Our Team
Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes is Director of Services of the Vermont Racial Equity Association. Mark is a community leader, organizer, advocate, and trainer who specializes in addressing systemic racism in the criminal justice system. His work in Vermont led to the creation of Justice For All, a grassroots organization with a mission to dismantle systemic racism, eliminate poverty and ensure racial equity through advocacy, education, and relationship-building. Mark’s approach to eradicating systemic racism is informed by hundreds of engagements in community, countless hours of collaborating with elected and appointed officials, and endless testimony in Vermont Legislature.
Mr. Hughes’ statewide coalition building resulted in the establishment of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, who’s legislative agenda created the Racial Disparities in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice System Advisory Panel (Act 54, 2017) where he served as inaugural Vice-Chair. Further work of the Alliance led to the creation of the position of the Vermont Racial Equity Executive Director and Panel (Act 9, 2018 special), where the enabling statute encompasses a centralized framework for systemic racism eradication for all Vermont state agencies.
Mark was the founding Tri-Chair of the Vermont Coordinating Committee of the The Poor People's Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival. He is a retired army officer, where he specialized in cryptography and has had an extensive career in cyber security. Mark resides in Burlington Vermont, where he serves as Junior Vice Commander with the Veterans of Foreign War, Post 782 in Burlington and also serves a police commissioner
Mohamed Jafar
Mohamed Jafar and his family settled in Burlington, Vermont when he was 7 years old. Born in Kenya, he is the oldest of 11 children. After completing high school in Burlington, he attended Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire, graduating in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. In his final semester, he had the opportunity to work as a federal policy research assistant for the Northeast-Midwest Institute, located in Washington D.C. His research was focused in the Great Lakes region, where he worked to identify water infrastructure disparities among communities.
Upon returning to Vermont, committed to bettering the city and community in which he grew up, he became civically engaged. Mohamed spent time working at the local Department of Motor Vehicles and later worked as a research assistant at the University of Vermont’s Behavioral Sciences Unit. Mr. Jafar is now employed with the City of Burlington as a Court Diversion Coordinator, as a Tamarack and Pretrial Services Coordinator, where they provide services to individuals at the intersection of mental health struggles, substance abuse, and the criminal justice system. From his office in the Vermont Chittenden County Superior Court, Mohamed works closely with the state Attorney’s office, the public defender's office, private attorneys, and the court to identify vulnerable individuals that may benefit from the program, while also exploring restorative approaches to addressing harm. He has always been passionate about restorative justice — a pathway that our current criminal legal system simply does not offer.
Beyond Mohamed’s professional career, he is invested in community activism. In 2018, He worked with Senator Sanders’ office to organize a town hall event aiming to assist resettled Americans in registering to vote and getting to know Bernie Sanders and other legislators. In 2019, spearheaded a project with the Secretary of State’s office focused on making voting more accessible and welcoming for resettled Americans. This effort unfolded into a three-part project which culminated with the production of videos on how to vote in six languages, translated sample ballots, and two town hall meetings to help New Americans register to vote and become familiar with the civic process. This partnership is ongoing and they now work to produce translated information on mail-in voting, in light of the pandemic. Mr. Jafar currently sits on the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) Vermont branch. He is co-founder of the Vermont New American Advisory Council (VNAAC). He is a Steering Committee member of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and serves on several other local boards. He has worked closely with both the City of Burlington and with stakeholders at the state level as a bridge to the resettled American community. Mohamed feels incredibly fortunate to have grown up in Burlington, Vermont and is humbled everyday by the opportunity to give back to it.