Steering Committee

Heloisa Maria Galvão a co-founder of the Brazilian Women’s Group and its Executive-Director.

She is from Ilha Grande, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1988. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Decoration “Ordem do Rio Branco” awarded by the President of Brazil to Brazilians living overseas who are recognized by outstanding services to Brazil and Brazilian immigrants (September 2002).

She worked as a community field coordinator and language tester for the Boston Public Schools for 20 years and taught Portuguese at Harvard University Department of Romance Languages.

She holds Master degrees in Print Journalism and in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University. Her latest publications are “A Ditadura como eu lembro” (The dictatorship how I remember it) in Caminhando e Contando. Memória da ditadura brasileira (Walking and Telling. Memories of the Brazilian dictatorship), printing EDUFBA – Federal University of Bahia, 2015, and “An Oral History of Brazilian Women Immigrants in the Boston Area”, in Passing Lines, Sexuality and immigration (Edited by Brad Epps, keja Valens, and Bill Johnson Gonzalez, Harvard University, The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, 2005).

Lidia Ferreira has worked at Brazilian Women’s Group since January of 2014 as a Workers’ Rights Organizer. She works closely to domestic workers organizer, Lydia Simas, to help organize the MCDW workers’ council. Lidia represents the BWG in IWCC and fair wage campaign meetings.

She is originally from Rio de Janeiro. She graduated in technical marketing and advertising from ETEC. She’s on the path to getting her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Liberty University and currently works on a book about domestic violence. Lidia is married and the mother of three.

Lenita Reason is the Executive Director (ED) of the Brazilian Worker Center (BWC).

Lenita took office as ED in September of 2021, after over 11 years of dedication as a Community Organizer, Office Manager, and OSHA-Susan Harwood Outreach Coordinator at BWC.

Lenita’s professional background is diverse, international, and offers a variety of rich perspectives and unique skills: from being a domestic worker, dental assistant and office administrator in Brazil, to being a private personal care attendant, Outreach Specialist and Chief Trainer Assistant for the Susan Harwood Targeted Topic Training Program in Fall Protection for Residential Construction, a Brazilian Portuguese Interpreter with the Rapid Response Text Messaging Network for the Mayor's Office of Language and Communications Access in the City of Boston, to now becoming BWC’s Executive Director.

In addition to her diverse professional background, Lenita’s expertise in the field of workers’ rights is also informed by her experience as a Small Claims Court advocate for BWC workers seeking restitution for wage theft, and by her considerable experience as a mediator in worker-employer disputes.

Mostly recently, she has completed a Certificate in Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2018.

Lenita is also a seasoned researcher having actively contributed as a field coordinator in various projects, such as the 2014 study, funded by the Sociological Initiatives Foundation, which aimed to investigate working conditions of Massachusetts domestic workers, and the Home Economics: The Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work, which consisted of a participatory action research project that supported the completion of the 2013 National Domestic Workers Alliance study.

Finally, Lenita has also actively collaborated for a research study that aimed to investigate health awareness in the Brazilian immigrant community in Massachusetts, a study developed in partnership with UMass Boston, Tufts, Boston University, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. In 2014, she co-founded and, since then co-directs, the BWC’s “Building Justice” innovative worker committee, which monitors and takes action on wage theft cases in the community.

In 2020, Lenita became co-chair of the Driving Families Forward coalition, which advocates for the passing of the Work and Family Mobility Act bill in Massachusetts.

Lorrayne Reiter is the Domestic Workers Organizer and Immigrant's Rights Defense Project Coordinator of the Brazilian Worker Center.

Lorrayne is responsible for processing multiple cases, from wage theft complaints to supporting immigrant workers with learning about their rights. When processing cases, Lorrayne intervenes between immigrant workers and their employers and supports the resolution of disputes associated with wages and other issues. She also leads Know Your Rights workshops for workers in Massachusetts.

Magalis Troncoso Lama is the Founder and Director of Dominican Development Center.

She functions as the Executive and Lead Organizer, a-long-time and experienced community organizer, one of the founder members of the Domestic Bill of Right in Massachusetts.

She has a background in journalism from her country Dominican Republic and graduated in the year 2007 with a master’s degree in business administration from Phoenix University. She also has a bachelor’s in Human Services and Organizing from UMASS. Magalis is a recognized leader in the environmental organizational non-grass-root area with over 20 years of experience working for different non-profit organizations and running Spanish communication programs.

She is a board member of the Greater Boston Legal Services, board members of Boston Women’s Fund, and recently named as part of the board of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, also, she is one of the founders of the American Alliance, an immigrant national an organization dedicated to immigration issues at a national and transnational level.