Who We Are
A team of justice-impacted leaders, media professionals, and community builders who believe people closest to the problem must lead the solutions.
What We Believe
Storytelling changes lives.
Education before release transforms reentry.
Belonging is safety.
Rural communities benefit when returning citizens thrive.
We exist to build workforce pathways and storytelling ecosystems that strengthen people and rural economies.
Vik Chopra
Vik is a dedicated creative visionary and community builder who brings almost 20 years of experience in the media space to Unincarcerated Productions. With a background in filmmaking, media production and funding, storytelling, and lived experience - in the carceral system, South Asian community, and LGBTQ community - he contributes a unique perspective that helps drive our mission forward. He also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of Washington.
In addition to being our Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Vik actively works in multiple creative roles with many production houses as a director, producer, writer, actor and teaching artist. His experience includes teaching and developing arts programming inside multiple prisons with both Unincarcerated, Creative Acts and others, as well as producing projects highlighting his and others’ journeys as queer humans in modern day America.
What matters most to Vik is creating a legacy of humanizing and uplifting the queer and justice impacted communities across the globe, and creating a culture that not only protects the most vulnerable in our society, but values and celebrates their lived experiences. He is passionate about amplifying unincarcerated and queer voices, making art that can change the world, and using his voice and experience to shift the global perspective on incarceration, addiction, and the LGBTQ community.
Founder, chief creative officer
RACHEL KJACK
Rachel is an exceptional networker and community-builder who brings over 25 years of experience to Unincarcerated Productions. With a background in workforce development, organizational systems transformation, social justice and media - she is uniquely positioned to lead our team. Rachel holds a BA in Education and Social Justice from The Evergreen State College and an MA in Organizational and Leadership Development from Bastyr University.
In addition to producing hit podcasts and engaging video content, she has authored over 80 courses on personal and professional development topics. Her extensive client list includes working with hundreds of social justice nonprofits and start-ups, as well as some of the world's largest corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Sony, Paramount Global, Walmart, and Starbucks.
Her most important life’s work though is believing in and collaborating with the justice-impacted community. She has taught in prison education programs along the West Coast from San Quentin to the Washington State Penitentiary in her hometown of Walla Walla. She brings all of her expertise in the outside world into prisons and creates opportunities for people to do meaningful work both inside the walls of prisons and when they get out.
chief EXECUTIVE officer
zac bentz
Zac is a relentlessly ambitious creative who brings nearly a decade of experience and a keen eye for culture-shaping to the Unincarcerated Productions team. With extensive backgrounds in film production, graphic design, audio editing, copywriting, and music production, they lend the Unincarcerated Productions team a distinct ground-level cultural perspective, and work toward immortalizing the team’s efforts not just in the annals of carceral justice and liberation, but within a long-standing artistic lineage.
They hold a BA in film production from Whitman College, and a certification in film directing from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, CZ.
In addition to working as the primary editor and sound designer on Concrete Mama: The Podcast, they have served as lead editor on a handful of client video projects in the justice-impacted and reentry spaces, art director and lead graphic designer for Unincarcerated and all its associated projects, and are wrapping up post-production on an original Concrete Mama documentary featurette, which they directed, produced, and edited.
What matters most to Zac is building genuine relationships and helping folks share their stories in the most authentic way possible, and they are deeply passionate about the restorative power of the arts in justice-impacted communities.
When not working with Unincarcerated, Zac records and tours with their bands, Wind-Up Birds and Roy G. Biv, and freelances as a music-industry graphic designer.
director of art and post-production
megean sanchez
Megean M Sanchez is a dedicated creative and community-builder who brings over 10 years of experience in storytelling, media production, arts programming, and advocacy to the Unincarcerated Productions team. As a queer, Mexican/Taiwanese writer, director, and artist, Megean creates light in the dark- exploring identity, grief, and hope through work rooted in surrealism and honesty.
With a background spanning independent film, brand development, and social impact storytelling, Megean has collaborated with brands like Trader Joe’s, Columbia, and Blue Star Donuts, and currently serves as Social Media Content Manager and Designer at Fighting Pretty, supporting women battling cancer. She has also been Professional Film Mentor with Open the Frame and works as the Program Assistant at the Circle of Indigenous Ministries where she works to provide education on decolonization of the church, provide resources to indigenous leaders, and give reparations to indigenous tribes.
At Unincarcerated, Megean leads social media strategy and community engagement, helping amplify justice-impacted voices and shape meaningful narratives through Concrete Mama: The Podcast and beyond.
director of communications
amina loftin
Amina Loftin (she/her), a trained social justice and equity and inclusion educator, believes our liberation is bound together, and brings extensive lived and professional experience in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) and Social Justice. She is currently serving as our first point of connection for both the justice impacted community and for prospective partner organizations and people who want to engage with us on social justice and media projects.
Amina is also the Director of DEI at an independent school and has spent the past five years engaging in DEI work and serving on the Advancing Equity Leadership team. She has developed DEI programming for students, faculty, parents and administrators, and developed full-day programs designed to engage the community in learning about the intersectionality of identities and confronting privilege. Amina works to ensure that all community members believe they can have a positive impact on the world through programmatic engagement, personal connection, and collective dialogue.
Her desire to support justice impacted humans stems from her upbringing in Crown Heights Brooklyn, an under-resourced and deliberately impoverished community, where everyone she knew had some proximity to the justice system.
In her downtime Amina loves to read, cook and go to the movies.
Director of Outreach, Equity & Justice
ANTHONY COVERT
Director of Community Organizing
Anthony is a dedicated community-builder and creative who brings over 9 years of leadership and advocacy experience to the Unincarcerated Productions team. With a background in community organizing, storytelling, reentry support, and arts-based education, he contributes a raw and visionary perspective that bridges generations and uplifts justice-impacted voices.
Anthony served 16 years in Walla Walla State Penitentiary, where he completed training in peer mentorship, facilitation, and digital storytelling that strengthens his impact in the reentry and advocacy space.
In addition to leading outreach and grassroots organizing for events, campaigns, and media initiatives, Anthony has co-led youth empowerment projects, written culturally rooted performance pieces, and helped justice-impacted individuals find purpose through creative expression. He has worked with reentry centers, prison education programs, youth mentorship collectives, and cultural advocacy groups.
What matters most to Anthony is building real connections and creating platforms for transformation. He is passionate about turning pain into purpose, shifting narratives about incarceration, and helping others reclaim their freedom, internally and externally.
demar nelson
Demar is a dedicated public speaker, leader, and change agent both inside the prison system and the community at large. Demar brings around 3 years of experience with Unincarcerated productions as he played a pivotal role in the development of the podcast on the inside. He contributes in a unique way by creating open spaces to transcend and grow as human beings, something that drives our mission at Unincarcerated Productions.
In addition to being the co-host of Concrete Mama: The Podcast, and featured in multiple projects that have highlighted the power of transformation in prisons, including the documentary “Since I Been Down,” Demar is an active lead organizer against gang violence in the community and a voice of change. His experience includes starting his own podcast SALT (Spiritual Awareness Life Tactic, teaching communication classes at Walla Walla Community College, co-founding a nonprofit with his spouse named YB&B (Young Black and Brilliant) a literacy club that guides and inspires young children in the community, and is a lead community organizer for Look2Justice, a non-profit that seeks to change systemic racism and oppressive laws for the justice impacted community.
What matters most to Demar is relationships, change and education. He is a husband and devoted father to his 17 year old son Avony’e. He is passionate about using his voice to reach thousands of people as a trailblazer of transcendence, and continuing to be a contributing member to society.
Co-Director of WSP Media Lab
Steven Edwards has spent most of his life perfecting his craft as a millwright, welder, and metal worker, eventually becoming the lead of the Washington State Penitentiary's metal shop. He later expanded his expertise into the fitness field, earning certification as a personal trainer through the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA). His curiosity and commitment to growth led him to take additional courses at The Evergreen State College, including gardening and sagebrush restoration.
Through his work with Unincarcerated, Steven has become known as the organization’s “resident historian” and serves as the co-director of the Media Lab for the Concrete Mama podcast. His storytelling work and leadership at the Media Lab have also helped shape his emerging path as a screenwriter, actor, director, and film producer.
A dedicated family man, Steven reads extensively, especially in history and communication, and brings that knowledge into the spaces he serves. He is a facilitator of Communication Breakdown and the Sustainable Practices Lab Program for Green Planet Academy. Known for his mentorship, Steven has taught welding to hundreds of individuals across correctional industries and workplace settings, and he has created numerous pieces of metal artwork for charity auctions and community initiatives.
His nieces and nephews are like his own children, and being a great uncle is one of his proudest identities. What matters most to Steven is shifting the narratives around incarceration, especially those involving addiction stigmas and the revolving door of recidivism. His work is grounded in breaking cycles, elevating unheard voices, and ultimately building a path home to his family.
Co-Director of WSP Media Lab
steven “red” edwards
