Jackelyn Mariano, Esq.
Executive Director
Jackelyn Mariano, Esq., is a community organizer, lawyer, and educator from Queens, New York. She began her service as Executive Director of MEMS in December 2023, although her service to MEMS has been ongoing since the organization’s inception in 2016. Through her law firm Mariano Ashton PLLC, Jackelyn served as MEMS’ legal resource, developing the organization’s legal referral network and programs that have trained survivors and migrant workers to use to law to support organizing campaigns for justice against labor traffickers and exploitative employers. Jackelyn developed her expertise in the legal frameworks that govern labor trafficking by serving as a volunteer/staff immigration attorney at legal services organizations, including at AALDEF’s Anti-Trafficking Initiative, Unlocal, Inc., and Safe Horizon Anti-Trafficking Program. Jackelyn has been instructing classes as an adjunct assistant professor at CUNY Hunter College's Asian American Studies Program and at the CUNY School of Law’s Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR) clinic, which represents communities targeted by government agencies under the guise of national security and counterterrorism.
Rev. Canon Dr. Winfred (Fred) Vergara
Chair OF THE BOARD
Having lived, studied and served in various churches in three countries (Iglesia Filipina Independiente in the Philippines, Anglican Church in Singapore, Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches in the United States), Fr. Fred has a broad spectrum of experience in leading organizations. As the current Missioner for Asiamerica Ministries in the Episcopal Church based in New York City, he specializes in evangelism, church planting, revival and racial reconciliation among and beyond Asian communities. He is known as a “healing and trouble-shooting priest” and one of the founders of Mission to End Modern Slavery.
Jessica Tulloch
Treasurer OF THE BOARD
Jessica is a human rights advocate with more than two decades of experience working with grassroots organizations on community empowerment and peacebuilding. She spent several years in the Philippines as a researcher and educator with the labor movement and in indigenous communities where she witnessed firsthand the social, political, and economic conditions that make human trafficking possible. She also has assisted non-profits with establishment of financial and administrative systems.