What does it mean to be and live well? Who has the right to be well? What does wellness mean for Indigenous, Black, and Racialized people in predominantly white spaces?
Overview
The Well Being Collective @ Hart House presents Living Well: A Conversation on Decolonizing and Reclaiming Wellness.
On Tues Sept 22nd we bring together a diverse panel of wellness practitioners, healers, educators, academics, artists, activists, and administrators who are challenging the narrative of wellness through decolonizing and reclaiming spaces that center Black, Indigenous, and Racialized voices, practices and traditions of wellness in the institution and beyond. All are welcome to join the conversation!
Panelists
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Njoki Wane
Professor, Chair, Social Justice Education, OISE
Njoki Wane, PhD, is a professor at the University of Toronto. She is currently serving as Chair in the Department of Social Justice Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). An accomplished educator and educational leader, Professor Wane headed the Office of Teaching Support at OISE from 2009 to 2012 establishing its priorities and activities while recognizing equity as a central dimension of good teaching.
From 2011 to 2014, Professor Wane served as Special Advisor on Status of Women Issues, contributing to research and policy development concerning the intersectionality of gender with race, disability, sexual orientation and aboriginal status, and the impact of these issues on the lived experiences of women faculty, staff and students at the University of Toronto. She also served as Director, Center for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies (CIARS) at OISE from 2006 to 2014.
An award winning teacher, Professor Wane has been nominated for TVO Best Lecturer, and was the recipient of the African Women Achievement Award in 2007, the Harry Jerome Professional Excellence Award in 2008; David E. Hunt Award for Excellence in Graduate Education at OISE, University of Toronto, 2016; The President of Toronto Teaching Award, 2017 as a recognition for her tremendous contributions to teaching, learning and student supervision at the graduate level and in 2018 she was the recipient of African Scholars Awards – a recognition given to faculty, students, alumni and community leaders by the African Alumni Association at U of T.
Professor Wane is a recognized scholar in the areas of Black feminisms in Canada & Africa, African indigenous knowledges, Anti-colonial and decolonizing education and African women and spirituality. A prolific writer with an impressive record of scholarship, Professor Wane’s quality of work is consistently excellent.
A glance at Professor Wane’s resume shows a productive educator and scholar who has developed her own distinct voice in multiple axes of research, teaching and publications. She has co-edited thirteen (14) books, 33 chapters and 24 articles in referred journals, and presented at over 300 conferences both locally and internationally. From her resume, Professor Wane has supervised to completion 23 PhD and 44 Master’s students, and has been an external examiner for 15 PhDs in addition to serving on many theses committees.
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Rebeckah Price
Wellness Advocate and Yoga Teacher
Rebeckah Price is a wellness advocate and yoga instructor (RYT 200), that draws on her wealth of knowledge of working in underserved, marginalized, Racialized, and immigrant communities in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. In 2015, Rebeckah founded irise yoga + wellness- as a way to connect, promote, bring awareness to and foster the inclusion of people of colour and other historically marginalized groups in yoga and wellness spaces.
In 2019, she co-founded the Well Collective to continue to expand her work on addressing the lack of representation of BIPOC wellness practitioners in wellness spaces.
Rebeckah's work is rooted in an intersectional understanding of power and harnessing the tools and resources to facilitate community change. With over 20 years in the not-for-profit sector as a Community Development and Engagement Specialist, Rebeckah has worked on and developed strategies and policies related to diversity & inclusion, equity, conflict resolution, settlement and integration and creating safe, cohesive communities.
Rebeckah uses her lived experience as a Woman of Colour and her unique expertise in community development and engagement to bridge and address the gap of diversity in the wellness industry through consulting, training and workshops, etc. In 2020, Rebeckah became a Nike trainer, the first Black Woman in Canada to represent the brand under the trainer title. Through her work Nike, she continues to bring yoga and mindfulness to marginalized and underrepresented communities in wellness.
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Robin Waley
Robin Waley is the General Manager - Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging for the YMCA of Greater Toronto. Currently working in the charitable sector, Robin has ten years of experience supporting diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging initiatives within education at the University of Toronto and working as a consultant in anti-oppression. He uses a strategic mindset, a communities-based approach, and operational experience to drive the actions needed to create meaningful change.
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Seika Boye
Seika Boye is a scholar, writer, educator, and artist whose practices revolve around dance and movement. She is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Institute for Dance Studies at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto.
Seika curated the archival exhibition It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900–1970 (2018) and co-curated Into the Light: Eugenics and Education in Southern Ontario (2019). Her publications have appeared in numerous academic journals and magazines, and she is an Associate Editor for Canadian Theatre Research (2021). Seika is currently a co-investigator on Gatherings: archival and oral histories of performance (SSHRC Partnership Development Grant).
From 1995-2010 Seika performed and presented her choreography across Canada. She danced with Ballet Creole, Electric Company Theatre, Judith Marcuse Projects and many independent artists. Most recently, Seika has worked as a movement dramaturg with artists including Natasha Powell/Holla Jazz, Syreeta Hector, Mix Mix Dance Collective, Deanna Bowen, Heidi Struass/adelheid dance, taisha paggett, and Djanet Sears.
Seika is a sought-after speaker, instructor, and consultant in the performing arts sector. She was an Artist-in-Residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2018), Toronto District School Board’s African Heritage Educators’ Network Arts Honoree (2019) and a 2020 recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Heritage Trust Award (co-curator, Into the Light). She is the inaugural recipient of The Dance in the Public Sphere Award presented by the Dance Studies Association (2021), for her work on It’s About Time. Seika loves and works in Toronto with her husband and two sons. -
Demiesha Dennis
Founder and CEO of Brown Girl Outdoor World
Demiesha Dennis (pronouns She/Her) is the Founder and CEO of Brown Girl Outdoor World. As an outdoor enthusiast with a passion for building community and representation in outdoor spaces, she shares her love for the outdoors through various adventures, while encouraging and inspiring others to step out and do the same. She is actively working to change present narratives regarding people of colour and their place and engagement in outdoor spaces.
When not navigating Toronto’s corporate jungle, she can be found fishing, bungee jumping, camping or hiking from coast to coast and doesn’t see herself stopping soon. With a community behind her working to make tangible changes, she is guiding others into nature and challenging them to “Change the Narrative Through Outdoor Adventure.”
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Asha Frost
Author and Founder of Sacred Membership
Asha Frost is an Indigenous Medicine Woman, author and founder of Sacred Membership, a global online medicine circle community. She is a member of Chippewas of Nawash First Nation.
Asha has served thousands of people for the past two decades in her work as a native healer, homeopath, teacher, and leader and has studied with many shamans, medicine people, elders, and guides. She has specialized in helping people heal through illness, mental/emotional disorders and ancestral disconnection. Through this work, she has loved seeing people find their own healing wisdom, presence, and power. Her book, You are the Medicine will be released by Hay House in 2022.
Moderator
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Ezi Odozor
Writer, Scholar, and Student Support Specialist
Ezi Odozor is a Nigerian-born writer, scholar, and student support specialist based in Toronto. Her work, both fiction and non-fiction, focuses on themes of identity, culture, gender, race, health, and intimacy. Ezi’s work has been featured in several journals, including Room Magazine, Arc Poetry Magazine, and Hypatia (upcoming).
Her writing has also been showcased in several exhibits, most notably in Oluseye’s "A Room Full of Black Boys", which was featured on CBC. Ezi recently completed a Master of Education (MEd) degree with a collaborative specialization in global health at the University of Toronto, where she worked across the subjects of race, Black-feminisms, anti-colonialism, and global health. Specifically, she has written on new ethics for Black Feminist theorizing and anti-colonial interventions for global health. Ezi also holds an Honours Bachelor of Science (HBSc) from the University of Toronto in the areas of Human Biology (Global Health) and English.
Her latest publication, Cartographies of Blackness & Black Indigeneities, was co-edited alongside Professor George Dei and Andrea Jimenez Vasquez. Ezi is currently working on a four-book series centered on Black Womanhood alongside Janelle Brady (PhDc) and Dr. Njoki Wane.
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