A training program for BIPOC spiritual activists.

The BIPOC Intergenerational Justice and Healing Fellowship will train and support a cohort of emerging leaders — BIPOC intergenerational spiritual activists — in their aspirations and community-building work.

A new cohort will be accepted in Fall 2025.

Please check back later for more information or email byjah6@gmail.com

Fellowship Program

Introduction

Fellows will gain the skills necessary to dismantle structures of racial and social inequity and build structures of equity in the domains of their choosing. The foundational practice of mindfulness and healing will undergird the training of sixteen BIPOC intergenerational adults.

The fellowship is organized as a 7-month-long training and mentoring program led by BIPOC core teachers, Kaira Jewel Lingo and Marisela Gomez.

The Beginning

We take inspiration from the work of our teacher, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, who during the Vietnam War gathered activists for regular periods of mindfulness practice to renew themselves individually and as a beloved community as they helped communities rebuild in the face of untold suffering.

We also take inspiration from various BIPOC-led movements that have addressed systemic racial and social inequity, like the Civil Rights Movement, Black Feminist Movement, Farm Workers Movement, Housing Affordability, Land Liberation (including Standing Rock), BIPOC Mindfulness, and others.

Our Impact:

The communities served will be low-income and communities of color, people who because of their identities, locations or both suffer the daily manifestations of structural barriers to their health and flourishing. The core community will be the fellows, spiritual activists of color, along with the core teachers, coaches, and expert consultants–some of whom will be members of the impacted communities.

This project will build political, economic, spiritual and cultural power for BIPOC communities in three ways:

By nurturing and supporting a core group of BIPOC and encouraging them in their community organizing grounded in a spiritual practice and compassionate perspective.
Through coalition building and strategic action, the inaugural fellows will launch or enhance projects that directly address inequalities and promote healing and equity on many levels in communities of color.
What we learn in the two years will be applied to offering future two-year training fellowships to build out a sustainable process of social change grounded in love.

Program Purpose:

This program is focused on training activists and folks interested in collective leadership in our Garrison BIPOC sangha. The purposes of the Program are:

– To support activists to deepen their daily spiritual practice

– To train participants to take a leadership role in facilitating the Garrison BIPOC meditation sangha

– To build community

– To attend the Garrison BIPOC retreat, which is the celebrative culmination of the program

Program Requirements:

– Practicing for at least 6 months with the Garrison BIPOC sangha

– Received 5 MTs or planning to receive in the next year

– Completed study and practice of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness sutra

– Commitment to attend Garrison BIPOC meditation sangha ongoing

– Attend all scheduled activities

First year of training will:

offer mindfulness practices to strengthen participants’ capacity to face the injustice and suffering in their communities
offer spiritual mentoring and coaching, peer-support, and access to expert guidance
develop the practical skills to design a project that combines mindfulness and social justice in low-income communities of color, utilizing best practices from the fields of community organizing, spiritual and political activism, and social entrepreneurship in various sectors (housing, health, education, environment, transportation, recreation, employment, etc)

Second year of training will:

continue spiritual mentoring and coaching, peer-support, and access to expert guidance

This project will build political, economic, spiritual and cultural power for BIPOC communities in two ways:

Empowering Intergenerational BIPOC Communities through Spirituality and Compassionate Action

By nurturing and supporting a core group of intergenerational BIPOC (people from different ages and generations within the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities and encouraging them in their community organizing grounded in a spiritual practice and compassionate perspective.

Cultivating Mindfulness and Social Justice

What we learn in the seven months will be applied to offering future mindfulness, and social justice change grounded in love.

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Many activists these days are, understandably, challenged not to give in to despair or anger in the face of multiple and ongoing injustices. A core group of committed, strategic, and compassionate activists can influence many of their peers and model the steadiness and compassion from which transformative action can arise.

Our intention is that this cohort will provide mentorship for subsequent cohorts to continue to build compassionate communities able to resist injustice and build from a place of love. We believe in the intergenerational transmission of strength, resilience, and leadership as a path toward remediating trauma.

Program components:

– 6 monthly online retreats, (mostly) Saturdays from 11:00 am – 1:30 pm EST

– Monthly mentoring as scheduled

– 3 Gamechanger Webinars (every other month) with visiting presenters who are spiritual activists, (mostly) Wednesday evenings from 7-8:30pm

– In-person retreat at Garrison Institute

Who We Are

The Facilitators:

Kaira Jewel Lingo

Kaira Jewel is a Black and biracial meditation and mindfulness teacher with a lifelong interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. She grew up in Chicago and Nairobi and after earning a MA in Anthropology and Social Sciences, at the age of twenty-five she entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village tradition and spent fifteen years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She received Lamp Transmission and became a Zen teacher in 2007, and is also a teacher in the Vipassana Insight lineage through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Today she sees her work as a continuation of the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh as well as the work of her parents, inspired by their stories and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. on desegregating the South. In addition to writing We Were Made for These Times: Skilfully Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption, she is also the editor of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children. Now based in New York, she teaches and leads retreats internationally, provides spiritual mentoring, and interweaves art, play, nature, racial and earth justice, and embodied mindfulness practice in her teaching. She especially feels called to share the Dharma with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as activists, educators, youth, artists, and families. Visit kairajewel.com to learn more.

Dr. Marisela Gomez

Marisela is a founding member of VOLAR and mindfulness practitioner in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, public health scholar-activist, preventive/alternative medicine physician. Of Afro-Latina ancestry, she lives in Baltimore involved in social justice activism and community building/research, and co-facilitates mindfulness gatherings with Baltimore and Beyond Mindfulness Community for BIPOC and Social Activists. She is the author of Race, Class, Power and Organizing in East Baltimore, and numerous book chapters in popular and scholarly publications. She has blogged at HuffPost and mariselabgomez.com on the intersection of wisdom, justice, and mindfulness.

Spiritual Activists Who Inspire Our Work

“Mindfulness must be engaged. Once we see that something needs to be done, we must take action. Seeing and action go together. Otherwise, what is the point in seeing?”
Thich Nhat Hanh

“We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it’s never a question of ‘critical mass.’ It’s always about critical connections.”
Grace Lee Boggs

“When we engage love as action, you can’t act without connecting. I often think of that phrase, only connect.”
bell hooks

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.”
Dr. Martin Luther King

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
Audre Lorde

“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.”
Dolores Huerta

Meet the Cohort 2

Fellows

Camille Goodison

Camille first received the 5MT in June 2014 and was given the dharma name, Deep Awareness of the Heart. She practices with BIPOC Meditation Sangha (Garrison Institute), as well as Sweet Blossoming, Lotus in a Sea of Fire, and St. Marks Mindfulness sanghas. Her aspirations include further reconnecting with her Jamaican roots and sharing the dharma with people of the African diaspora.

LoAn Nguyen

LoAn is a parent-ally of a queer, nonbinary daughter with transgender experience. She serves the monastic community with LGBTQIA+ training in Vietnamese language to ensure friends who come to the monasteries for refuge are cared for with understanding and love in action. LoAn helped to co-found the Chrysanthemum Sangha and the QT Viet & Viet Allies Intergenerational Healing Sangha. She serves on the TNH Foundation Board, Co-chair in the JEDI Council. LoAn works in Queens for a nonprofit organization as Outreach & Training Coordinator to raise awareness and to create safer spaces for LGBTQIA+ youth and allies in schools. She has been a student of Thay since 2011 with the Lineage name of Ripening Seed of the Heart, and the name True Garden of Compassion as an OI Member. LoAn considers herself to be a support person for any community that needs her skillsets.

Kim Thai

Kim Thai (she/her) is a writer, mindfulness teacher, community organizer, and Emmy-award-winning storyteller. She is a certified yoga and meditation teacher and is currently a student in Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village Buddhist tradition. She is the founder of Joyful Liberation Collective, a grassroots community organization that provides space and ways to find liberation within the oppressive systems we live in. As a Queer Asian woman and proud kid of Vietnamese refugees, her personal mission is to help others reclaim their power and freedom in the world.

Maya Adams

Maya Adams is a creative interested in climate justice, adaptation and mitigation. She a passion for exploring the effects of climate change on human experiences, specifically on the topics of climate justice, ecological grief, and futures thinking. Her experience as a mixed race Ugandan-American informs her pieces which delve into the complexities of race, the environment, spirituality, climate anxiety, and pathways to equitable futures. Maya graduated from the University of Oxford with a MSc in Environmental Change and Management.

Lorena Gaibor

Lorena is on a healing sabbatical right now. In her previous life she served as a social work educator committed to supporting students in developing awareness around systemic oppression as well as personal growth and cultural humility in working with marginalized communities. She is grateful to be able to practice with the Garrison BIPOC Sangha and very much wants to support the sangha in developing beloved community connections that facilitate collective awakening.

Sung E Bai

Sung E Bai’s roots in social justice organizing began in the South Africa anti-apartheid movement on her college campus, followed by primarily organizing around immigrant and worker rights and against police violence, as well as advocating for domestic violence and sexual assault survivors. After experiencing tremendous personal losses in 2004, she began her spiritual journey with martial arts and writings by Thich Nhat Hanh and has been an active member of the Garrison BIPOC Sangha since 2020. Certified to teach martial arts (adults and children) and mindfulness, Sung E offers mindfulness practices to young mothers of color, as well as new students of her martial arts school. Currently she is the Chief Operating Officer at a non-profit.

Grace Sanghyun Nam

Grace Sanghyun Nam was born and raised within a Corean immigrant family in suburban Detroit. She is a student of Thich Nhat Hahn whose personal story and lineage holds connective Asian history with her own family’s relationship to the American empire. Grace received the 5 MT in 2019 with the dharma name Compassionate Action of the Heart. She practices with the Garrison BIPOC sangha with visions for an in-person Brooklyn/NYC BIPOC sangha. Grace currently lives on the land of the Lenape people (Brooklyn). She is a parent, life partner, educator, and an undoing racism organizer, facilitator, circle holder. Grace enjoys watercolor painting, hiking, and making kimchi.

Tala Dowlatshahi

Tala is an international humanitarian and development specialist. She was born in Iran. She has received her five mindfulness trainings and is an active member of the Garrison BIPOC sangha.

Hawah Bunduka

Hawah works globally on issues of social justice, resilience and leadership in Africa, Europe and fragile and conflict-affected settings. She is a facilitator, adviser and practitioner who loves working with and for the women and young people that are the most marginalised in society. She teaches and studies dances from African and the African diaspora, is a joyful carnival arts practitioner and is mother of one. Although practising meditation sporadically for many years, the combination of the events of 2020 with her own experiences of grief and loss were a turning point. Hawah became aware of the need to integrate her personal and professional life and to live more consciously in body-mind-spirit. In 2022 she took her mindfulness trainings and contemplations and was given the dharma name Gentle Manifestation. Hawah’s aspiration is to practice mindfulness in ways which integrate her everyday life, work and passions. She supports herself, her sangha siblings and others – particularly women, young people and survivors – to better understand the relationship between their own healing/liberation and collective healing/liberation.

Tanya Chuang Conley

Tanya Chuang Conley is a sangha builder, spiritual mentor, mindfulness teacher, global strategist, and business partner. She was born in Saigon during the American-Vietnam War, escaped Vietnam by boat and spent a year in a Malaysian refugee camp with her family before immigrating to America. She has experienced the spiritual cost of the assimilation process in the West, trying to find a place that could truly be called home. It wasn’t until she discovered Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings late in life that changed everything for her. She is deeply grateful to have found a path that she finally can call home and is committed to helping and encouraging others, especially those with similar experiences, find their way home, too. Adding to her list of many hats, she is also a wife, doggie mama, silly aunt, photographer, diver, certified yoga teacher with trauma-informed specialties, DEIA specialist, and a lay disciple of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Jay Mimes

Jay is a healing justice practitioner, digital strategist, and culture worker based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Engaged Buddhism, afro-indigenous herbalism/hoodoo, Christianity, and interfaith organizing are all parts of Jay’s spiritual history and praxis. In addition to an extensive background in communications and digital strategy, she has organized and co-created multiple politicized spaces for the past decade, including a student walkout against police brutality in 2014; an Indivisible chapter in the wake of the 2016 election; and a transformative justice circle with fellow facilitators in Brooklyn in 2021. Over the last 4 years, Jay has stepped further into her power as a circle-keeper and educator with organizations such as the Restorative Justice Initiative, Rutgers University-Douglass College, and YES! World. Through the lens of their own lived experience as well as the application of interdisciplinary theories of race, gender, queerness, and media, her approaches have helped establish effective frameworks for emotional growth, intellectual curiosity, and spiritual sustainability among peers, clients, and comrades. Radical love, rage, hope, grief, and joy are all key ingredients in Jay’s vision for an abundant and liberated future with solidarity at its core.

Ashley Miller She/Her

Ashley has been a member of the Garrison, online, BIPOC Sangha since 2021, and has received her 5 mindfulness trainings. Ashley lives in the UK where she works in the National Health Service as a clinical psychologist and systemic family therapist, with children and young people. Ashley is influenced by social justice and liberation psychology frameworks, and especially by the ideas of engaged Buddhism, as taught by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Ashley believes in drawing on people’s resiliencies and strengths, and in the importance of social and community support.

Safiya Castel

I am a womanist and a Buddhist. I’m also new to identifying with either of these terms. I feel like a beginner in so many ways. I’m beginning anew in my attempt to take good care of myself and take good care of others. Caring for myself and caring for others sometimes feels like being at opposite ends of a seesaw, and I used to exist at the extremes. I ended up either neglecting myself or not seeing myself in others. I’m learning from the Buddha, the dharma, the sangha, and womanist wisdom that all life is interconnected. To the best of my ability, I want to practice with touching balance as I attempt to care for myself and care for others. I am so grateful for BIJaH and our beautiful sangha. Thank you for helping to ground and guide me.

Regina Scarbrough

Regina Scarbrough (she/her), is a higher education advocate, creative space holder, and compassion-based resilience facilitator committed to cultivating beloved community and healing-centered care. She is grateful to be a student and member of the BIJAH Fellowship program.

Meet Cohort 1

Coaches and Staff:

Enzí Tanner (he/him)

Enzí Tanner is a trans, disabled, Black American, Jew living in Minneapolis. He is a community organizer, a consultant, a licensed social worker, and an ICF-certified life coach. Enzi supports his clients to achieve their goals by embracing their authentic selves. Areas of expertise:

Career path and role transitions
Wellness practice
Self-care and work/life balance
Role definition and professional goal-setting
Gaining confidence while embracing your authentic self

Tags: LGBTQ, trans, abolition, community organizer, poet, transitions, actually autistic, neurodivergent folks

Yvette Angelique Hyater-Adams, MA-TLA (she/her)

Yvette Angelique is a poet, storytelling facilitator, and culture change strategist. Her social arts practice, Narratives for Change, reaches audiences locally, nationally, and globally. She uses storytelling for healing, creating literary art, consciousness-raising, activism, and advocacy. Yvette works with female-centered trauma-informed and embodiment practices to support self-care. Currently, she leads projects in women-led organizations facilitating story circles and creative writing processes to capture stories in the lives of women and girls on how systems have affirmed or not supported their humanity. These stories translate into monologue scripts, letters, and autobiographical shorts used for performances and community engagement. Yvette presents her transformative narratives storytelling model at national and local conferences. As a former C-suite executive in banking, management consulting, and non-profit organizations, she is a highly sought-after coach by executives, writers, and activists. Her creative leadership and mentoring experience feature in a 2001 Harvard Business Case study.

Yvette is a long-time professional member of the NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science. She currently serves as Dean of the Writers’ Residency and Managing Editor of the Publishing Imprint. Yvette is a member and Board Chair of AlternateROOTS, an arts and social justice organization based in the south, and is Director of Speaker Coaches for TEDx in Jacksonville. She completed her graduate studies in creative writing at the University of Denver and creative & expressive writing for personal and social change at Goddard College.

Yvette and her jazz-musician husband Kinney Harold are originally from Washington, D.C., and reside in Jacksonville, Florida. Together, they co-lead River City Mindfulness Community in the Plum Village Tradition of Engaged Buddhism and the teachings of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Jamari Michael White (he/him)

Jamari is a black queer trans-Christian mystic with over a decade of experience serving individuals and communities across the globe as a spiritual teacher, healer, and ritualist. He is gifted with many intuitive and spiritual abilities including the ability to see and communicate with the nature of heart and soul, and to access infinite wisdom within multiple dimensions. He supports parents and aspiring parents in understanding and caring for the souls of their children as the founder and director ofSoul Stewards. He envisions a world where from the beginning of life, all children and people feel freedom and possibility in their creation and complete harmony with their soul. His coaching style is spirit-led and soul-centered, challenging limiting beliefs and narratives and creating space for you to connect with your innate wisdom, step into your power, and co-create with the Divine in real-time.

Sheilah Mabry, LCSW-R, PCC (she/her)

Grounded in curiosity, creativity, and joy, Sheilah believes in the inner resourcefulness and resilience of people to work collectively to transform systems. As a bisexual woman of color, she centers equity and anti-racism in all of her work.

Sheilah is a graduate of the Ackerman Institute for the Family’s Foundations of Family Therapy and Gender & Family Project and The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute’s 1-year program. She received her professional coach certification from Leadership that Works, leadership training from Rockwood Leadership Institute, is a credentialed member of the International Coach Federation, and is a past board member of the National Association of Social Workers-New York City Chapter. She is a recipient of their Exemplary Mid-Career Social Worker Leadership award.

Sheilah holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts/Boston and a Master’s in Social Work from Hunter College School of Social Work. She is based in New York.

Vivien Qiao, Fellowship and Administrative Coordinator

Vivien is a senior at Smith College studying Biochemistry and Engineering. She is working towards becoming a physician-scientist with a specific interest in targeted therapy for cancer. Vivien is passionate about helping others become their best self to create maximum change in the world. She also loves working with kids and getting them interested in STEM. Her hobbies include doing puzzles, finding new food places to try, and going on outdoor walks. As the administrative coordinator, Vivien created the BYJaH website and is now in charge of managing the fellowship curriculum.

Asmae Lichir, Fellowship and Finance Coordinator

Asmae is a senior at Smith College who double majors in biology and pre-medicine. She concentrates on community engagement and social change. Her career aspiration is to work in underserved areas as a Women Health-Oncology provider. She is passionate about changing the world and achieving global healthcare equality. She founded PathopacketTM and is working toward becoming its CEO. She is a mother to a 6-year-old child who is her inspiration. Through BYJaH, “I have grown to feel that social justice and healing came from individuals who invested the time to effect change and encourages others to do the same”.

Nancy Jimenez Zigler

Nancy is the Assistant Director of the Jandon Center of Community Engagement at Smith College. Nancy was born the year of the dragon, deep in the heart of Texas. Here are a few of her favorite things: Houston skies, glitter, avocados, Pluto, pizza, angora bunnies, and magic. She enjoys reading, scrapbooking, and writing stories. She received degrees in finance and chemistry from Texas A&M, and a Master’s of Fine Arts from the University of Pittsburgh. In the past, she has worked for Union Pacific Railroad, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and several energy corporations. Today, she leads students, staff, and faculty on social change projects (follow along @jccesmith). She is most inspired by her beautiful son, the work of James Baldwin, and her legacy as a first-generation Mexican-American. She can usually be found dreaming away in Westfield, MA.

Fellows:

Nnennia Mazagwu (they/them)

Nnennia is a budding architect and interdisciplinary artist based in Pennsylvania. Their social justice background consists of initiatives that have been a meditation about ethical cohabitation and cultivating joy. Their art practice facilitates this community work and is about using the materiality of objects to posit joy, power, and presence. The BYJaH fellowship aligns with Nnennia’s passion for nurturing well-being, value, and continuity. They are eager to be a part of a fellowship that will enrich their character. They are excited to be amongst like-minded people who are coming together to form a spiritual community. Fun fact about Nnennia: They are reading How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue.

Tay Forsythe (they/them)

Tay, of Afro-Guyanese descent, is from Germantown, MD and is passionate about Black, Queer, and Trans liberation, Black and Indigenous solidarity, food sovereignty and justice, and decolonization. They are studying to become a full-spectrum doula, have organized creative spaces for BIPOC queer artists and musicians in the DMV, and built connections all over the world spreading their love. Their activism is rooted in compassion for their people in daily acts of love, healing, joy, food, and music. In this fellowship, Tay hopes to find community, healing, laughter, as well as a space where all emotions and identities are welcomed. They hope to connect with others and themself, have inspiring conversations, learn and gain skills that will help us on our journeys of building community and dismantling of oppressive structures. Fun fact about Tay: They have lived on and off for 8 years in Aotearoa!

Dejah Powell (she/her)

Dejah is an organizer based in Chicago with Sunrise Movement, fighting for a Green New Deal (GND). She was the Lead Organizer for the Midwest, where she supported a team to provide coaching and organizing support for Sunrise hubs around trainings, electoral organizing, and actions across the Midwest. She currently leads Structure work, supporting a team that’s designing future structures for the movement. Dejah is most excited to learn core grounding principles, to sustain herself in the work ahead, of stopping the climate crisis and winning a GND. Fun fact about Dejah: She LOVES sharks and has gotten to swim with them in high school!

DjeRae Lucas (they/them)

Rae the Conjurer (Rae) is a dynamic and insightful artist who uses their music and creativity to take their audiences on emotional and spiritual journeys. They create music and experiences that encourage freedom centered in radical self-love. With their skillful merging of pop, club music, neo soul, and jazz Rae the Conjurer uses their distinct voice to explore themes of love, identity, grief and healing. As a Black Gender Transcendent person, Rae believes that it is their responsibility to use their work to create opportunities that support the holistic freedom of Black Queer People. They use their organization the Underground Rainbow Group and their work as an educator to help creatives reframe and embrace the creative process the rough a lens of political education and self-acceptance.

Shalissa Otero (she/her)

Shalissa is a priestess within Lukumí spirituality and she uses this relationship with spirit to navigate the world. As a trans femme, so much of her identity involves her relationship with spirit and access to healing that sometimes feels monopolized and inaccessible. Shalissa writes poetry and spends most of her time handling water, as it is an important aspect of Lukumí life. The fellowship is important to her because it feels in alignment with destiny work that the water calls her to provide for both herself and others.