About Equity Allies.There are many options for diversity, equity, and inclusion training. Although didactic, lecture-based learning is common, those structures may allow clients to check the box of HR training compliance, Equity Allies offers a model that goes beyond the average course and ensures long-lasting impact on organizations and individuals.
Instead of lecture-style instruction, Equity Allies offers engaging workshops and activity-based courses that draw upon the wisdom and existing skills present within the group. By prioritizing collaborative learning and incorporating opportunities for small group dialogue, participants are more likely to experience everlasting impact from this multi-sensory approach. Recent data indicate that stress is embedded in the body, and that a significant source of stress originates from the lived experience of racial discrimination. Equity Allies' methodology promotes physical and intellectual healing through informed research development. This approach assures that: A. In addition to intellectual learning, the experience and wisdom of participants is centered, surfaced and honored. The healing process is prioritized while avoiding re-traumatization. B. The tools for equity become rooted in muscle memory. While exercised interpersonally, this allows the individual to effectively and professionally respond to harmful situations, even through discomfort. Whether your organization is seeking base-level learning for all employees, Train the Trainer employee learning to ensure effective integration of equity practices, or long-term consulting around equitable and inclusive policy, Equity Allies will guarantee that your time is meaningfully spent and that the knowledge gained has enduring effect. |
Team Members.
Marissa Metelica is an anti-oppression educator, artist, and healer. She has provided race and gender equity curriculum, consultation and facilitation to government agencies, non-profits, and universities. Through Equity Allies, which she founded in 2019, Marissa offers interactive, trauma-informed anti-oppression training that invites and honors individual truth. With her background in Applied Theatre and her experience as a somatic practitioner, Marissa weaves body-centered learning and healing into all of her justice work. Marissa strives to welcome the shadow and centralize the most marginalized stories in order to heal and grow into our highest capacity for equity and liberation.
Dax-Devlon Ross, J.D., has led a career as an educator, non-profit executive, equity and impact strategist and journalist with a focus on social justice. After receiving his Juris Doctorate from George Washington University, he joined New York City Teaching Fellows where he taught in middle and high schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan. He later helped lead the national training and replication team at the Posse Foundation, one of the country’s foremost college access organizations. He founded the New York and New Jersey chapters of After-School All-Stars, a national youth development nonprofit, and later served as the organization's inaugural northeast regional executive director where he managed growth strategy, programs, partnerships, fundraising, board governance and operations in five states. Dax is the author of five books and his journalism has been featured in Time, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Virginia Quarterly Review, Nonprofit Quarterly Review and other national publications. He was the winner of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Investigative Reporting Award for his coverage of racial jury exclusion in North Carolina courts. He is a fellow at Type Media Center and a Principal at Dax-Dev Inc. and Third Settlements.
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Austin is an artist, graphic designer, educator, activist and organizer. He currently serves as the Director of the DreamYard Art Center in the Bronx. At DreamYard, he previously served as the Social Justice Pedagogy Expert and Lead Teaching Artist for the ACTION Project. ACTION is a four year social justice and creative arts program for Bronx high school students. ACTION participants use visual art, theatre, and poetry to talk back to the world and embody the change they hope to see in society. Austin is from Brooklyn, New York.
Reyna Erika Bonaparte is a teaching artist, educator, community organizer, facilitator and poet from Harlem, NYC. She earned her Bachelor’s of Art from Bard College and received her Master’s in Applied Theatre from CUNY’s School of Professional Studies. Reyna has been involved in the arts for over 20 years and spent most of that time working at the Harlem Children Zone INC, where she ran multiple writing, media and arts programming for students across the agency’s many middle school and high school sites. For the past 5 years, Reyna has been working for People’s Theatre Project as both a facilitator and performer in the company’s Sol ensemble. Reyna is passionate about theatre for social change and activism and sees the work that Equity Allies does as crucial and necessary in order to fight global anti-blackness & oppression everywhere.
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Contact Us.
Equity Allies offers many options for engagement. Workshops can be tailored to the needs of your organization.
Please complete the contact form below for more information about our services. We would be thrilled to create a custom curriculum for your organization or you can choose from our "off-the-shelf" workshop options.
Please complete the contact form below for more information about our services. We would be thrilled to create a custom curriculum for your organization or you can choose from our "off-the-shelf" workshop options.