Spoken Word Artists, Terisa Siagatonu, is a passionate community organizer. When Terisa is off stage, you can find her dedicating her time and effort to today’s youth and building a better community for the future.

Terisa is a mentor for Pacific Islanders of Tomorrow (PILOT), a community leadership program dedicated to empowering youth, and largely involved with Youth Speaks, an organization that empowers youth through arts education. With Youth Speaks Terisa is a poet mentor, workshop facilitator, Project Coordinator, school team member, and Assistant Coach of the 2016 Bay Area youth poetry slam team.  

In 2012, Terisa received President Obama’s Champion of Change Award for her activism as a spoken word poet/organizer in her Pacific Islander community.

Coming up, Terisa will be performing at the National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence, and is the Keynote Speaker for UC Berkeley’s Asian Pacific Islanders Issues Conference in Berkeley, CA.

Terisa Siagatanu’s spoken word credits include performces at the White House and the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France. Terisa’s writing blends the personal with the political in a way that calls for healing, courage, justice, and truth. Her work has been featured on Button Poetry, CNN, NBCNews, NPR, Huffington Post, Everyday Feminism, Button Poetry, The Guardian, BuzzFeed and Upworthy. Learn more about Terisa.