Last Sunday we hosted a preconception womb wellness workshop for our community. We discussed our womb in detail, the stories our womb tells, and the manifestations we want to explore through our womb. Overall, the workshop brought reflection and celebration of our bodies and wombynhood. #SDLBirthSupport ||#SisterDiaspora #aLoveEthic
Our wombs are extraordinary storytellers. Through sensations, symptoms and cycles, they offer clues to our health. Our relationship to our womb strengthens our intuition, creativity and power. Historically systems of oppression have worked to strategically diminish our connection to this great source of information.
In this workshop, we will explore our past and present relationship to our wombs as well as gain new knowledge of how to radically care for ourselves. Participants will be invited to share their stories, create intentions and learn new ways to actively engage in our wellness and healing by reconnecting to our wombs. We hope to see you there!
Preconception Workshop: Sun 10/21 1-3pm in The Heights!
RSVP here
We are still full of love and gratitude for this amazing event. The energy in the room was palpable. It revitalized our commitment to our communities and the efforts to create spaces for us and by us. Thank you Creators of Women Warriors of the Afro-Latina Diaspora: Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, Marinieves Alba, and Yvette Mondestin for answering our call to share your wonderful selves with us. Also, a special thanks to the Carribean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute for sharing space with us.
“You cant be free if you’re broken, its important to integrate healing and spirituality in our work.” Marineves Alba
“We’re still becoming, Africans are just as colonized as Africans in the Diaspora.” Dr. Marta Morena Vega
“It was colored water fountains, it was segregation, Jim Crow did take place in Panama.” Yvette Mondestin
#LatinxHeritageMonth #aLoveEthic #SisterDiasopra #SDLReading Circle.
This month in honor of Latinx Heritage Month we will be hosting a reading with the authors of Women Warriors of the Afro Latina-Diaspora. (As you may remember, we rescheduled the date in August to support Joan Begat’s book release).
Creators of Women Warriors of the Afro-Latina Diaspora: Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, Yvette Modestin and Marinieves Alba have graciously answered our call for an intimate reading and will be sharing their favorite excerpts and signing books!
Wednesday, September 19th 6-8pm
Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute
(CCCADI)
120 E 124th Street, NY, NY 10035
You can RSVP Here. It is a free event but you must RSVP in order to attend.
The Healing Circle team, a branch of the SDL collective, celebrated the launch of their Full Spectrum Doula / Birth Activist #SDLBirthSupport program on Saturday, June 23rd, 2018. The day began with a workshop, continued with a speaker series and culminated with a celebration. The event took place in Harlem.
SDL Birth Support partnered with Yokasta Tineo, LMT (Kasa Healing Massage Therapy & Reiki) to host “Birthing Ourselves / Conceiving Our Dreams,” a pre-conception workshop that encouraged participants to reevaluate, reconstruct and rebirth their goals and intentions through an exploration of their patterned thoughts, behaviors and resistances. The presenters facilitated a discussion on vibrational realignment and strengthening their commitment to self-discipline and self-love as a means towards personal and collective liberation.
Following the workshop, Maternal Justice Campaign Director, S. Nadia Hussain (MomsRising) addressed the ongoing efforts of the #MaternalJustice and Black Mamas Matter campaigns. Jazmin Chavez, Director of Digital for The Center for Popular Democracy drew a correlation between reproductive rights/justice and keeping families together. After the speaker series, SDL Birth Support gave homage to their mentors, supporters, and collaborators, who included Katie Grassle (Citizens Committee for New York City) and Mélat Seyoum a full-spectrum doula and freelance GIS Analyst/Developer. It was a warm, joyful and uplifting event, where healers, activists, and community leaders gathered to address the complexities and intersections that exist in birth work. for more pics, check out our facebook album!
Next steps and Resources:
(limited slots) RSVP here
On Saturday, May 12, 2018 SDL collaborated with Impacct Brooklyn to host its first financial empowerment workshop “Surviving Capitalism A Financial Literacy Workshop.”
It was an intimate workshop and a two hour event. The first hour was discussion and consciousness raising led by SDL. We discussed topics like “What does financial literacy and having a healthy relationship to money mean to you? What did you learn about money growing up your household? What habits do you have because of this? What was the first time you interacted with a financial institution? What are the formal or informal ways dealing of dealing with money in your family, culture or your community?”
We had many women of color from different immigrant and religious background represented (e.g. Dominican, Nigerian, Jamaican, Indian, Vietnamese) and we found many commonalities regarding our relationship with money.
The second hour of the event was led by a financial counselor at Impacct Brooklyn who shared her own story of how she was asked by her son “aren’t you tired of being poor” before she changed her relationship to money and eventually became a financial counselor. Impact Brooklyn shared “how to make a budget” and “how to manage your debt” worksheets and held a general Q&A for the group. The important lessons the counselor shared was “make your money work for you, don’t work for you money,” “all money needs to have a purpose,” that “goals for money are worthless without dates.” One of her most important messages is that being financially empowered meanings being truthful about your financial goals and then reframing your relationship with money so that saving becomes an act of empowerment.
#SisterDiaspora #aLoveEthic
SDL is excited to be collaborate with IMPACCT Brooklyn and bringing a financial literacy workshop catered to women of color.
Over andover again we hear about the disparity in pay for womxn of color. The rates are alarming and we understand that as womxn of color the path to financial stability is stacked against us and we have historically been exploited for our labor and excluded from fully participating in the job market with fair wages and benefits. How do we understand our money and make fiscally safe decisions? This workshop aims to give us tools that we can use daily in achieving healthy financial habits that we can build and practice in our daily lives. #equalpayday ||#SisterDiaspora #aLoveEthic
According to a 2016 Pew Research Poll: “White and Asian women have narrowed the wage gap with white men to a much greater degree than black and Hispanic women. For example, white women narrowed the wage gap in median hourly earnings by 22 cents from 1980 (when they earned, on average, 60 cents for every dollar earned by a white man) to 2015 (when they earned 82 cents). By comparison, black women only narrowed that gap by 9 cents, from earning 56 cents for every dollar earned by a white man in 1980 to 65 cents today. Asian women followed roughly the trajectory of white women (but earned a slightly higher 87 cents per dollar earned by a white man in 2015), whereas Hispanic women fared even worse than black women, narrowing the gap by just 5 cents (earning 58 cents on the dollar in 2015).” Source: Huffington Post.
The workshop will cover topics such as:
You can RSVP Here
On December 10th, 2017, International Human Rights Day, SDL held a self defense workshop by and for womxn of color to close #16days of activism to end gender based violence. Aside from learning important, possibly life saving defense skills, the event held a safe space to build community and sisterhood and empower survivors. Check out a 360 video below of the workshop.
November 25th marked the start of #16Days of Activism. This years theme was “Together we can end Gender Based Violence in education.” Gender Based Violence occurs in many spaces and it is our hope to continue to eradicate the systems that perpetuate the lack of investment in our girls. In our world today GBV comes in many shapes and forms, whether it be cyberbullying, displacement of womxn and children because of home and war violence or a lack of access to quality schools that provide a gender equal curriculum. Throughout the #16Days, Sister Diaspora highlighted stories of womxn affected by Gender Based Violence. We held a vigil for our sisters murdered this year, called our local representatives to push for legislation protecting victims of domestic violence and ended #16Days of Activism on December 10th with a self-defense workshop for womxn of color. #EndGBV
Below is a video of our ‘Remembering Our Sisters’ vigil held on November 30th.