Catherine Bisola Labiran (she/her) is a Nigerian facilitator, evaluator, somatics practitioner, and poet who was born in New York and raised in London. Catherine has 8+ years of experience as an evaluator and has supported organizations including me too. International, Community Change, Center for Third World Organizing, and Black Feminist Future. She uses mixed methodologies that are inherently decolonial, feminist, and participatory. She is the author of Our Stories and Visions: Gender in Black Immigrant Communities and has built databases and timelines to document Black feminist movements including Fractals. Catherine supports clients by providing a spectrum of services including writing, research, evaluation, facilitation, strategic planning, and (somatic) coaching. She believes that art and liberation are inseparable and interdependent, and that the process of moving towards liberatory futures requires our most radical, creative, and expansive imaginations. Through the use of liberatory, healing-centered and decolonial methodologies, she works collaboratively with partners and seeks to infuse humility, curiosity and play into all of her offerings. Ultimately, she enjoys designing spaces and products that move us from thinking and talking about liberation to embodying it.

Jabari Lyles (they/them) is an unapologetically Black, fat, queer, trans and nonbinary educator, community organizer, public administrator and consultant with over 15 years of experience leading initiatives which emphasize passions for people, education and justice. Jabari is the former inaugural Director and Senior Advisor of LGBTQ Affairs for the Office of the Mayor in Baltimore City, where they supported Baltimore’s three previous Mayoral administrations on the needs and interests of the LGBTQ community. Jabari led the successful effort to develop and pass Baltimore’s gender-neutral public restroom law, Baltimore City Public School’s policy to protect transgender and gender-expansive students from sex-based discrimination, and the law to amend the city charter to create Baltimore’s first-ever Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs. In October 2021, Jabari was appointed by the Governor of Maryland to serve on the state’s first-ever Commission on LGBTQ Affairs. Currently, Jabari works across the U.S. as an independent consultant, providing training and technical assistance for K-12 schools, universities, government and nonprofits. Jabari is a former elementary, middle and high school teacher and a former nonprofit leader at several of Maryland’s local and statewide LGBTQ organizations, including GLSEN Maryland, The Pride Center of Maryland, FreeState Justice, and Baltimore Safe Haven. Their 2017 TEDx Talk, entitled Black Self/White World: Lessons on Internalized Racism gained over 200,000 views and has been featured in racial justice education and university syllabi across the globe.

Tavi Hawn (they/them) is a multi-racial Indigenous nonbinary trans healer, educator, parent, writer, learner, whose work is informed by Southern community organizing. Tavi has worked for over 15 years with various communities and organizations along the path of transformation, liberation, and imagination. They co-dreamed projects such as a southern sleepaway camp for queer and trans youth (QORDS camp), the first iteration of what grew into a multi-racial queer healing campus in North Carolina now called Radical Healing, Reclaim and Rise Therapy, a therapy and consulting practice in Baltimore, MD. Currently they serve as faculty for the Indian Country Trans ECHO, Two Spirit Advisory Council for Southwest Indigenous Women’s Council, Healing and Resilience Coordinator for Campaign for Southern Equality, and coach and retreat builder for Emerge Brave Coaching. Whenever possible Tavi loves spending time with their 3 year old, dancing, reading, laughing, playing hand drums or a drum kit, hugging their elders, and eating.

Eli Washington (he/him) is a political organizer and nonprofit fundraiser who has used his skills and passion to increase civic engagement and improve the lives of low-income communities, BIPOC communities, and the LGBTQIA+ community. He has over a decade of experience in development having led and supported on grant writing, grant management, program design, and operations for small and large nonprofits focused on issues such as transparency in money in politics, poverty alleviation, and, most recently, LGBTQIA+ rights as the Development Director at FreeState Justice, a state-based nonprofit in Baltimore, Maryland supporting the state's low-income LGBTQIA+ community through policy advocacy, legal services, and education and outreach. Additionally, he has promoted community political mobilization efforts at the national, state, and local levels. Eli currently serves as Development Manager for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. Eli holds a bachelor’s in political science from Furman University.

Rajani Gudlavalleti (she/they) a South Indian Asian-American queer woman, is a consultant, facilitator, and writer who revels in explorations of racial equity, social policy, and harm reduction. After receiving extensive training, she served as a lead consultant with Baltimore Racial Justice Action for four (4) years, providing research and facilitation to progressive movement workers seeking to effectively apply racial equity theory to organizational functions and politically strategic projects. She has facilitated over a hundred (100) multiracial discussions to advance anti-racism, primarily advising predominantly white institutions. In this experience, Rajani built an expertise and passion for curating pro-Black solidarity groups of multi-racial POC, non-Black POC, and/or APIA POC. Most recently, she co-led Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition for seven (7) years to advance the organization's development into a premiere resource for public health training, services, and advocacy that is grounded in ending the racist, anti-Black drug war.  Rajani has earned a Masters in Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in Sociology from Willamette University. In 2023, Rajani joined the National Harm Reduction Coalition’s Board of Directors and currently serves as board co-chair. She is a 2024 Roots. Wounds. Words (RWW) Writers’ Retreat for Storytellers of Color Fellow for creative non-fiction.

Ti Malik Coleman (he/him) is a Black trans Baltimore based comedian, teacher, storyteller, improviser, and writer. As a seasoned storyteller with over a decade of experience, Ti Malik has graced stages across Baltimore and the DC area, including the prestigious Kennedy Center stage. He believes healing and liberation happen when people are connected, and uses storytelling to facilitate individuals and groups to process grief, build capacity for Black liberation work, assist with addiction recovery, and celebrate gender expression. Ti Malik also offers personalized storytelling coaching, guiding individuals for keynotes, Ted Talks, and various storytelling opportunities. His training as a community mediator, ongoing education in transformative justice, and unique use of humor as an opener helps create open and brave spaces for movement to identify value in conflict.  A sought-after Improv teacher and coach, he has taught core and advanced classes with esteemed institutions such as the Baltimore Improv Group and Maryland Improv Collective, and launched corporate improv programs with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Baltimore City Office of Equity and Civil Rights and the Annie Casey Foundation. Ti Malik is an active member of Transform Gender Collective (TGC), a collective of transmasculine and masculine-of-center BIPOC committed to learning about transformative justice, co-discovering liberatory masculinities, and finding ways to both heal from harm experienced and take accountability for harm caused. He identifies as an abolitionist, advocating for transformative justice and systemic change.