Support from the Markham-Nathan Fund will help send two BIPOC poets and/or movement organizers from Western Massachusetts to this year’s Witches & Warriors Retreat, which will take place in August 2024 at Prindle Pond Conference Center in Charlton, MA. The two Markham-Nathan Fellows (Amina Jordan-Mendez and Kenyatta Robles) will attend workshops, connect with other artists and organizers from across the Northeast, and learn from retreat faculty: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (author of Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice) and Aurielle Marie (movement strategist and winner of a 2022 Lambda Literary Award). Part activist training, part writing workshop, and part movement visioning lab, the Witches & Warriors Retreat will provide these two emerging local BIPOC leaders with mentorship and restorative support to continue the long fight for justice, here in a region that desperately needs the thought leadership of BIPOC communities but often has minimal support structures for those voices. After the retreat, each Markham-Nathan Fellow will give a public presentation in Western Mass to share lessons and insights from the experience, directly bolstering our local movement community. By supporting the professional development of local BIPOC artist-activists, MNF will help bring new ideas about creative activism to our region and help sustain our movements for the long haul.
Bios for the 2024 Markham-Nathan Fellows:
Amina Jordan-Mendez is a Black AfroLatine, pansexual woman born and raised in Western Massachusetts. Having grown up in poverty in a predominantly caucasian area, she has always had to justify expressing her own culture. Amina began performing poetry as a form of advocacy and self care. Developing community rapport through work with youth leadership and equity organizational work since a teen, Amina has always worked in Arts and Human Services. Currently an Arts Facilitator, Community Organizer and Poet-Performer, Amina has created and led arts integration, educator training, and wellness workshops. In addition, she continues to coordinate projects and perform with community-based organizations. Amina considers herself a steward of the community. With training in the emotional, cultural and mental health sectors, Amina’s poetry and facilitation ground at the intersections of shared leadership and community care, and spring from a divine passion for intentional community, authentic expression, and culturally responsive healing.
Kenyatta Muzzanni Robles (she/they) is a writer, organizer, and filmmaker. She lives at the intersection of arts and organizing, a duality that comes natural to Kenyatta having grown up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. She is the Founder & Director of Action Arc Labs, a social change organization dedicated to building power, shifting paradigms, and changing the status quo. Their writing has appeared in the Hartford Courant, the Northend Agent’s, Aislin Magazine, Qommunity’s REVIVE poetry collection, and elsewhere. An interdisciplinary artist, Kenyatta uses writing, audio, film, and live performance to explore our existence, connection, and the universe within and around us. They are a builder and a destroyer committed to our collective struggle for freedom. You can find Kenyatta online @k_muzzanni.
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