SELAM DEBS

To my Black and Brown Sisters and Brothers, Daughters and Sons, non-binary and gender-expansive family, I dedicate my work to you. I created my Antiracism Course with one purpose in mind - To create an equitable world for us, for our families. I live and breathe the hope of community where we are seen, heard, empowered, nourished and uplifted. 

To my white allies and accomplices, I honour your willingness and readiness to unlearn, unravel, and dismantle systems of privilege from which you benefit, but which leave so many of us, disenfranchised and fighting to thrive. I created my Antiracism Course for you - to re-learn the histories of Black, Indigenous and Racialized communities, that were erased from our education systems. I am grateful to be walking on this journey with you. 

Most importantly, this work is to create safer, braver and life-affirming outcomes for Black, Indigenous and Racialized communities. This work is a bow and honour to you and our ancestors.

I am the founder of Juici Yoga, a yoga and meditation instructor, a restorative yoga teacher trainer, a holistic life coach, a reiki master, and a Lululemon Ambassador.

I AM. first and foremost, A MOTHER. I am a singer and a songwriter, a poet and a practitioner of self-acceptance, self-love, and radical compassion. 

My Antiracism work is rooted in the understanding that we must acknowledge and identify the insidiousness of white supremacy before we can dismantle colonial belief systems. The process of undoing, unlearning and re-educating is necessary for white communities to embark on, to support the healing journey for our racialized families. 

My personal yoga and meditation practice is deeply connected to my experience that racism and daily oppression tears apart Black bodies and imparts havoc on our nervous systems. We carry these fear responses through generations and without healing, pass our systems of high-alert survival through our DNA. While racism may seem like theory and concepts for white folx, it is experienced in the bodies of Black people, in a deeply ingrained way.

I AM 

Deeply committed to advocating for the rights of BIR - Black, Indigenous and Racialized people, the upliftment of Black voices and the importance of educating our communities on racial inequities, inclusivity, and social justice for BIR (Black, Indigenous & racialized) 2SLGBTQIA+ folks.

I tell my story to help Black, Indigenous and Racialized youth learn how to transform their shame and history into their superpower.

I believe that we need to collectivity speak up against inequality and social injustice and share our stories to change the narrative, our community, and the world for those who are most disenfranchised including folks with disabilities and are criminalized for substance abuse and mental illness.

My wellness work focuses on decolonizing the yoga and wellness industry through re-education, centering racialized voices and creating safe and brave spaces for BIPOC folx to thrive. Health is not a luxury; it is a birthright.

We acknowledge that we live and work on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishnaabeg, and Haudenosaunee peoples. We are situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to Six Nations, which includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. As Black people whose African ancestors were enslaved and whose blood was shed to build this nation, we are committed to forming alliances and solidarity with Indigenous peoples in our collective commitment to make the promise and the challenge of Truth and Reconciliation real in our communities. 

We are making it a practice to publicly acknowledge the history of the land we are situated on in order to re-visibilize Indigenous peoples, whose existence and struggles have been largely absent from the Canadian consciousness for hundreds of years,

 Our ability to be working and living here now—in Kitchener Waterloo Region, is a direct benefit of policies of expulsion and assimilation of Indigenous peoples during the time of settlement and Confederation, and since. The harms of these policies are many and are still being felt in Indigenous communities today.

Land acknowledgements are just one small, first step in doing this work.

“But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”

― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between The World and Me