The two-year BIPOC Youth Justice and Healing Fellowship will train and support a cohort of emerging BIPOC youth spiritual activists in their aspirations and community-building work.
BIPOC Youth Justice and Healing Fellowship organizers Dr. Marisela Gomez (left) and Kaira Jewel Lingo (right).
The BIPOC Youth Justice and Healing Fellowship (BYJAH), a new initiative led by Kaira Jewel Lingo and Marisela Gomez is seeking nominations for participants. The fellowship will entail a two-year long training and mentorship program for six chosen BIPOC youth spiritual activists that will support them in their aspirations and community building work with BIPOC and impoverished communities. The fellowship aims to help participants gain the skills necessary to dismantle systems of racism and social inequity, within the foundational practice of mindfulness and healing.
The fellowship format is influenced by the work of Thich Nhat Hanh, who regularly gathered activists during the Vietnam War to help renew themselves through community and mindfulness practice. It is also influenced by many BIPOC-led social justice movements such as the Civil Rights Movement, Black Feminist Movement, Farm Workers Movement, Housing Affordability, Land Liberation (including Standing Rock), BIPOC Mindfulness, and others.
The fellowship will take place from March 2022 – December 2023, and will require approximately 4 hours of commitment per week, plus 9 scheduled retreats and training sessions. Over the two years, participants will develop mindfulness practices, access spiritual mentoring and coaching, and design a project that combines mindfulness and social justice in low-income communities of color.
Applications for nominations are due January 1, 2022. For more information on BJAYH, to see nomination criteria, and to apply to the fellowship, visit BYJAH’s website here.
