Collective Care Pods

A 5-month online course for BIPOC wanting to navigate these burning times -
in deep togetherness and for our collective liberation

**Please note that the module videos with the framework and practices are available.

But unfortunately we currently don’t have the capacity to organize you into Care Pods or have live sessions. Once we have capacity though, we will return to doing so.

Thanks for your understanding and patience!**

                        

Why This Course? Why Now?

 
Ready to see how this course works? Click here >>

Or are you not sure yet? Then please continue reading to better understand what this course can do for you!

Do You Want To Turn These Burning Times Into Liberating Times?

 

Global pandemic, increasingly authoritarian governments, police violence, devastated economy, climate change, and natural disasters...

Hit after hit, they seem to just keep coming in 2020 and 2021 - with no end in sight as we prepare to enter 2022.

These hits have made one thing increasingly clear to many of us.

Our government and major institutions are unable to and are unwilling to prioritize people over profits and power.

Especially Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) who have been disproportionality exploited and harmed in this oppressive system with colonization, slavery, and its ongoing impacts to this day.

As more and more of us awaken to this reality, many of us have stopped turning to the system to get our basic needs met.

Instead, we're turning towards each other - whether that's through mutual aid work, tenant unions, transformative and restorative justice processes, bail out funds, pandemic pods, and more.

Seeing these alternative ways to getting our needs met outside of the system is making many of us feel like this a phoenix moment.

As the phoenix rises up from its own ashes, maybe a more just, compassionate, and liberating world could rise up from the ashes of our current system of domination, exploitation, and dehumanization that's burning down.

While many of us long for that to happen, unfortunately too many of us are also struggling to contribute in sustainable ways.

We may have thoughts like:

  • "I want to do something to help - but I'm exhausted and don't know what I can do!"

  • "I don't want to just replicate oppressive dynamics - but I'm not even aware of when I'm doing it!

  • "I want to  do more for others - but I'm struggling to keep my own head above water!"

  • "They say I can get help from them - but I'm too tired and scared to ask for support!"

  • I have no idea what will happen next - how am I supposed to get ready?

I hear that - and that's real.

And it's not your fault.

There's a reason why you and so many others feel this way. 

If you want to learn why, please keep reading.

Here's Why You May Feel
Stuck, Overwhelmed, Or Burnt Out


For many of us, it's easy to feel like we're not doing enough - or that we're not doing what we should be doing.

Even if we're doing what we feel is right, the way we're doing it may be leading us to burn out.

This is true for so many of us, because that is the result of how systemic oppression has unconsciously conditioned us to think and act.

This is to keep us too exhausted try to resist and get out of the system.

And too overwhelmed to think clearly about what we can do instead of playing by their rules.

Obviously, our unconscious conditioning won't help us survive the system burning down or us getting out of it.

Which is what many of us actually want to do right now.

So let's look at some key ways our internalized oppression is holding us back and burning us out. 

So we can start to get free from it.

This can feel like a lot of unconscious conditioning getting in your way.

And it is - let's be real.

But it doesn't have to be this way - for you or your loved ones.

If you want to learn how you can start showing up differently, please keep reading!

Here's How You Can Move Through 
These Burning Times In Liberating Ways


2020 and 2021 are asking us to let go of the facade that we, as individuals, are in control of what's happening.

That if we just worked hard enough and pushed hard enough, we alone can make things right and be safe.

2020 and 2021 are instead inviting us to remember that we are in this - together.

If we can be deeply together in these burning times, then we can grow what we need for our collective liberation to rise up in the ashes.

This Collective Care Pod course was created to help you do just that.

In this course, you'll heal from your internalized oppression and begin co-creating a community where....

We all give what we can - so we all can have what we need.

We are all cared for - because we are all caring.

To better understand how, please check out the following Five Elements of Collective Care for these burning times that you'll be practicing in the course. 

How You Will Learn

 

In this 5-month online course, you'll get both concrete guidance and real-life practice on how you can:

Remember and reclaim our ancestral practices of healing and solidarity in order to: 

  • Heal from internalized oppression
  • Co-create a caring community around you
  • Stop turning to the systems to get your needs met
  • Start turning to each other in an trauma-informed consent-based way

In the following ways:

Curriculum

Get the framework and practices over 5 modules of each element of collective care 

Worksheets

Get worksheets to help you better process and apply the curriculum to your everyday life

Get Access To These Bonus Videos Too! 

Guided Grounding
Practices

Stabilize yourself when you feel stressed by reconnecting with your body and the present moment with these practices from Sandra

Guided Joy and 
Pleasure Practices

Reconnect with your body's innate joy and pleasure whenever you need it with these embodiment practices from Sammi 

Guided Energy Healing Practices

Take care of your body through these simple practices from Jenica that you can do on yourself whenever you need it

Patriarchy and Collective Care

Learn how these men of color are unlearning patriarchy's denial of care for men and still practice collective care

Meet Your Facilitators


MAIN COURSE FACILITATORS

Sandra Kim

Sandra Kim (she/they) identifies as a mystic for the (r)evolution. She's dedicated to living into spiritual and social liberation in each and every moment and nurturing loving communities that support these intentions. She shares key lessons from over 15 years of healing journey cycling between internalized oppression and spiritual wholeness - as a person with multiple marginalized and privileged identities, US-born child of Korean immigrants, former organizational leader, and general messy human being. She draws upon her spiritual practice in Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, animism, and energy healing and her professional work with survivors of violence and abuse, in nonprofit organizational development, anti-oppression education, and life coaching  to guide her personal life and work. She's the Founder of Re-Becoming Human, an online platform for healing and co-creation for collective liberation and Everyday Feminism, an online magazine helping people apply intersectional feminism to their everyday lives. She loves feeding people and feeling wet grass under her bare feet.

Travis Brookes

Travis Brookes (he/they) is a queer, black, afrocaribean, male socialized individual living in D.C. His passions lie in unlearning behaviors that cause hurt, harm, and abuse while creating spaces with other BIPOC male socialized folks centered on accountability. For the past three years he volunteered with Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) as a participant, facilitator, and co-director for the Rethinking Masculinity program. His day work is focused on the care and treatment for people with HIV. He tries to remind himself that all of this work is never ending and struggles to remain rooted in the liberation of all black folks. He enjoys listening to an absurd amount of music, kicking it with his chosen family, and eating ridiculous amounts of oxtail. 

Sammi Blaque

Sammi Blaque (she/her) is an international Yoga Life and Sensuality Coach and Founder of the Venus Collective, a self-love club for women who want to live like a goddess. She holds sacred space for feminine leaders to own their magic, & experience deeper pleasure in their daily lives. Sammi celebrates sensuality, soul, and sisterhood. Her holistic approach empowers womxn to live a yogic lifestyle, & experience profound shifts physically, emotionally, & energetically. Womxn who work with Sammi go on to live like a goddess; creating the life they dream of. In her personal life, Sammi is a mother, lover & artist. She is a Taurus sun, Sagittarius moon, & Scorpio rising. She enjoys spending time with her family, dancing, writing, & crafting bath & beauty gifts in her spare time.

Jenica Wright

Jenica Wright (she/they) is an educator, activist, and healer. She is passionate about empowering activists, advocates, and helpers by providing trauma awareness education, self-care planning, and energy healing as we work towards liberation for all. She is a co-organizer of the DC Justice for Survivors Campaign that uplifts and includes sexual assault survivor voices in public policy and works to make transformative justice a reality. Jenica is a Healing Touch Practitioner with the Healing Touch Program and a STAR (strategies for trauma awareness and resilience) practitioner with Eastern Mennonite University. She is also a proud member of the Breathe Network that helps provide affordable holistic healing services to survivors of sexual assault. In her free time she loves to dance, watch unrealistic TV, and spend time in community with others. You can always count on her to have snacks for the in-person meeting or journey! 

Chany Singh

Chany Singh (she/her) is a coach, technical co-creator and facilitator. She is passionate about supporting individuals through their growth and obstacles with care and empathetic inquiry. She has spent the last 12 years studying Psychology and working alongside powerful coaches, healers, and teachers in the fields of self-development, healing, trauma awareness, anti-oppression, and positive psychology. She is passionate about human rights issues and working closely with BIPOC communities to help heal and seek more liberatory ways of moving through the world. Chany loves to make people feel loved and full of joy so you'll often find her cracking jokes, making funny faces, and overall being a goof. She is a perpetual homebody that loves spending time with her dogs and partner, meditating and reading fantasy/sci-fi novels in her spare time. 

*****

BONUS VIDEO SPEAKERS

Weishin Huang

Weishin Huang (he/they) is a first-generation Chinese American, having immigrated to the US with his family six months after the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. They are a sacred activist and healing justice worker committed to the practice of socially engaged Buddhism. He has over a decade of experience in non-profit administration. Currently, Weishin is pursuing a dual degree in Buddhism and social work at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia School of Social Work.

Lawrence Barriner, II

Lawrence Barriner, II (he/him) is a Black Queer storyteller, narrative strategist, writer, and liberation worker who values love, justice, community, and transformation. His paid work includes serving as the Network Engagement Manager at the Center for Story-Based Strategy in addition to his facilitation and coaching work at lqb2&co. His unpaid work includes crafting and co-creating works of visionary fiction, (r)evolutionary uncling, community-focused healing work, and imagining/practicing/embodying post-patriarchal futures. He lives on occupied Massachusettes and Wampanoag territory, aka Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Who This Course Is For
(and not for)

 

To be clear, the Collective Care Pod course is not for everyone.

You have to be ready to look deeply into yourself and let yourself be held by community.

So this course is not for you if you:

  • Aren't willing to look at how you've internalized oppression and unconsciously perpetuate it
  • Don't want to get in touch with your deeper feelings and unmet needs and care for them
  • Want to push your way forward and coerce yourself into action
  • Want to focus on improving the system instead of dismantling it and growing a liberating ecology 
  • Can't make the time and space for you to slow down and invest in yourself*

This course may be for you if:

  • You're a Black, Indigenous, and/or Person of Color since this is a BIPOC-space only**
  • Are committed to decolonizing your life and unlearning the everyday ways you've internalized oppression 
  • Are willing to explore and experiment with being in cycles of mutual care with others
  • Are willing to stop engaging in toxic habits that drain or distract you
  • Want to effectively support people who are emotionally struggling
  • Want to turn towards each other - and not the system - to get our needs met 
  • Are excited to be a part of a growing radical ecology where we experiment with how collective liberation can be experienced

Please note that this is a serious time commitment! So if you don't show up for this course, it will also impact other people in your care pod.

So please only register of you are willing and able to carve out serious time and space to invest in your own healing and liberation!

If that sounds like you, please keep on reading to get the logistics of the course!

 


**If you're a white ally/accomplice for racial justice and would like to get support on a similar journey, please check out the Healing from Internalized Whiteness online course. 

What Other Participants Have Said

 

"This course’s focus on trauma care was extremely personally helpful for me. It allowed me to design a set of strategies to both understand and manage traumatic experiences as a BiPOC. It is already being integrated into my daily life and interactions with others." - Edie L.

"This course has been a turning point for me. Before I had no idea what to do or how to make things better for myself and in my communities. This course helped me put words and theory behind what works and feels affirming. So I no longer feel overwhelmed about how to overcome the oppressive system. Instead I feel excited, optimistic, hopeful, and thankful."  - Yilen G.

"Because of this course, I know how to be in community with others in new ways. It will allow me to start intentionally building community with others - which is amazing!" - Morgan S.


"I'm better able to recognize that how I act when I'm in trauma mode is not indicative of who I am. That feels really powerful since I had a tough few months that I was blaming myself for afterwards - when in reality I was just trying to seek safety. Now, I know I can create safety for myself in a lot of ways." - Lan Y.

                                

Collective Care Pods

Frequently Asked Questions

Registration Fees

 

This 5-month online course is offered on a radical sliding scale - so no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

We ask that you give what you can - according to your income level and wealth privilege.

When you give more, it subsidizes the registration fees of people with more limited financial means.

By more equitably sharing the financial responsibility, this can be both financially accessible and financially sustainable for us all.

SPONSORSHIP FEE

$497

If you earn more than
$80,000 USD per year

Sign Up Here >>

REGULAR FEE

$297

If you earn between 
$30,000 - $80,000 USD per year

Sign Up Now >>

SUBSIDIZED FEE

$197

If you earn less than
$30,000 USD per year

Sign Up Here >>

Scholarships are available if you cannot afford the subsidized fee of $197. Apply here.

Group discounts are available if 3 or more people want to do the online course together. Request one here.

Payment plans allow you to split up the regular fee of $297 into 3 monthly installments of $99. Register here.

No one will be turned away for lack of funds! Just send a message if you need more financial support than the scholarships can provide. 

 

Payments made through this site are secure.

Not Sure If This Is For You?

Don't worry! You can do the training for 30 days - risk free.

If you don't feel it's a match, then you can ask for your money back - no questions asked.