own “African Buttafly” for SOARS.