2024 Agenda

**Detailed digital agendas will be available for download soon!

8:00 AM – 9:00 AM:

Check in + Breakfast catered by Oaklandia Café + more

9:00 AM – 9:50 AM:

Welcome + Wakan Wiya

10:00 AM – 11:20 AM:

Morning Workshops:

The MotherLine: Alchemizing Trauma, Gifting A Legacy
hosted by Regina Lynne

The MotherLine experience is designed and curated to initiate one’s exploration into the dynamics of their family system. This process lives at the intersections of Restorative Inquiry, Somatics, and Gemstone Therapy. In addition, this work is supported by various holistic modalities, instrumental in the articulation and dismantling of intergenerational trauma found within the bloodline. During this process of excavation, we (re)define and uplift the obscure gifts and talents that are also housed within one’s lineage culminating in the reframing of an imposed narrative to one of empowerment, agency, and resilience. Inclusive in this family constellation are the “Other Mothers”, Tia’s, spiritual sisters, across race, ethnicity, culture, bloodline, and generation and through their inclusion we seek to connect and repair our kinship networks.

Processing Through Art and Poetry
hosted by Maharani Peace Hall

We all need to process something. Talking is NOT the only way to process. Sometimes all we need is space and an activity to approach our issues differently to find the answers. Using art, the written word in all forms (not just poetry), and community, we will give space to process and even solutionize any issue (big, small, happy, sad, or even mundane) with intention.

Unravel the Pressure to Prove, Perform, Perfect
hosted by Akansha Agrawal

As WOC, we have strive for perfection and high achievement to be valued and seen in a predominantly white, patriarchal society. There isn’t space to mess up or make mistakes, or say “I don’t know.” Now, in this gathering, we are going to let down our guards and feel into our innate self-worth that isn’t tied to what we do and who we have to be. You get to be your whole self – without having to prove, perfect, or perform. We will explore gentle somatic movement practices, get in touch with the felt sense of our bodies, and engage in embodied discussion to access our innate self-worth and power. You will be invited to move, express, and feel in ways that may be outside of our habitual, expected patterns. Come as you are! No special props/abilities needed. You will always have agency in this workshop – listen to your body’s yes’s and no’s.

Wakan Wiya Healing Drum Circle

11:30 PM – 12:30 PM:

Panel Session: “Intentionality: The Language of Pleasure, Power, and Purpose”

Panelists: 

A person with curly hair smiling

Description automatically generated

Jenn Chowdhury

 Jenn is a first generation, Brown, feminist transformational leadership coach, cultural worker, facilitator, healer, and Founder & Principal of The Aranya Project. The Aranya Project is a resource, community, and offering that incorporates deep, inner self work and collective care work – both essential to building a healthy, collaborative and safe ecosystem of care for all. 

A person in a grey suit

Description automatically generated

Janae Aptaker

Janae Aptaker is an award-winning, innovative, equity-minded, and strategic visionary offering extensive blended experience in corporate, nonprofit, and public education sectors. She is a people-centered leader with a successful track record of leading equity initiatives, community programs, and collaborative partnerships that produce positive social impact and outcomes for underrepresented populations and organizations respectively. Committed to creating a culture of excellence, inclusion, belonging, service, and profitability.

Nenna Joiner

Nenna Joiner

Founder of Feelmore Social and Feelmore Adult Gallery 

Dr. Donna J. Nicol

Dr. Donna J. Nicol is the Associate Dean of Personnel and Curriculum and professor of history in the College of Liberal Arts at California State University Long Beach. Dr. Nicol’s research focuses on race, conservative philanthropy, and U.S. higher education, and the history of African American women’s educational activism. Her work has been published in Race, Ethnicity and Education, The Feminist Teacher (twice), History of Philanthropy, Palimpsest: A Journal of Women, Gender and the Black International, The Encyclopedia of American Women’s History, Encyclopedia of Multiracial America, and Habitus of the Hood. In February 2021, Dr. Nicol was a featured guest expert for the Al Jazeera English documentary, The Big Picture: A Race for America.

Carmela Obscura

Carmela Obscura

Carmela Obscura is a 1st-generation Afro-Filipina Healer, Somatic Movement Facilitator and housing/tenants’ rights activist. Her creative and beguiling intellect have pushed her to acquire higher education and professional accreditations in Food Science, Nutrition at UCSD, Business Administration and Herbalism. While investing 12+ years in Pastry Arts/Gastronomy and Michelin-Starred hospitality, Carmela relinquished the experience and titles to venture into her personal mission. With generational ties to Interdimensional healing modalities and Indigenous American Healing practices, this knowledge propelled Carmela into pursuing palatable healing practices and accreditations in Usui Reiki Ryoho Master status, EFT (“Tapping”) ii Facilitator, Somatic Dance, Breathwork ii Facilitator and interdimensional sound baths.

12:30 PM – 1:45 PM:

Lunch Catered by Cocobreeze + Entertainment + Vendor Fair

August Lee Stevens

Entertainment: August Lee Stevens

August Lee Stevens is an emerging Bay Area based musician and singer-songwriter with an atmospheric range of Indie Soul and Folk. Her dynamic sound merges the lyrical rawness and simplicity of Folk songs with the melodies and vocals of Neo Soul. A lover of storytelling, she uses music to paint a landscape in which she embodies authentic expression. Her music showcases the strength that comes from vulnerability and through the process of writing hopes to gain a deeper understanding of herself with each written lyric.

1:45 PM – 3:05 PM:

Afternoon Workshops:

Social Symphony: Composing Your Crescendo to Social Media Success
hosted by Yvonne William Castellanos

In this workshop, participants will learn how to garner the power of social media and tailor-made outreach campaigns to fuel their business and community impact inspirations. Participants will also learn how to build their own buyer personas through data analysis, research, and a review of their current/desired audience’s motivations and needs. Participants will walk away with 1-2 mock or real buyer personas which will help them gain clarity on how to speak with their audience, a mock/real content framework, and a mock/real content plan. This workshop will support participants in understanding how to reach their target audience, and increase brand awareness, legitimacy, sales, donations, and partnerships.

Death and Dying In The Song of Life
hosted by Caro Acuña-Olvera

Talking about death is still a taboo subject. Facing my own death at the age 27, illusions about the world we live in began to melt away. I found a sense of freedom when I was met with death. I feel more in love with life as I learned the lesson that…well if no one knows when we are going to die AND rather than running from thefear of dying , I learned to become friend with death, sing with it and embody the lessons it gave me about life. Death and dying are part of our human experience. Our species have lost a deep contact with the natural world and our nature self ,thus forgetting the lessons in nature about life and death. This circle is about liberation and deep freedom.

Play As Liberation
hosted by Ahran Lee

PLAY AS LIBERATION, led by Ahran Lee, invites folks identifying as global majority (BIPOC) womxn and femmes to discover their PLAY-sure through play and authentic relating as a radical form of self and collective liberation. In PLAY AS LIBERATION participants will play improv games that help develop present-oriented listening, body awareness, and cultivating authenticity as a radical form of liberation. Using Authentic Relating, participants will playfully explore authenticity, receiving reflections on its impact on relationships.True authenticity can’t be cultivated in a silo. We need the mirroring of others to help us see who we authentically are. This is playful, pleasureful liberation practice in real time.

3:15 PM – 4:15 PM: 
Tracie Collins

Tracie Collins

Keynote Presentation by Tracie Collins

4:30 PM – 5:30 PM:

Networking Event

5:30 PM – 6:00 PM:

Raffle + Closing