Diwali Asian Diaspora Mini-Jam Registration

LiZhen Wang is an astrologer, facilitator, and food-grower based in Huchiun (Oakland) and Taipei. They have been a counseling astrologer since 2014, and they recently started the Astrology for Social Movements project to bring astrology into conversation with abolition. In addition to research and 1-1 counseling, LiZhen also teaches a 3-month program called ON PURPOSE: An Astrological Discovery of What You’re Here For. It is their life’s delight to listen to the planets — Earth, Moon, and beyond — and to help others tune in as well.

Kazu Haga is a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice, a core member of the Ahimsa Collective and the Fierce Vulnerability Network and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm. He works with incarcerated people, youth, and activists from around the country. He has over 20 years of experience in nonviolence and social change work, and has been an active trainer since 2000. He resides in Lisjan Ohlone land, a.k.a Oakland, CA.

Karen B.K. Chan (she/they) is a sex and emotional literacy educator in Toronto, Canada. She is an immigrant from Hong Kong, an only child, and a recovering overworker. BK came out as queer at 15, as an aspiring radical at 23, and as pretty happily basic at 42. In the last few years, she shifted personal priorities from being “good” to being warm, from being right to being more forgiving, and the Jam has played a big part in both. BK works full-time speaking and training, and all the time on taking better care of herself. She is also bringing up a couple of jammy babies with her jam love.

Hyoyoung Minna Kim has recently digested herself to succumb to the goopiness of the chrysalis phase after having transitioned out of eleven years of teaching in elementary public schools. She is slowly regenerating on native land of the Tulalip and Snohomish people, colonially known as Everett, Washington. Minna is currently nurturing her curiosities around storytelling via crafting children’s books and consultation via facilitating spaces that center our beautifully messy humanity. She is a big believer of radical & loving honesty, body-wisdom, community-driven initiatives, and children’s literature. Finally, nature is her favorite teacher and playmate in the whole wide universe.

Amadeo Cruz Guiao is an organizational healer/consultant, facilitator, and spiritual teacher. Born in Brooklyn and raised mostly in Coast Salish/Duwamish territories colonially known as Seattle, Amadeo is a queer, gender nonbinary, decolonizing child of Filipinx immigrants. Their spiritual path guides everything they do, and they have been so blessed to learn from their own mystical Filipinx traditions, and have also studied with and been trained by esteemed teachers from the Brazilian Amazon and Coast Salish territories. They are deeply passionate about their work supporting community-led organizations and visionary leaders from the most resilient and marginalized communities to effect transformative social change. Coming from a healing justice lens, they provide culturally appropriate organizational development strategies in contexts as vastly different as remote upland indigenous communities in war-stricken Mindanao, Philippines, to rural Native reservations in the Pacific Northwest, to their queer and trans communities of color in progressive Seattle.

Shilpa Jain is currently rooting herself in Oakland/Berkeley, CA. For 11+ years, she served as the Executive Director of YES!, working with social changemakers at the meeting point of internal, interpersonal and systemic change, and aiming to co-create thriving, just and balanced ways of life for all. Prior to taking on this role, Shilpa spent two years as the Education and Outreach Coordinator of Other Worlds and ten years as a learning activist with Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, based in Udaipur, India, where she served as coordinator of the Swapathgami (Walkouts-Walkons) Network. She has facilitated dozens of transformative leadership gatherings with hundreds of young leaders from over 50 countries. She is passionate about dance and music, organic and natural farming, upcycling and zero waste living, asking appreciative questions and being in community. A focus on healing, forgiveness, compassion, love and wholeness permeates all of her work and life.