RESOURCE PEOPLE
Cheryl Bear’s First Nation community is Nadleh Whut’en First Nation in British Columbia, Canada, and she is from the Bear Clan. She is a multi award winning singer, songwriter, storyteller and author who shares stories of Indigenous life; the joy, sorrow, faith and journey. Cheryl travels to First Nations communities sharing songs of healing and songs to the Creator. She also visits non-Native communities raising awareness of Indigenous issues. She is currently the Coordinator of First Nations Ministry for the Foursquare Gospel Church of Canada. Cheryl is a founding member of NAIITS, is a director of First Nations Bible College and helps at her husband’s ministry call Street Church on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, BC, Canada.
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Piper Carter Artist as thinker, visionary, pioneer, scholar, and revolutionary figure. Founding member of Cosmic Slop a Michigan based Black Rock Coalition, & Co-Creator of theFoundation for Women in Hip Hop, a Founding member of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition, intersection of fashion, art, feminism, pop culture, and empowerment. part of the Environmental Justice Movement here as well as Digital Justice Coalition, Maker Space, Food justice communities.
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Bryce Detroit Visionary, Music Executive, Artist and native Detroiter. Director of Community Relations and Marketing for Cass Corridor Commons, using 21stCenturyHipHop and entertainment arts for promoting cultural literacy self-determination through sustainable collective-economies. Bryce is fashioned as a cultural figure in Detroit's food security, environmental, undoing racism, and digital justice movements .
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Laurel Dykstra is an Anglican priest and community-based activist and biblical scholar who has lived most of her life on unceded Coast Salish Territories. Laurel can be found nurturing resistance and the vocation of "neighbour" around the intersections of urban poverty, ecological justice, anti-racism, queer identities, interfaith collaboration and decolonization. She is the author of Set Them Free: The Other Side of Exodus (Wipf and Stock) and other books and articles on faith and justice
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Elaine Enns has been working in the field of restorative justice and conflict transformation for over 25 years as a victim-offender dialogue facilitator, consultant, educator and trainer. She just completed her Doctor of Ministry thesis entitled, ““Facing History with Courage: Toward a Restorative Solidarity,” which examines Canadian Prairie settler relations with Indigenous communities. Born and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, she lives in Oak View, CA, where she serves as the Program Director for the Restorative Justice Program with Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries. Her most recent publication is a two volume, co-authored project entitled “Ambassadors of Reconciliation: A New Testament Theology and Diverse Christian Practices of Restorative Justice and Peacemaking” with Ched Myers (Orbis Books, 2009).
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Andrea Ferrich has dedicated the past fifteen years toward ecosystem renewal through watershed restoration and sustainable community development. She holds a global systems-thinking approach with a vast array of work experiences from Camden NJ to Northern Appalachia as a farmer and writer. She is currently a director of a watershed organization and a student of Agroforesty and Forest Management at Penn State University
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Dione Johnson-Tyson Operations Coordinator, Multi Media Center .an experienced organizer and administrative leader with years of experience in service based work, systems development, project coordination and grass roots fundraising. She also possesses some developing relationships with community/labor connections. More than 20 years as a community organizer and mobilizer in multiple fields including, infant mortality, family and youth violence, music & cultural arts, education and young parents. She is founder/director of the Multi-Media Center which began in Seattle, WA, and recently expanded to the San Francisco Bay Area. Its vision is to see the evolution of a spiritually, mentally, physically and financially healthy human society. Dione’s commitment to a healthy planet for all is evident in her long history of work helping the hundreds of youth, children and families whose lives she has supported.
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TR Mackenzie is a queer Xican@ warrior and land defender who grew up on the west side of Sioux City, occupied Dakota territory and is currently based out of occupied Lakota territory , in so-called South Dakota. He is a fierce defender of life, land, and justice. T.R. co-founded Deep Roots United Front (DRUF), an all POC and Indigenous led grassroots organization whose work centers – and provides direct support for – Indigenous communities and communities of color in active resistance to environmental and social ecocide and genocide. His work has placed him alongside the frontlines of resistance movements and focuses on the intersections of settler colonialism, white supremacy, climate change, environmental destruction and genocide, and homophobia. T.R is an organizer and educator who has facilitated and participated in workshops, trainings, and speaking engagements. A main tenet of his work involves moving people currently involved in the mainstream “environmental movement” to a more strategic place in which they would provide active support to – and respect the self determination of – marginalized communities on the frontlines of struggles who are most heavily impacted by social and environmental ills.
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Shamako Noble hip hop artist, cultural organizer and political theorist from San Jose, California. Co-founder of Hip Hop Congress. Hispassion for advocating for the incorporation of Hip Hop education programs has evolved over the years into a labor based and often politicized organization of artists, and call for the movement to recognize it’s relationship to dominant culture. This work has culminated in the recent “What the Bleep Happened to Hip Hop” national campaign. Is currently working on several projects, including the “The Agape EP” a multimedia exploration of the challenges of love, life and death, family, manhood and harsh reality.
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Chris Paige is an OtherWise-identified organizer, serving as executive director of Transfaith, a national non-profit led by transgender people and focused on issues of faith and spirituality. Transfaith works closely with many allied organizations, both secular and religious, transgender-led and otherwise, to equip and cultivate diverse expressions of gender-affirming spiritual vitality. Chris was formerly publisher of The Other Side magazine, an award-winning ecumenical Christian publication.
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James W. Perkinson is a long-time activist and educator from inner city Detroit, currently teaching as Professor of Social Ethics at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and lecturing in Intercultural Communication Studies at the University of Oakland (Michigan). He holds a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Chicago, is the author of White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity and Shamanism, Racism, and Hip-Hop Culture: Essays on White Supremacy and Black Subversion, and Messianism Against Christology: Resistance Movements, Folk Arts, and Empire, and is an artist on the spoken-word poetry scene in the inner city.
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Joe Reilly is a singer, songwriter, and educator who writes songs from his heart that are playful, clever, engaging, joyful, and always have something meaningful to say. The core of his message is an invitation to heal our relationships with our selves, with each other, and with the earth. Joe uses his music to bring people together and build community across lines of race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion, age, and nationality. www.joereilly.org
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Will See is an organizer and cultural worker from Detroit. He works as EMEAC's Climate Justice Director. He served as one of the local coordinators for the 2010 US Social Forum, organizing over 300 Detroit-area volunteers to host 20,000+ activists and community change agents to 5 days of workshops, panels, concerts, and work projects. He also worked as lead organizer of the 2011 Detroit 2 Dakar Delegation to the World Social Forum held in Dakar, Senegal. He has significant affiliations with the healing justice movements in Detroit and nationwide and is also currently working on creating the D.Blair Theater Space in the Cass Corridor Commons. Copeland serves on the board of the US Solidarity Economy Network. Will holds a BS from Stanford University and MS from the University of Michigan. Will See just dropped his first solo hip-hop CD "The Basics" available at http://willseemusic.bandcamp.com/ which includes EJ anthems such as "Water Power" and "Respiration."
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