VIOLETA
Violeta Donawa, MA, is a healing justice practitioner and applied sociologist born and raised on the eastside of Detroit, Michigan. She is deeply passionate about the relationship between systemic oppression, intergenerational trauma and healing, and spirit. Her organizing work has included advocacy for survivors of sexual assault, acute crisis intervention support, the co-creation of healing justice practice spaces, and offerings of Reiki healing and empathetic listening. Her own spiritual, mental, and emotional wellness are foundational to her movement work at home, in community, and elsewhere. Most recently, she represented Detroit and the US as a healing justice practitioner within the United Nations 2017 Fellowship Programme for People of African Descent in Geneva, Switzerland.
MARCIA
Marcia Lee, MA aspires to listen deeply, laugh wholeheartedly, and to create a more just and compassionate world. She is a facilitator of Courage and Renewal retreats; trains and supports community in restorative justice circles; teaches tai chi; is an acudetox specialist; trains with PeoplesHub, an online movement school; and is a founding member of Healing by Choice!. She co-founded Taproot Sanctuary (an intentional community living for spirituality, right relationship with the earth, and social justice) and the Detroit Area Restorative Justice Center. Marcia worked for over a decade with the Capuchin Franciscans as a Director of multiple programs: Cap Corps Midwest (a full-time volunteer program), the Justice and Peace Office, and the Office of Mission and Ministry.
KEZIA
“As you journey through life, choose your destination wisely, but don’t hurry there. You will arrive soon enough. Wander the back roads, the forgotten paths, the unknown ways, as you keep your dreams in your heart as the light that guides you.
Seek out new voices, strange sights, and bold ideas. Such things are riches for the soul.” - Linda Staten
Kezia R. Curtis has traveled a long road in her 30 plus years of life. As a child she felt a deep calling to help, heal, love and protect those around her. This passion has taken many forms over the years. As an aspiring healer Curtis extends her food love language and reiki practice to community as an offering of gratitude, growth and healing. Curtis also has a passion for facilitating cherished and fun spaces that lean into use of creativity to connect to our worth as individuals and as a community to navigate relationship building, conflict and creation of safer community spaces.
JOYA
Joya D'Cruz has lived and worked in different parts of the world and now practices as a somatic psychotherapist in Ypsilanti and Detroit, MI. She offers mind-body trainings and guides mindfulness based meditation sessions in the community. Reiki and ear Acu-detox are also part of her offerings. As she continues to evolve, she is committed to sharing what she has learned in her training and life experiences to cultivate more conscious, loving, and ease-ful living. Visit her website for more information: www.joyadcruz.com
CARMEN
Carmen Malis King, M.A., CLC is a Detroit-rooted herbalist, doula, and community health worker. Carmen’s work is guided by exploring connections between health, environmental justice, and ancestral/traditional ways of healing. Through her herbalism practice, Tierra Libre Wellness, Carmen offers workshops and one-on-one sessions that coach individual ways to integrate plants for promoting health and inner balance. As a doula, she has supported individuals and families during various reproductive health experiences, assisted a birth justice organization in creating culturally relevant training materials for doulas, and volunteered in a doula-accessibility initiative. Carmen works as a Community Health Worker and a Certified Lactation Counselor in a local early childhood and parenting health promotion program. She holds a Masters of Arts in Integrative Health Studies (2015) from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), and is certified in Integrative Wellness Coaching and Transformative Imagery. She loves gardening, learning plant identification, opportunities to karaoke, facing the challenges of writing poetry, and making tea blends.
ADELA
Adela Nieves Martinez, RMT, CCT, ADS, is a Traditional Community Health and Healing Arts Practitioner. She is deeply committed to her Taino (indigenous peoples of the Caribbean) roots and restorative wellness approaches, practicing Acudetox (ear acupuncture), indigenous traditional medicine, cupping therapy, whole person natural care, and Reiki for individuals and groups struggling with addiction, PTSD, stress, and trauma. Adela created the idea of Healing by Choice!, and the rest of the group brought it to life.
Adela supports people in their journeys to tell their own story and define health, healing, and wellness for themselves. Adela is especially passionate about developing integrative processes for building community-based support structures for health-care, mental health, disability and resource sharing. She collaborates with individuals and groups of health practitioners, healers, and health justice organizers; locally and nationally to create community modeled healing practice spaces and mobile clinics.
ADRIENNE
adrienne maree brown is a writer, facilitator and healer living in Detroit. She offers coaching, tarot and somatic bodywork.