Monifa Bandele is on the leadership team for the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), representing the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. M4BL is an ecosystem of over 100 Black-led organizations that emerged in the wake of the Ferguson uprisings and she is a contributing writer to M4BL’s Vision for Black Lives. She is also a member of the steering committee for the New York-based coalition, Communities United for Police Reform (CPR). Monifa co-led the launch of two historic and successful legal cases against police misconduct (Daniels v NYC and Floyd v NYC) and has worked to pass landmark police reform legislation in New York City and New York State. Just this year CPR led a successful fight to override a mayoral veto of the coalition's central police accountability legislation.

Monifa Bandele has been a leader in the field of policy advocacy, civic engagement, organizing, and project management working with MomsRising.org –where is currently the Chief Operating Officer and SVP, and with organizations like the Brennan Center for Justice, Times Up Now, and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

A community organizer, wellness activist and author of the book American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal, Kerri is recognized across communities for her work to bridge transformational practice with social justice. She’s been teaching yoga for over 20 years and is known for making waves in the wellness industry by challenging norms, disrupting systems and mobilizing people to act. Her leadership has inspired CTZNWELL, a movement to democratize wellbeing for all and is committed to creating the conditions where everyone can thrive.

Rusia N. Mohiuddin, based in New York, is a master trainer, facilitator, coach, and strategist who pioneered the integration of somatics into an organizing framework. Her current mission, through Universal Partnership, has been developing a holistic model for social justice change work that places in its center the necessary transformation of social change agents. Rusia brings a unique style to creating pathways for individuals to bring their best selves forward when enacting social change in their organizations & communities.

Rusia is authoring several books, one based on over 2 decades of organizing, that introduces a new model for social change in the 21st century. Drawing from experiences as a master trainer and facilitator, an executive director, and a frontline organizer, Rusia has piloted this new community organizing model, Embodied Organizing™, for the past four years and officially launched the program in 2018 with five organizations. To date, 400 organizers from over 47
organizations, across 25 states have been training to be Embodied Organizers.

Rusia has also developed a model for coaching social change agents, called Embodied Coaching™, that is based on her developed model of embodied leadership.

Over the last 25 years, Rusia has primarily worked in non-profit, community-based organizations and foundations across the U.S. Her organizing career started with 9 years as a street-level community organizer, & grew to leading organizations, notably helping to establish Families United for Racial & Economic Equality, co-founding the national intermediary, Social Justice Leadership, and as the Founder of Ma Mukti. More recently, Rusia is currently the founder and principal of UP and the CO-Director of Ma Mukti. Through this experience & her many years as a trainer, coach & consultant, Rusia brings a well-grounded expertise of basic to advanced organizing training as well as
organizational & leadership development.

Staci has been experimenting at the intersections of personal and social transformation for the last 30 years through the work of somatics, trauma healing, embodied leadership, and transformative justice. She is the author of "The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing and Social Justice" (North Atlantic Books 2019), which has been translated into German, and "Healing Sex: A Mind Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma" (Cleis 1999, 2007), which has been translated into German, Japanese and Spanish.

Staci is an innovator in the field of Somatics, focusing on how it can bring transformative capacity to social and climate justice movements and help heal the impacts of trauma and oppression. She runs online and in-person programs and teacher trainings, and partners with social and climate justice organizations. She co-founded generative somatics, a multiracial organization dedicated to building social justice capacity. She serves as a senior teacher at the Strozzi Institute and plays a central role in shaping its methodology. In 1999, Staci founded generationFIVE, a transformative justice non-profit committed to ending child sexual abuse within five generations.

Some of Staci’s current partners include Healing Justice London, JPB Foundation, Equality Lab, and Oak Foundation. She also partners online with Transformative Change, the Trauma Research Foundation, Embody Lab, Embodywise and others.

Called “one of our wisest voices on social evolution” by On Being’s Krista Tippett, Rev. angel is a social visionary, founder of Transformative Change, and author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation.
She is only the 2nd Black woman to hold the most senior title in Zen Buddhism. Prescient, prophetic and now in its 25th year of publication, her first book, _Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace_, was hailed as “an act of love” by Alice Walker.
Rev. angel coined the name “Transformative Social Change” broadly used by the field. Her current work sits at the vanguard of embodiment toward liberation, personal and social. She designed a Framework for Liberation, is architecting the Healing Race Portal experience, and writing the un-meditation book, simply called _pOint_.
Her work has been widely covered, including in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Ms., Essence, and Lion’s Roar.
Rev. angel notes, “Love and justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters.” Whether in writing, teaching or speaking, her voice is unique. She was made for these times.

at the heart of sustainable movements, must be the heart of sustainable people.

At the core of our work at Universal Partnership (UP) is the deep belief that at the heart of sustainable movements must be the beat of sustainable people. Our mission is to provide innovative self-healing tools, life & leadership skills to support movement workers in sustaining their humanity, & the humanity of the communities they serve, by organizing from a place of wholeness.

Our work uniquely introduces the practice of somatics into an agency’s organizational & organizing practices. Somatics is a sophisticated methodology combining the biological & social sciences to provide a framework for analysis & action. The term derives from the Greek word “soma”, which means the body in its living wholeness. The core ideology of somatics posits the undeniable interconnection & indispensable balance of mind, mood & body.

The use of somatics in organizing begins by examining unconscious practiced behaviors, established by our interactions with family, community, & society throughout our lives, that block us from taking empowered action both on our own behalf & on behalf of the communities we serve. It continues by establishing physical, emotional & mental practices that shake up & shed these binds.

Somatics allows us to see & adjust patterns that can directly inform our organizational & movement strategies. The structural impact on organizations that prioritize the full health & humanity of staff springs from a radically improved depth of trust & rapport among colleagues. Resulting is an expanded optimism in goal setting, heightened confidence driving individual & team performance, & high staff retention that allows sustainable leadership development within the agency.

The integration of somatics into a social justice organizing framework is also rooted in embracing the full humanity of our communities. It provides fresh tools for exploring in depth how & why individuals & collectives are primed to take some actions & unlikely to take others. By broadening analysis of our communities with a somatic lens, we become increasingly capable of moving our communities from a collective center, rather than relying primarily on identifying & rallying around time-limited self-interests.

Ultimately, we believe that changing ‘you’ is changing the world. By engaging in self-transformation towards embodied leadership, social change agents, organizations & communities can begin to align themselves, their beliefs & actions with their vision for the world.

Southeast Asian Freedom Network (SEAFN) was formed in 2001 to create a united front against the deportation of Cambodian refugees. Chhaya Chhoum of Bronx, NY put out a national call to community organizers to solidify a national Southeast Asian grassroots movement, defend our communities from deportation, and move our collective work out of isolation. After two decades, SEAFN has evolved into a national movement family of local organizations dedicated to the mobilization of Southeast Asian communities towards abolition.

SEAFN organizes a core network of seven Southeast Asian-led organizations across the country, including:
Mekong NYC (NY); Freedom, Inc. (WI); MN8 (MN); ManForward (national); KhAAG (WA); VietLead (PA/NJ); Providence Youth Student Movement (RI).

Simran Noor (she/her) is an interdependent consultant and coach specializing in strategy, organizational development, and movement building. Her work centers on achieving values alignment, particularly around racial and social justice. Simran has over fifteen years of experience working directly with impacted communities, leading organizational change, developing policy and strategy, and working within the philanthropic sector. As a survivor, Simran comes to the work with a deep commitment to healing and transformation informed by her study and practice of embodied leadership. She is dedicated to the study and embodiment of an anti-caste analysis, currently serving as on the Board of South Asian Americans Leading Together(SAALT).

Before launching her independent operation, Simran was Senior Fellow at Race Forward and Vice President of Policy & Programs at the Center for Social Inclusion (CSI). During her time at CSI, she also served as Deputy Director of the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE). Prior to that, Simran worked as staff at both the Annie E. Casey and W.K. Kellogg Foundations. With a deep commitment to youth development, some of Simran’s past work includes working in organizational development and as frontline staff for the Holistic Life Foundation, a Baltimore-based yoga and mindfulness program, and working as a language arts and community engagement teacher for middle school students through the Middle Grades Partnership.

Simran holds a dual bachelor’s degree in American Studies and Political Science from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a dual master’s degree in Public Administration and Social Policy from the University of Pennsylvania. She currently serves as a board member for Building Movement Project and Borealis Philanthropy and is a proud member of Universal Partnership’s Warriors for Embodied Liberation. In her spare time, she loves to read, create music, travel, and spend time with family.

Based in Philadelphia, PA, Simran was born into a Punjabi Sikh, Hindu, and Parsi family in New Delhi and raised outside Baltimore, MD.

Mothers on the Move / Madres en Movimiento are women of color and our allies in the South Bronx organizing for housing, education, economic and environmental justice. MOM’s founding mission is to train low-income people of color to take strategic leadership roles in our communities. We work with the diverse marginalized peoples of our neighborhoods including Puerto Rican, Dominican, Central and South American and the African Diaspora.

MOM organizes shared resources, benefits and decision-making power for a future with clean air, well--resourced and community--controlled schools, safe streets, green space, good jobs and more control over the wealth that our labor creates. We strengthen our community core with space and support for emerging projects, tenant associations, job training, worker-owned cooperative initiatives, and cultural & educational events.

The Deep South Solidarity Fund (DSSF) is committed to sustainably resourcing Black, Brown and Indigenous movement builders, their institutions, and their infrastructure across Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

The DSSF is investing in the dignity, wellness, and power of Black, Brown, and Indigenous individuals and institutions who are committed to justice. DSSF is also building and sustaining Southern movement infrastructure. We came to be DSSF through Kiese Laymon. His truth about what black children deserve: “good love, healthy choices, and second chances“ has become our theory of change.

DSSF envisions a future in which Black, Brown, and Indigenous people have abundant resources. The people of the Deep South deserve freedom from oppression, economic justice, security, dignity and wellness. DDSF and our partners believe in building healthy and sovereign communities that are anchors of justice and equity. Working together, we create deeply supportive environments that allow individuals and communities to recognize and use their power for liberation.