Isa Woldeguiorguis has been the Executive Director of The Center for Hope and Healing (CHH) since 2012. CHH has served victims of rape and sexual assault, provided education and awareness raising to eradicate sexual violence in the greater Lowell Massachusetts area for 40 years. Prior to this, she worked in the antiviolence field for twenty-two years, holding several statewide and national roles in the movement to end sexual and domestic violence.

From 2007-2010, Ms. Woldeguiorguis worked at the MA Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence (Jane Doe Inc.) as Policy Director and then Membership Director. She worked at the MA Department of Social Services (DSS), now the Department of Children and Families (DCF), from 1994- 2007. She began as an advocate and ultimately became the Director of the MA DSS Domestic Violence Unit- the first such unit in the country and a national model for integrating domestic violence advocates in the public child welfare system. Her final tenure was serving as Assistant Commissioner for Practice and Policy, during which time she played a role in redesigning the practice model to become family-centered & assisted in building an integrated practice in substance abuse, mental health and domestic violence.

Ms. Woldeguiorguis is a well-respected leader and national trainer in the field of child abuse, domestic and sexual violence, system change, policy and practice. She is well known for her dynamic training style and teaching skills on these topics and for her activism in the areas of race and racial disparities. She served as faculty on several national initiatives and co-instructed courses on leadership and the antiviolence movement at Simmons College School of Social Work. She has authored several articles on topics such as family-centered practice in child welfare, racial and ethnic disproportionality and immigration.

Currently, Ms. Woldeguiorguis is the co-chair of the Massachusetts Women of Color Network (MAWOCN). MAWOCN is a group of women of color working in the domestic and sexual violence field who share a vision of a movement in which women of color are in leadership roles and have access to power; a movement that is not white-dominated, where women of color are valued and not tokenized. The Mission of the MAWOCN is to support and maintain the leadership of women of color and to honor and elevate the role of women of color in ending violence. MAWOCN provides training, professional development, peer support/mentorship and works to challenge oppression and institutional racism.