Community Elders

I stand on the shoulder of giants.  I could not do any of this work without the trusted guidance and support of mentors, who keep bringing me back to my own inner wisdom & soulforce.    I thank so many before me that I don’t even know the names of. I thank my ancestors who fought for me with love to have the life I have now.

I come from a long lineage of powerful women who had a strong hold on the sisterhood that empowers all of humanity. My own mother, Padma Singh, and my aunts who were leaders in the community, raises babies, and said no many times when they were not allowed to in that time. My grandmother exemplifies that we have an unending amount of courage and strength in ourselves, as she lives independently in her nineties and continues to embody deep faith in the world.   She had fierce faith in prayer and devotion to elders who had passed.

My father is also a big inspiration in my life. Being the first to go to college, he modeled what it means to pursue your dreams, yet still stay so active in the community. My father had an unwavering belief in me. This allowed me to see my own nobility, and hold this inherent nobility in others. This kind of unwavering belief in me has informed virtually every aspect of my teaching, coaching, and leadership, and what I hope to provide to others.   

My paternal grandfather would touch my feet to model the holiness of children and his service to children, and this has also become a guiding ethos in my life.  He honors children.

There have been so many other mentors over the years, especially early on in my career. Professor Richard Elmore, Professor Pedro Noguera, Professor John Hurst, and then Julien Phillips, Kendra Fergsuon, Becky Crowe, Nipun Mehta. There have been so many others along the way. Jiwon Chung has been my most recent teacher who has taught me Theater of the Oppressed over the past 5-6 years. His presence, facilitation expertise, is the north star I try to achieve in my own work. Armand Volkas has been another teacher that I’ve had the privilege of working with, studying the Healing the Wounds level 1 and level 2 training around Playback Theater and addressing intergenerational trauma.

I pay deep respect to these elders and elders from previous generations who have gotten me here.   

Inspiration from the world

When I read Adrienne Maree Brown’s work, I finally felt someone understood my organizational and societal approach to the world. I also love the work of Bell Hooks and Audrey Lorde. I’m deeply inspired by Augusto Boal and Paulo Friere- who changed my lifel as a college student. Grace Lee Boggs is yet another inspiration. There are too many too name, as so many have been quietly and not so quietly building this work for years.

In history, I think so much of Gandhi & Martin Luther King Jr & Nelson Mandela so many other practioners of nonviolence , who from a very early stage in my life have been guiding me. But moreover the thousands of people who worked with them who are nameless. I honor all the indigenous communities who I studied as an undergraduate student studying anthropology, and who guide my work today. I’m inspired by the vedic wisdom of 5,000-6,000. years B.C. that hold so much wisdom that I’m trying to get back to.

These elders are the past, and the children are the future, and they weave together toward guiding who I am and the work I do.