As a keeper of culture fostering equity and restoration, I provide spaces for folks to heal holistically.
I've spent over twenty years as a community organizer and over a decade in both higher education and holistic health. Engaged in a constant spiral development of knowledge, I wear many hats, but they all lead to one path--liberation-focused healing. I am committed to the development and restoration of underrepresented populations. In the essence of Fania E. Davis, I work to not only heal the physical body, but the social body, and to transform social harm.
I received a Ph.D. in the Language, Literacy & Culture Doctoral Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. My research focuses on the Undergraduate Black Women Activists During Black Lives Matter 2014-2016: An Oral History Project. Prior to pursuing holistic wellness full-time, I served as an equity director, where I supported access, cultural competency, diversity, inclusion, and social justice for students, faculty and staff, and co-directed a nationally recognized Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning (CRT-L) program, where I trained educators to employ critical race pedagogy, challenge their cultural biases, and decolonize their classrooms. I earned a M.S. in Women's & Gender Studies: Health & Sexuality from Towson University; and a B.S. in Communications: Journalism, with a minor in History and Black Women's Studies from Bowie State University.
While scholarship and service is important to me, it is my personal and spiritual practices that allow me to continue to show up for myself and others. When I began to explore yoga's ethical practices and understood my self-care as a radical act, life began to look different, feel different. I have been influenced by many spiritual traditions, cultural practices, and indigenous healing modalities, and as a student of the universe, as I learn, I teach. I reside at the intersection of advocacy and healing. I am a Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT), meditation teacher, Prenatal Yoga Teacher, Fertility Doula, Birth Doula, Thai Massage practitioner, Jiivana Life Coach, Reiki Master and received trainings in Ayurveda, Herbal Medicine and Restorative Justice. These practices provide me a deep space for growth, restoration, and a peace of mind.
Taking all that in, my husband and I opened Sankofa Yoga and Wellness Center in July 2019 in Laurel, MD to create more spaces for folks to thrive, restore, and heal authentically. SYWC is a diverse cOMmunity that encourage yogis to live conscious lives on and off the mat, fosters cultural connections, and provides the community with tools to live healthier and holistic lifestyles. In November 2020 we opened Sankofa Health Express and Primary Care , an urgent and primary care with a strong focus on both preventative and alternative treatment and to specifically provide inclusive and culturally responsive healthcare and to address the lack of access thereof.
My practice is rooted in the eight limbed path of Raja Yoga, focusing on the spiritual, physical, and mental restraints. I've been featured on Roland Martin's NewsOne Now discussing the benefits of yoga in urban communities, was ranked HBCU Top 30 Under 30 in 2017, and am a peer-reviewer of Race and Yoga, the first peer-reviewed journal in the emerging field of critical yoga studies.
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