Hailing from Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in Toronto, Tanya Turton is an award-winning entrepreneur, storyteller, wellness educator, and mental health advocate. Using storytelling, safe space, and education.Tanya has created safer spaces for Black and queer community to feel heard, seen, and witnessed. Over the years she has launched two initiatives: Adornment Stories, a grassroots non-profit for Black women, femmes and non-binary perple navigating mental health challenges to use storytelling to transform their experiences; and NiaZamar: Redefining Beauty, an educational platform where Tanya shares a wealth of knowledge in fields of self/collective care and intersectional wellness. Her work centers early engagement mental health initiatives and intersectional frameworks of engagement.
Rodney Diverlus is a movement artist, performance-maker, artivist, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter — Canada, and a director of Wildseed Center for Art & Activism. Rodney supports organizations, firms, and social movements with projects and initiatives that advance organizational and system change within their ecosystem.
Born and raised in northwest Toronto, Yasmin Ali is a researcher, writer, facilitator, and lifelong reader based in Toronto with a passion for arts-based anti-oppression initiatives and ‘grasping things at the root’ in the legacy of Dr. Angela Davis. Yasmin works with Adornment Stories Collective to implement strategic planning and logistics management as a tool to maintain smooth operations.
Yasmin holds a Masters’ degree from York University in Sociology with an emphasis on Critical Studies, and a Bachelor’s degree from McGill University in Political Science, American History, and Sociology. Her past research primarily focused on the lived experiences of Black Muslims in Canada. Yasmin has eight years of diverse experience in the not-for-profit sector and continues to align her labor with equity-oriented organizations.
Nishi Gouldbourne is the Operations Coordinator of the Our Stories, Our Voices’ team. They have facilitated and created several workshops centering the wellness and healing of Women, Femmes, and GNC folks in the community. Their work prioritizes liberation. Love for their Black kin in the form of care work under a healing justice and love-focused framework. They are a nonbinary femme mother, healer, and creator who recognizes the importance of collective care and joy as being an integral component of resistance. Nishi likes to take the time to talk, dance and share libations with their ancestors by the river as a way to connect with themselves ancestrally. Not only does Nishi enjoy being a parent to a wonderful human being, but they also love being the caregiver and protector of their 30+ green babies at home.