SOMA: I greatly appreciated Nisha and MeLisa’s talented facilitation on our workshop on relational racism, and especially the tone that they set: welcoming and warm while also going to the heart of the matter. Workshop participants were largely academic folks who work in universities, and so Soma’s attention to people’s bodies, hearts, and spirits (and not just minds) was important and impactful. The workshop activities themselves brilliantly made room for everyone to have a meaningful learning and growth experience, but not at the expense of anyone else in the room (i.e., no one had to feel put down or ashamed for someone else to be lifted up).
Working one-on-one with MeLisa: My experience of working one-on-one in counseling with MeLisa was transformative. She helped me develop far greater insight regarding my personal relationship to racism, and anti-Black racism in particular. As a white woman who is engaged in social justice work, including leading capacity-building for others related to privilege, this work with MeLisa helped me better understand the ways that I inadvertently reflect and reproduce racism at the same time as I’m working to dismantle it. I knew that I had work to do regarding my own complicity in racism, but I struggled with how to do it – and was very lucky to find MeLisa to guide me through this process.
-Stephanie: Associate Professor, Vice-Chair of Education/Dept. Physical Therapy