Social and Environmental Educators teaching our SomaSource Leaders

Please stay tuned for a listing Social Justice classes that are open to the public. And please join our email list for timely invitations.

Some of our Presenters

Dr. Paul Hill

Elder Paul Hill, Jr. founded The National Rites of Passage Institute (NROPI) in 1993. Mr Hill’s involvement with the rites of passage took root in the late 1970s with his seven children and their friends. His rites of passage experiences evolved from a family and community initiative to a city, state and national movement that peaked in late 1990s.

For over 30 years, The National Rites of Passage Institute (NROPI) has worked in collaboration with communities, organizations, practitioners and scholars, to facilitate child and youth development and community building through the use of culturally-specific rites of passage. The process promotes cultural identity, character building, leadership development and Manhood/Womanhood development. NROPI has trained hundreds of adults who have impacted over 10,000 young people throughout the United States and Canada.

Elder Hill is a Co-publisher of The Black Child Journal along with authoring numerous articles and the seminal book, Coming of age: African American male rites of passage (1997).

Dr. Antonella Regueiro

Dr. Antonella Regueiro, assistant professor, teaches courses within the university’s core curriculum, the Dialogues of Learning, and within the social impact and justice minor. Her undergraduate studies at Florida International University focused on international relations, with a second major in religious studies. She received her Ph.D. in conflict analysis and resolution from Nova Southeastern University, and an M.S. in the same field from the same institution. Her research areas focus on genocide, mass atrocities and issues of structural violence and human rights.

Regueiro also currently serves as the Social Impact Faculty Fellow for the Social Impact Lab. In this role, she acts as the bridge between the Social Impact Lab and other academic departments, including all six colleges at the university. In addition, she aids in the coordination of operational logistics for experiential learning programs such as Ambassador Corps, the UN Millennium Fellowship and others.

Regueiro is heavily involved with social impact initiatives on campus, organizing a supply drive for refugees during her first year as an instructor (2015); serving as Assistant Director to Project Civitas (2016–2019); becoming the first Ambassador Corps Faculty Fellow (2017); helping initiate the Language Café as a collaborative effort between Lynn’s library and local non-profit Church World Services (CWS) (2018); serving as part of the Comfort Cases planning committee since the project’s inception (2018–present); co-leading the Social Impact Taskforce (2018–present) and more.

Education

B.A., Florida International University
M.S., Nova Southeastern University
Ph.D., Nova Southeastern University

Teaching philosophy

Antonella Regueiro believes that teaching is a process in which both students and teachers learn. She is a firm believer in the Socratic method of teaching, as it entices students to do more than just read, memorize and recall information it encourages conversation, learning and mutual understanding. She believes that aiding students in learning how to find information in the vast and sometimes intimidating world of knowledge, is more important than assessing their ability to memorize dates for tests which they will forget as soon as they walk out of the classroom.

She expects students in her classes to interact and learn from each other while she guides them by facilitating their discussions and allowing for subject exploration within the boundaries of the field. She is passionate about the fact that the power of knowledge lies in the hands of a community of scholars, and not solely on her own and that there is no growth in a class where instructors simply sit and lecture what students have already learned from their readings. The point of teaching is to teach students to question what they know, what they think they know and what they might not know. Her wish is to introduce to students a path towards higher education in a way that will encourage students to continue trotting it, rather than deter them from it.

Teaching specialties

Conflict analysis and resolution
Genocide studies
International relations

Awards and honors

• Shield Award – Presented by KOR (2018)
• Delta Epsilon Iota
• Theta Alpha Kappa
• National Society of Collegiate Scholars

Michelle and Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish

Michelle and Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish have been guiding the Golden Bridge community into inspired and difficult social and environmental learning opportunities and conversations for over a decade. We are eternally indebted to them for their inspired leadership.

Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish: Seeking eco-cultural regeneration, cultural imagination, and illuminating the connections between sustainability and social justice.

Michelle has been the Assistant Director for Energy & Climate Justice at CU Boulder’s Environmental Center. She is now working at the innovative Movement Strategy Center in Oakland, California. She is a former US State Department BoldFood fellow (Uganda), a former Center for Progressive Leadership fellow. She is the founder of Candelas Glows raising awareness about the radioactive dangers of Rocky Flats—a nuclear superfund site turned “wildlife refuge” essentially in her back yard, is a facilitator for Joanna Macy’s “Work That Reconnects,” and is an instructor of permaculture design.

Michelle is a multi-ethnic poet, wife, and mother of three. She first became involved with Golden Bridge in 2002.

Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish has developed a pedagogy that synthesizes mindfulness, embodiment, social justice, the environment, mentoring and ritual & ceremony for over a decade. As a core candidate Assistant Professor In Naropa University’s Interdisciplinary Studies department he teaches foundations in contemplative learning and theory, diversity and social identity and sustainability. He also focuses on the equity dimensions of the environment through courses in food and environmental justice. He serves as a freelance educator, lecturer and consultant on the links between social justice, sustainability and mindfulness for universities, outdoor organizations, non-profits, government and businesses.

Ramon is a certified practitioner of SomaSource and longtime leader/facilitator in the Surfing The Creative International Youth Leadership Camps, having helped usher hundreds of young people through contemporary threshold experiences. As a previous board member of Youth Passageways and a current board chair for Frontline Farming, Ramon is committed to the revival of rites of passage and community regeneration and resilience.

Dara Burwell

Key Components of Power & Oppression: Looking Through the Lens of Race

Dara Burwell is the President and founder of Transformative Alliances LLC, and is dedicated to personal and collective liberation. Dara has formally worked as an anti-oppression and equity consultant for nine (9) years, and has led trainings, discussion groups, and other anti-oppression related activities for fifteen (15)
years. Her work has encompassed both continuing and short-term projects, customized to suit each organization, including designing and conducting workshops, providing individual and small group coaching, and supporting equity based organizational development. Her upbringing as a queer woman of mixed racial heritage has always provided her with multifaceted observations on privilege and power. transformativealliances.com/author/daratransforming

Dr. Anneliese Singh

Anneliese Singh, PhD, LPC is an award-winning social justice scholar, author, speaker, and community organizer who speaks on a wide variety of racial justice and LGBTQ+ topics. She is a Professor and Associate Dean of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the College of Education at the University of Georgia. Trained as a counselor and psychologist, she wrote the Racial Healing Handbook to provide practical activities to challenge privilege, address systemic racism, and engage in collective racial healing. Dr. Singh’s workbook, the Queer and Transgender Resilience Workbook, focuses on skills for LGBTQ+ healing, empowerment, and social change. Her research, practice, and advocacy explores the resilience and liberation experiences of trans people, people of color, survivors of trauma, South Asian immigrants, and social justice and empowerment training, and she has over 100 publications among these areas. Dr. Singh founded the Georgia Safe Schools Coalition and the Trans Resilience Project to translate her LGBTQ+ research findings into school and community-based change efforts. Her TEDx Talks have explored gender liberation, and she has been described as a transformative speaker inspiring “real-world” social change. Dr. Singh has designed workshops on diversity, equity, and inclusion that support school, community, nonprofit, and corporate organizations integrate equity and justice into their organizational practices and policies. Anneliese passionately believes in and strives to live by the ideals of Dr. King’s beloved community, as well as Audre Lorde’s reminder that “without community, there is no liberation.”

Fanon Hill, Elder Shirley Foulks & Navasha Daya

Join us at a film screening of Lom Nava Love, an urban rite of passage documentary and a panel discussion in collaboration with Golden Bridge.

Lom Nava Love tells the unflinching story of Black families in inner-city Baltimore harnessing their strengths to challenge the systems and institutions that would dictate their realities. Centered on the work of community organizer Shirley Foulks and directed by Youth Resiliency Institute founder Fanon Hill, Lom Nava Love documents Foulks’ engagement with families in public housing and how she uses art to communicate the abilities, strengths, and power to effect change that Black families innately possess.

All three of these beloved friends and mighty leaders will join us for a conversation after the showing of this seminal film. Elder Shirley Foulks has gifted her community with loving and safe space for children and families to get off the streets, heal and create new social norms. She works closely with the key organizers for community transformation on the streets of Baltimore, Fanon Hill and Navasha Daya. Fanon Hill provides community-centric programming to vulnerable populations through performance and creative arts-based rites of passage process that has at it core the ideals of collective responsibility, activism, and philanthropy. Navasha Daya is a singer, songwriter, producer, musician, and performing arts curator, certified healer, and spiritual and cultural arts activist. lomnavalove.com