Yu-Shuan is a 1.5 generation Taiwanese American settler on Chochenyo Ohlone land. As the proud beneficiary of ancestors/family who crossed multiple borders to escape war and poverty, she gained from a young age a deep respect for non institutional unlettered education - street wisdom and scholarship. Yu-Shuan is a proud mother of two mixed-race children and a life partner to a 4th generation Chicanx. She has over 20 years of experience building Black, Indigenous, and People of Color centered pedagogy and practice for personal and social transformation. In 2011, Yu-Shuan founded an annual 6-week national collegiate immersion program designed to help participants reconstruct Christian theology in order to cultivate meaningful and just relationships with people on the margins. In 2016, in efforts to deepen the cultivation of collective healing and liberation, Yu-Shuan founded Sacred Roots. She is also the Family Engagement & Equity Specialist at Yu Ming Charter School (K-G8) since 2016 and an adjunct professor at Church Divinity School of the Pacific since 2019. She has a B.A in Psychology, minor in Asian American Studies from UC Davis.
A member of the Sicangu Band of the Lakota Nation from South Dakota, Martha holds a B.A in Human Development with a Child Development Concentration and M.A in Public Administration with an Organizational Change Concentration from California State University East Bay. She is the first urban born generation of her family and actively involved in the Native community in the Bay Area. Born and raised in Oakland, she has extensive experience and knowledge of the Bay Area Native community and is focused on utilizing culturally and spiritually based approaches to build and strengthen healthy individuals, families, and communities.
Certified spiritual director from Mercy Center and have served individuals and groups for over 15 years. As an interfaith spiritual director and holistic counselor, she has presented workshops on grief, the immigrant experience, and facilitated dream groups and women’s groups. She holds a MA in Somatic Counseling psychology and uses those skills and knowledge learned, along with the gifts of compassionate presence and deep listening, to discern together with her clients, where and how the Divine is moving in their lives. Available for private healing and coaching sessions.
A spiritual practitioner and certified coach focused on soul care and justice. Over 16 years engaging and facilitating groups in building healthy relationships, spirituality, identity, cultivating ethics, values, equity, conflict resolution and justice. Her particular passion and work is at the intersection of race, gender, justice and spirituality. She has led trainings and retreats at Shaw University, NC State University, Intervarsity, UC Berkeley, Catholic Charities, Volunteers of America and various other organizations and churches across the nation. Ordained by the Cedar Grove Missionary Baptist Association (May 2005); BA in Public Relations from NC A&T State University, M.Div. from Duke University; Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy at Eastern University. Available for private healing and coaching sessions (virtual only).
Colleen “Coke” Tani is an experimental memoirist and improvisational dancer, interested in embodied and ensouled aspects of human experience. Coke is a certified InterPlay instructor and facilitates workshops for those wishing to illuminate their own stories using creative practices. She was raised in urban Los Angeles in the 1970’s by a family and community imbued with cultural vitality in spite of historic racism and dislocation. Coke earned a Masters Degree in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley and worked as a therapist with individuals traumatized by violence, loss and HIV/AIDS. She is currently interested in how beauty, space and restraint can affect conversations about human vulnerability. She is writing a body memoir exploring intimacy gone awry, erotic transformation and the nature of human longing. Available for private healing and coaching sessions
Lisa María Castellanos is a Xikana born and raised in California by way of México and the Arizona Sonora desert. Lisa has over 25 years of organizing, membership, leader development, political education, policy work, grant writing, and movement-building experience as an independent consultant, coach, and advisor with local, national, and international organizations. Lisa is a graduate of the Center for Third World Organizing’s Minority Activist Apprenticeship Program. Since her time as a single mother during the welfare deform years of the mid-1990’s, Lisa has worked with communities on various issues including immigrant rights, food stamp access, welfare rights, education justice, anti-prison work, affordable housing, transportation, food justice, transnational economies, and environmental justice, as well as gender and reproductive justice, including family rights of incarcerated loved ones. Lisa currently serves on the Leadership Circle of Mijente, a national network for Latinx/Chicanx changemakers, and sits on the Advisory Committee for the Transnational Villages Network, a human rights network of Mexican indigenous communities and their diasporas in the U.S. As a member of Essie Justice Project, an organization for women with incarcerated loved ones, she has facilitated the Healing to Advocacy Series and sits on the research committee. Lisa graduated magna cum laude and received her B.A. in Feminist Studies with an emphasis on Social Movements and the Law from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Lisa finds great joy (and challenge) in helping to build leader-ful organizations, and is especially interested in membership models that can scale up and build political homes for frontline communities through organizing, campaigns, and cultural work. In her spare time, she runs with her dog, swims in the SF Bay with her partner during warmer months, and screen prints in her home studio.
A psychological generalist who works with individuals, couples, and families using an integrative approach. She has over 15 years of experience as a Psychological/Spiritual guide whose professional and ministerial work exemplifies holistic spiritual psychology. She started a private practice over 10 years ago, and has collaborated with many faith-based organizations to destigmatize mental health and receiving mental health services. She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree in Psycho/Spiritual Interfaith Clinical Education for Pastoral Counseling from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (NY); M.S. in Social Work with a focus on Contemporary Social Issues and double minor in African-American and Religious studies from Columbia University (NY); B.A. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota, and is currently ABD for a PsyD in Clinical Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies, CA. Available for private healing and coaching sessions.
LaVerne is a human potential expert, musician,inspirational speaker, and founder of LaVerne Darnell International, a consultancy specializing in the art and science of Numerology. With over 30 years of research and practice in Numerology, A member of the UK-based Internationales Numerolgues, in the U.K. LaVerne teaches Numerology at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Lifelong Learning. As a family development specialist for Allegheny County Family Support Center, LaVerne works to bolster young families and specializes in social and historical trauma training, which she facilitates in Liberia and the Sudan. She is founder and director of Me 2 Sister Circle, a self-care and enrichment program for mothers. She is also the founder and facilitator of WELLWoman Retreat, which she convenes. Available for private healing and consultation (virtual only).
Jiling is an acupuncturist, herbalist, and yoga teacher. She empowers wild, creative, spirited health through embodied classes, clinics, and more holistic resources. Jiling specializes in treating pain, trauma, and complex chronic conditions. Passionate about living life as art and environmental stewardship, Jiling brings years of outdoor education, improvisational dance, and global adventures to her Earth- centered teachings and practices. She facilitates embodied-wellness events nationally and internationally, including wilderness- immersion retreats, herbal workshops, community acupuncture, and emergency medical support.
LiZhen is an astrologer, facilitator, and food-grower based in Huichin (Oakland) and Taipei. They found their calling while doing youth and community organizing, working on campaigns that included: ending police abuse of Asian refugee youth; fighting a major utilities company; and most intimately, mobilizing their nonprofit coworkers for better working conditions. They have been invigorated to find that spiritual practice can root social movements in greater integrity. LiZhen co-founded the Block Build Be retreat, an annual gathering dedicated to harmonizing the wisdom of spirituality with the power of social movements— and that centers Black, Asian, and other POC, and strives to embody Disability Justice. Available for private healing and consultation.
A SF/Bay Area-born restorative justice advocate and community healer, George draws upon his experience and indigenous roots to support young people, particularly those involved in the criminal justice system, become community leaders and advocates. As a young man, he felt the effects of systemic and interpersonal oppression and was drawn into street life in attempts to cope and find himself and was consequently incarcerated at the age of 17. These experiences forged in him a commitment to elevate the voice and power of those impacted by violence and poverty. Galvis is a tireless advocate for at-risk youth, those impacted by mass incarceration. He has been a leader in statewide advocacy to end the school to prison pipeline. He is the co-founder and Executive Director of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, a Bay area-based grassroots organization.
John Jones III is an Adamikka Village Board Member and the Director of Reentry and Violence Prevention Program at BOSS (Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency). As a father of three and third generation East Oakland resident, John is also a formerly incarcerated advocate who was unemployed and homeless for eighteen months. Seeking to improve his Community, John became involved in organizing and advocacy to empower himself and others by using his personal story of pain, trauma, faith and transformation. John has worked on several local and state campaigns and ballot measures, including Measure FF, Measure Z, Prop 47, and Prop 57- all successfully passing. John is a passionate and vocal advocate for affordable housing, employment, violence reduction, ending mass incarceration and advancing racial equity.
Gabriela Galicia is the Executive Director at Street Level Health Project. Growing up in Southern California as the daughter of immigrant parents, in a predominantly Latino low income, low resourced, immigrant and people of color community, she came to understand the barriers and inequities that these communities face at a very early age. Gabriela is the first of her family to graduate from college, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in December 2009 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and a minor in Ethnic Studies with a concentration in Chicano Studies. She has over 15 years of experience in community organizing and advocacy for issues such as immigrant and workers’ rights at both the local and state level, and other issues and policies affecting the most vulnerable.
Minister Cherri Murphy is a Social Justice Minister in the East Bay. For nearly 3 decades she has worked on addressing injustices of vulnerable communities. Her current focus is on the City of Oakland’s Public Safety Initiatives and worker’s rights for app based industries. She is a national trainer on economic and racial justice and has been a guest speaker on Netroots Nation, one of the largest annual conference for progressive political activists and leaders. She has shared numerous opinions and work on local and major media networks such as PBS, Democracy Now! New York Times,Washington Post, MarketWatch. Recently she was nationally recognized by the Discount Legacy Award as an individual who has demonstrated outstanding leadership and contributed significantly to low wage workers’ rights movements here in the United States and globally. Minister Cherri grew up in Va and raised in the Black Church where she began to learn about Black Theology and Black resilience. She holds a Master of Divinity Degree at Graduate Theological Union-BST and hopes to complete her doctorate in Public Theology in the near future. She is a proud member and licensed Practitioner at Heart and Soul Center of Light. She has been described as a good trouble maker.
Nichola is a white spiritual seeker, recovering addict, gospel preacher, anti-oppression and nonviolent direct action trainer, and experimental social justice-oriented spiritual director. She is committed to helping other white people recognize their own trauma and discontent as catalysts for the dismantling of systems of oppression that are killing us all, and killing Black and Brown people first. Driven by her passion for both spiritual formation and social change, she co-founded Seminary of the Street, a training academy for love warriors, in 2009 and Second Acts, a liturgical direct action affinity group, in 2014. She is co-editor of Resipiscence: a Lenten Devotional for Dismantling White Supremacy and a frequent contributor to The Word Is Resistance, a podcast from SURJ-Faith and SURJ-Action, enfleshed, and GEEZ magazine. She is grateful to First Congregational Church of Oakland and Second Acts as her primary communities of accountability. Available for private healing and coaching sessions.
Miriam was born in Mexico and brought to the California Bay Area as a child. Her passion for immigrant justice derives from her personal experience of being a first-generation immigrant in the U.S. She has been involved in the immigrant rights movement since 2006, specifically the DREAMer movement, a historic youth-lead activist movement that won them the benefits of DACA. She was part of a religious order that facilitated retreats for contemplative-action practice. Then her ministerial call led her to work with empowering immigrant communities to discover their innate source of healing in spirituality. In 2018, a Master’s of Divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, CA. She has five years of experience in working with congregations and faith leaders of using their faith values to move them to walk alongside immigrants and advocate for justice. She lives in Colorado and works at the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), leading equity and belonging practices for the organization. Available for private healing and coaching sessions.
Jeanelle is a Brown Trans Non-Binary child of immigrants and a Filipino/x born, raised, and living in the US diaspora. Since 2008, they have been grounded in the people's movement for democracy and peace in the Philippines. For over 10 years, they have led delegations to the Philippines to deepen solidarity and faith-rooted political analysis. They have experience in anti-imperialist and internationalist solidarity work and activism through legislative advocacy, education, organizing, and mobilizing people of faith to take action in the streets and among the masses. They are frequently asked to speak publicly on the connections between global and local peoples' campaigns against militarization of communities, Zionism, and colonialism. Jeanelle has a passion for making theological and political education accessible to all people and in accompanying them in meaning-making, while exploring the relationship between individual healing and social justice. They are the Lead Pastor at Pine United Methodist Church in San Francisco and the Co-Chair of the CA-NV Philippine Solidarity Task Force. They received their M. Div. at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley. Check out their podcast, GomBurZa for the Masses. Available for pastoral care, consultation, and training.
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Mizan has worked for over 20 years as a community organizer a nd youth development professional. Her commitment to social justice has fueled her work as a crisis intervention specialist, health educator, curriculum writer, multi-modal workshop facilitator, community researcher, staff wellness coach, and School-Based Health Center Supervisor. Mizan is a certified Radical Healing Trainer and has a Masters Degree in Public Health. Mizan is also an installation artist and has exhibited work throughout the Bay area, including the Black Woman is God exhibit and the Black Panther 50 Year Commemoration. She is the lead artist and curator of the Experience Sankofa Project. As an artist and Certified Therapeutic Yoga instructor with a background in public health, Mizan incorporates creative expression and dynamic mindfulness into her facilitation and programmatic design for the collective good. Mizan is also a part of the Black Women Wail Collective (a collective of Black women committed to utilizing art at the intersection of spiritual practice & political activation to respond to, interrupt and end the war being waged on Black life).
Kira is a Certified InterPlay Leader, a poet, collage artist, activist, and advocate, who specializes in working with Black, Indigenous, Brown, and Asian communities. Her book, Write This Second: A Poetic Memoir is a truth-telling, visceral story of survival and an urgent, triumphant call to break the silence impacting generations of survivors. Kira’s goal in bearing witness to her own traumas and triumphs is to cultivate sacred creative spaces that empower & inspire her community.
Kira is a four time VONA Voices Fellow, a Poetry for the People alumna, and a gifted facilitator. She is a contributor to All the Women in My Family Sing, Tayo Literary Magazine and Endangered Species, Enduring Values. She has a BA in Creative Writing from Mills College and an MA in Transformative Arts from JFK University. Kira grew up in the Bay Area and raised two brave, brilliant, resilient daughters in Oakland, CA; where she still lives with her partner Kat.