Mira Michelle has worked with youth teaching art as a tool for personal empowerment for the last eight years. She holds a degree in Community Studies and Art from UCSC. In 2001 Mira helped set up a program called Art Refuge for Tibetan refugee youth transitioning into exile in Nepal and India. In 2004 Mira returned to the Art Refuge project in Asia and discovered it was sustaining itself. It had been taken over by the Tibetan community in India and they had set up a system up for international volunteers. During the same trip to Asia, Mira was invited to teach confidence building workshops with young women in Katmandu and the program “HerStories: The Voices on Young Nepali Women” was birthed. Deeply inspired by this experience Mira helped create the Girlosophy program when she returned to the United States. Last year five Girlosophy groups were ran in San Francisco. Mira is also an accomplished visual artist who works in oil, acrylic and mixed media. She has shown her paintings at numerous shows through out the Bay Area and has been published in datebooks and calendars. Mira believes strongly in the principles of youth development and the capacity for artistic expression to create positive transformation in the lives of youth.