Kiana Calloway

Kiana Calloway, a native of Louisiana, has dedicated his life to advocating for the marginalized. After unjustly spending 17 years in prison, Kiana returned home and founded Project Detour in 2013. This mentoring program pairs at-risk youth with positive role models who have been impacted by the system. He then joined Roots of Renewal NOLA in 2017, where he served as Program Director. Through this role, Kiana has been able to help formerly incarcerated young men find their purpose and receive job training skills. With personal and organizational skills, he empowers them to become productive citizens and avoid returning to prison. Kiana is a core member and former employee of VOTE (Voice of the Experienced), where he has led campaigns for prison reform, higher education in prisons, and restoring voting rights for those on probation and parole in Louisiana. He also played a crucial role in eliminating non-unanimous juries, a remnant of the Jim Crow Era. Kiana's thirst is to continue educating himself on issues with a solution based mindset by enrolling to Loyola University of New Orleans to earn his degree in Arts & Criminology and Justice.

Kiana continues to use his energy to organize around issues that improve the quality of life in his community. His activism includes helping ban the box on employment applications for the formerly incarcerated in Louisiana and advocating for legislation to prevent the use of solitary confinement for children in youth detention centers. He has also served on governmental task forces and local transition teams. Currently, Kiana is a fellow in the Movement for Black Lives' Electoral Justice League and a 2023 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Center for Creative Leadership Fellow. He firmly believes that everyone deserves a fair chance at pursuing happiness, regardless of their past hardships. He works every day to ensure that people returning home from incarceration have access to economic opportunities, employment, education and resources to successfully re-adapt as productive members of society.