The Equity Collective is a non-hierarchical collaboration. We embody honesty and non-violence to support the thorough investigation of social inequity and systems of oppression. Through collaboration across discipline, partners commit to the dismantling of inequitable social structures and the creation of a society that practices radical inclusion.
Thoughtful evaluation and analysis, of both internal and external systems of inequity, allows organizations to identify harmful structures as well as the individuals that create and maintain them. Whether through organizational overhaul, executive coaching, or products and programs, our team supports the development of a holistic framework designed to deepen your organizations commitment to, and practice of, inclusion and equity.
Oakland, CA
Performing and Visual Arts, PK-12 Education and Higher Education Faculty Development, Health and Wellness, Curriculum Development, Parenting
Dia Penning (she, her) is an Inclusion Facilitator, Yin Yoga Instructor, and founder of the Equity Collective. With a Master’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College, she is able to work in a number of different spaces. She has supported a diverse array of clients, from the National Parks Service to various yoga teacher training programs, arts organizations to tech executive coaching. Dia assists clients in investigating limiting assumptions and expanding their ideas of what is possible. Working one on one or in large groups, clients examine blockages in their bodies and minds, parallel them to external structures in interpersonal relationships, accumulated history and policy. They then investigate new possibilities, use the breath and mindful attention to challenge long held habits and create change.
Dia has published three volumes of curricula on structural racism as well as an at home study guide for parents interested in talking to their children about race. Dia is a fellowship graduate of the Network Learning Leadership Lab (Management Assistance Group) and collaborates on a Yoga and Social Justice trainings with Love Light Yoga out of Vancouver, BC and in Jamaica. She has held leadership positions at the City of San Francisco, the City of Chicago, Columbia College and California College of the Arts.
San Diego, CA
K-12 Education and Higher Education Faculty Development, Government, Corporate, Curriculum Development, Sexuality
Lott Hill (he, him) is the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at University of the Pacific in California. He has taught classes in creative writing, cultural studies, journalism, service-learning, and collaborative portfolio development. His work in faculty development and student learning is underpinned by the principles and practices of social and restorative justice, civic engagement, equity and inclusion, and community building as pedagogical practice.
Oakland, CA
Higher Education, Non Profit, Health and Wellness, Community Partnerships, Curriculum Development, Leadership Development
Rajelin Escondo (she/her or they/them) is a Creative Facilitator, Coach, and Yoga & Meditation Instructor. As a Pacific School of Religion Changemaker Fellow and with a Certificate in Spirituality and Social Change, Raj supports individuals and organizations in the development of leadership, community partnerships, and project implementation with a focus on wellness and sustainability.
Raj assists clients in re-imagining culture and work environments. With a Master’s Degree in Higher Education and Organizational Change from UCLA, and a praxis founded in abundance, compassion, equity, and inclusion, she specializes in working with organizations in holding expansive spaces to think and create. Raj is a facilitator for Gratitude Blooming. She is also a retreat creator for the Hestia Retreat Center where she creates an intergenerational space for family celebration and healing.
Oakland, CA
Government, Corporate, Violence, Police, Internalized Racism
Ada Palotai (she, her) is a queer mixed race woman of color who thinks strategically and grounds herself in the value of relationships. She is a Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner, and identifies as a healer-in-training. Working in the anti-gender-based violence field since 2001, as an advocate for victims/survivors, has taught her skills she can harness to do just about anything – from fixing a leaky faucet to managing large budgets to counseling someone who was contemplating suicide. Now called to the intersections – of violence prevention, racial equity, and liberation; of organizations and organizers; and of the scientific and the sacred, Ada inspires collaboration. Bringing a community organizing orientation with expertise in program/curriculum design, organizational/leadership development, and training and facilitation, she is a bridge-builder, able to strike the delicate balance between diplomacy and transparency. Ada facilitates the forging of relationships among those whom would otherwise be unlikely friends.A founding member of Peace Pros LA – a violence prevention coalition whose aim is to change social norms about masculinity that perpetuate violence, Ada explores embodiment practices as vehicles for individual and collective healing and liberation. She specifically explores the role of APIs, non-Black POC, and mixed race folks in racial equity and liberation work; and developing multi-lingual organizing spaces.Originally from Los Angeles, Ada lives in Oakland with her partner and their two dogs, and pursues fashion as a hobby in her free time.
New Orleans, LA
Performing and Visual Arts, Youth Development, Intergeneration, Gender
ChE (they, them) is a Queer GNC Afro-Indigenous artivist weaving ancestral healing, transformative consulting, and social-engaged artmaking. ChE is an honored Fellow for the 2017-2018 Intercultural Leadership Institute celebrating their unique intersectional justice framework, Afro-Indigenous Liberatory Practice. Creator of the Underground Railroad: Liberatory Coaching for Creative Radicals of Color, ChE supports (QT)POC artists, activists, and innovators in charting a path to freedom. As the co-founder/host of the BGD podcast, Spirit Medicine, they provides accessible wellness tools and rituals centering (QT)POC. Rooted in multigenerational community, ChE is the founder of the Art Liberation Troupe, a QTPOC youth performance group utilizing mentorship, dance, guerilla theatre, and political education workshops as tools for social change. ChE’s work as a cultural organizer includes Breaking the Silence: Teen Salon, Destiny Arts Center’s Q.E.A.R., The Time is Now, Black Folks Dinner, Emergence, #BlackHealingMatters, and The New Orleans Loving Festival. As a director/ choreographer, ChE’s work is robust with gospel soul sounds and movement of the African Diaspora that leave feet stomping and hands clapping. Brown University’s Black Spatial Relics Artist-in-Residence, ChE brings their Black Lives Matter artivist toolkit, #DignityInProcess throughout the country—merging site-specific performance rituals, Afro-Indigenous Wisdom Councils, and Freedom Schools celebrating the dignity of expansive Black evolution.
Follow the process at http://che-art.life/
Los Angeles, CA
Non Profit, Violence, Internalized Racism, Parenting, Police
Trina Greene Brown (she, her) has worked in violence prevention for the past 15 years, managing multiple local and national initiatives. She launched Parenting for Liberation as a space for parents of Black children to envision a world where our children are cultivated to be their most liberated selves. Before creating Parenting for Liberation, Trina engaged leaders within the violence against women’s movement to build an inclusive gender and racial justice movement via her role as Outreach and Engagement Manager at Move to End Violence, a ten-year initiative of the NoVo Foundation. She also served as a Director for the YMCA, incorporating violence prevention education focusing on resiliency in the Department of Youth Development. Formerly a Manager at Peace Over Violence, a social service agency dedicated to the elimination of sexual and domestic violence and all forms of interpersonal violence, Trina co-authored a female empowerment curriculum, Be Strong: From The Inside Out, and contributed to the second revision of In Touch With Teens, a nationally recognized relationship violence prevention curriculum. She is the proud co-parent of two African American children, whom she raises with her husband in California to reach for the stars.
Chicago, IL
Literary Arts, K-12 Education and Higher Education Faculty Development, Curriculum Development, Parenting
Megan Stielstra (she, her) is the author of three collections, most recently The Wrong Way To Save Your Life from Harper Perennial, and her work appears in the Best American Essays, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Guernica and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, Radio National Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Goodman Theatre, and regularly with The Paper Machete live news magazine at The Green Mill. She believes in storytelling as a form of social justice and teaches writing and performance in traditional and nontraditional classroom spaces around Chicago and the country. She is currently a writer-in-residence at Northwestern University.
The Equity Collective 