Fellowship Program – Cohort 1

Introduction

The BIPOC Youth Justice and Healing Fellowship will train and support a cohort of emerging leaders — BIPOC youth spiritual activists — in their aspirations and community-building work.

Fellows will gain the skills necessary to dismantle structures of racial and social inequity and build structures of equity in the domains of their choosing. The foundational practice of mindfulness and healing will undergird the training of six BIPOC youth and young adults.

The fellowship is organized as a two-year-long training and mentoring program led by BIPOC core teachers, Kaira Jewel Lingo and Marisela Gomez.

The Beginning

We take inspiration from the work of our teacher, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, who during the Vietnam War gathered activists for regular periods of mindfulness practice to renew themselves individually and as a beloved community as they helped communities rebuild in the face of untold suffering.

We also take inspiration from various BIPOC-led movements that have addressed systemic racial and social inequity, like the Civil Rights Movement, Black Feminist Movement, Farm Workers Movement, Housing Affordability, Land Liberation (including Standing Rock), BIPOC Mindfulness, and others.

Our Impact

The communities served will be low-income and communities of color, people who because of their identities, locations or both suffer the daily manifestations of structural barriers to their health and flourishing. The core community will be the fellows, young spiritual activists of color, along with the core teachers, coaches, and expert consultants–some of whom will be members of the impacted communities.

With guidance, the fellows will select the issues and communities that will be the locus of their broader work. Examples may include communities adversely impacted by housing instability and gentrification, labor exploitation, segregated transportation and recreation, health disparities, climate change, and environmental injustice, mass incarceration, voting rights or groups targeted because of race, sexual orientation, immigrant status, gender identity or physical ability.