Who We Are

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We are musicians, facilitators, filmmakers, educators, and community members who believe in the power of music, intentional conversations, and powerful visual storytelling to change people, relationships, and the systems we are a part of.

We are in a time of ever-increasing change and collective reckoning.

People are finding their agency: using their voices to call for justice, looking inward to heal and unlearn harmful patterns we have inherited, and dreaming of a different—and better—future. Raise Your Voice Labs was created in and for this moment: to unlock our fullest creative potential; to deepen our abilities to respond as bridge-builders; to use the power of song and group processes to make space for people to learn how to truly listen, how to share vulnerably, and how to work through, and learn from, conflict, an inevitability when difference is present.

We are here to meet this moment with you. Whether with your professional team or any other group, we will help you reconnect deeply, reimagine and re-envision community, create and express a renewed sense of purpose and mission, and develop a new path forward with supportive accountability that helps align your values and actions.

FOUNDING TEAM

Micah Hendler (Forbes 30 Under 30 for Music) is a musical changemaker working to harness the power in each of our voices to make a difference.

Micah founded the Israeli-Palestinian Jerusalem Youth Chorus in 2012 as a synthesis of years of work in musical community-building and conflict transformation (including a Yale degree in music and international studies). A CARA-nominated vocal arranger, he has studied Community Singing and CircleSinging with GRAMMY-winning composers Ysaye Barnwell and Roger Treece, and uses these two methodologies and others to open up the concept of what a chorus can do and who should be in it.

Micah has been involved in dialogue work for more than 15 years and has written and presented in many local and global forums, including sharing the keynote presentation of the East-West Philosophers’ Conference with leading Palestinian intellectual and peacemaker Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, as they explored together how sound can be used as a tool to create shared spaces in Jerusalem.

He has begun to apply these lessons in an American context, not only through Raise Your Voice Labs but also through volunteer leadership in the Justice Choir and Braver Angels grassroots movements. Micah writes for Forbes.com about music, society, and social change in a global context.

Austin Willacy is a veteran singer-songwriter and group facilitator with decades of global experience helping leaders make lasting change.

An award-winning musician with 4 CD’s and 2 EP’s to his name, he has produced 10 full-length albums and completed multiple world tours with vocal band The House Jacks. For the past 22 years, Austin has directed ‘Til Dawn, Youth in Arts’ award-winning teen a cappella group that empowers youth to find their voices in many different ways. Inspired by his youth work, the Apple Store in San Francisco brought him in to do an Apple Music Lab on Finding Your Creative Voice and Songwriting Basics on the iPad.

Austin is an organizer and facilitator for YES! YES! Jams help individual changemakers deepen their root system and grow in consciousness and self-care, so they can become more healthy and effective and restore balance and well-being. When there is congruency between our goals and how we work, we can generate more lasting and effective positive impact. He is one of the co-founders of the Black Diaspora Jam, and the Arts for Social Change Jams in the US (2013 - present), Turkey (2016 - present), and India (2016 - present).

Austin even has a side career in soundalike singing voiceovers for games including Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution, he’s a renaissance man. But, who cares about all that? Because what really matters is what Bonnie Raitt told him.

“You can really F*ckin’ sing!”

Sarah Brajtbord is a facilitator, educator, and organizational leader working at the intersection of conflict, opportunity, power, and privilege around the world—including recently as Camp Director of Seeds of Peace.

Sarah Brajtbord believes interpersonal and systemic change starts with oneself.

After recognizing the transformative power of dialogue-based leadership development as a teen participant at Seeds of Peace, Sarah worked at Seeds of Peace for nearly a decade, serving as U.S. Programs Manager and Camp Director. In both roles, her principal focus was the creation and preservation of a supportive environment for teens to recognize their power and build the relationships needed to work together to create change.

Recognizing the need to continue her own journey of self-reflection, growth, and learning, Sarah participated in the 2015 North America Leadership Jam, a program of YES! She joined the facilitation team in 2016 and has been co-organizing and co-facilitating Jams since. The same instinct led Sarah to embark upon an anti-racist training in January of 2020 for white educators, focusing on disrupting systemic racism in the education system.

Sarah is currently working to address inequities in her local community through The Food Brigade, a powerful mutual-aid project with Presente! Maine that delivers food to nearly 500 families in Portland and Lewiston, Maine every week. A survival project that works to meet people’s basic needs, The Food Brigade is also a tool to drive change: calling for and organizing towards the creation of systems that prioritize the health, safety, and prosperity of all of us and shifting and redistributing power and resources to poor people, BIPOC, undocumented people, and all oppressed people.

CREATIVE TEAM