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Upāsikā Miss tree turtle
Director (CEO) and Lead Teacher of the Baltimore Wisdom Project and Co-Director (Co-CEO) of Wisdom Projects, Inc. Pronouns: she/her Upāsikā Miss tree turtle (Cleis Abeni) is the Director (CEO) and Lead Teacher of the Baltimore Wisdom Project (BWP) and the Co-Director (Co-CEO) of Wisdom Projects, Inc. She helped found the BWP. Please note: "tree turtle" is spelled lowercase even at the beginning of a sentence and it is tree's legal name and ordination name. She has been an ordained Buddhist Upāsikā for 30-plus years. She trained in holistic healing practices rooted in mindfulness across Asia at Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Thailand, the Guangdong Traditional Chinese Medicine School, and other locales. tree serves as the BWP's lead curriculum designer and health navigator. A longtime developer of anti-violence and youth programming, she was one of the first holistic health practitioners and educators to introduce high-quality, evidence-based, secular approaches to mindfulness, restorative justice, and restorative practices to schools, community centers, recreation centers, and prisons in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She earned a certificate in trauma-informed care in 1991 from the Armstrong School for Adult Education in Washington, D.C. in one of the first programs of its kind co-sponsored by Associates for Renewal in Education and Providence Hospital. Along with her training in trauma-informed care, she holds certifications in conflict transformation and several other holistic modalities. Click here for an overview of tree's work and training in holistic health. tree began her work as an educator in 1986 while serving as a US Institute for Peace/DCAC Fellow and a youth facilitator for a Ward 4 after school program sponsored by the Greater Washington D.C. Urban League. She was also a youth leader for what was then called the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL) that year. For thirty-plus years she has designed, implemented, and taught holistic health and education programs. She developed and led anti-recidivist support groups at the Lorton Correctional Complex and other incarceration facilities; and she created and taught mindfulness-centered violence prevention and wellness programs at the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center, 29th Street Community Center, the Chick Webb Center, and many other community centers and recreation centers. She was a former nurse, health navigator, and social worker, and she worked at DC General, Maryland General, Providence Hospital, the Walter P. Carter Center, FutureCare, Hahnemann Hospital, St. Joseph's Hospital, and the Ohio Hospital for Psychiatry. She was a certified public-school teacher in Baltimore, Maryland and Columbus, Ohio who specialized in teaching language arts and life science. She began training teachers and professionals in restorative practices, mindfulness, conflict transformation, and community counseling in 1993 while working for the Consortium for Child Welfare and Associates for Renewal in Education under the guidance of the late Brenda Strong Nixon. She has also taught for private schools, including as the Edith Hamilton Mentor at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore. As an adjunct professor or a teaching fellow in higher education, tree taught at ten colleges and universities in the United States. Click here for an overview of her teaching. She was one of five Program Managers for an anti-violence initiative in Philadelphia called Children’s Behavioral Health Interventions. She was a Mindful Movement Instructor II at the Kennedy Krieger Institute where she helped ensure the fidelity of mindfulness for a research study at a public school. As the Director of Operations for Baltimore's Inner Harbor Project, she wrote the organization's anti-violence mediation handbook and helped train youth how to apply the work of the handbook within workshops for Baltimore City's law enforcement officers and business leaders in Baltimore's downtown district. She has executed anti-violence interventions and mediations internationally in West Africa and Southern China on behalf of organizations such as Genders Within and Midwest Holistic. She also helped uplift the strategic communications, operations, and fundraising of such nonprofit organizations as the Rev. Vernon Dobson group within BUILD; the Institute for Survey Research; Sybil Music & Dance; Many Voices, the Bethune Museum and Archives; and the Shakespeare Theatre. A 2001 Pushcart award-winner for best writing published in small presses, tree is a widely published writer under her name Cleis Abeni; a longtime freelance professional editor and grant-writer; and an investigative journalist for many alternative publications. She holds a MA in poetry and science writing from Johns Hopkins University; and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Education from the Ohio State University. For more information about tree, visit www.treeturtle.com and www.cleisabeni.com. |
Dr. Theodore Richards
Director (CEO), Founder, and Lead Teacher of the Chicago Wisdom Project and Co-Director (Co-CEO) of Wisdom Projects, Inc. Pronouns: he/him Dr. Theodore Richards, is the founder and director (CEO) of the Chicago Wisdom Project, and the Co-Director of Wisdom Projects, Inc. the umbrella organization that houses the Chicago Wisdom Project and Baltimore Wisdom Project. To learn about Theodore Richards and the Chicago Wisdom Project, click here. Theodore Richards is a poet, novelist, and religious philosopher. He is also the editor and publisher of Reimagining Magazine, a major online source of thought leadership (with prose and poetry) on holistic education, anti-oppressive advocacy, and liberationist activism in the United States and beyond. He is also the curator, editor, and host of the Reimagining Podcast, featuring groundbreaking conversations with movers and shakers dedicated to holistic healing and justice in all sectors of life. He is at work on another groundbreaking book from Jossey-Bass about equity, justice, and holistic health in education called Reimagining the Classroom: Creating New Learning Spaces and Connecting with the World. He has received degrees from various institutions such as the University of Chicago, The California Institute of Integral Studies, and the New Seminary where he was ordained. He is a long time student of the Taoist martial art of Bagua and Hatha Yoga and has traveled, worked and studied in 25 different countries, including the South Pacific, the Far East, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. He is the author of numerous books, including the following: His literary awards include the Independent Publisher Awards Gold Medal in religion and religious fiction and the Nautilus Book Awards Gold Medal. In 2019, his book A Letter To My Daughters won the Gold Medal in Memoir at the Independent Publisher Awards in New York City. A leader in the wisdom education movement and an incubator of wisdom projects across the United States, he has worked with youth on the south side of Chicago, the Bronx, Harlem, and Oakland. In Oakland, he was the director of YELLAWE, an innovative program for teens in Oakland created by Matthew Fox, teaching philosophy, cosmology, and martial arts with a particular emphasis on creativity and imagination. Dr. Richards has taught nationally and internationally at such schools as the American University of Paris, Becker College, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughters. You can find more information on Dr. Richards' lifework on his website, www.theodorerichards.com. |
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Shelly Turner, Harper Banneker Teacher, Healer, and Administrative Coordinator
Pronouns: she/her Shelly Turner serves as our full-time Healing Arts Administrative Associate and Executive Assistant at the Baltimore Wisdom Project. She is also a teacher in our out-of-school-time programming. An accomplished illustrator, designer, and writer, she is the author of three illustrated books from Playtime Press, including Quiet Time, and, most recently, my draw wings. She holds a BFA in Graphic Design with a minor in Art History from the University of South Florida. She worked as a Traffic Sign Designer and Fabricator for the City of St. Petersburg and a Research Assistant at the Family Study Center of the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg. where she gained vital experience in facilitating children's mental health. She has designed for the Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa, Florida, and the Explorations V Children's Museum in Lakeland, Florida. She also holds a TESOL certificate and she completed coursework for her Florida Child Care Professional Credentials. For the last three years, she has been teaching English for elementary and middle school native Mandarin and Cantonese speakers aged 3 to 12 for VIPKid. She was the project creator and co-founder of Swings Tampa Bay, a community building organization that hung wooden swings in child-friendly spaces across the South Eastern United States and engaged with children to empower them to paint and draw public art within their communities. She is passionate about early and middle childhood education and justice for LGBTQ youth and adults. To learn more about her, visit https://www.shellyturner.art. This position is named for two Baltimore-born pioneering 18th and 19th century Black scientific, holistic, and artistic teachers and healers who inspire our work: Benjamin Banneker (1701-1806) and Frances Watkins Harper (1825-1911). |
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Dwight S. Warren, John McKim Fellow
Pronouns: he/him Dwight S. Warren is the Executive Director Emeritus of the McKim Center and the McKim Community Association, Inc. For almost fifty years, he was a pioneer for peace and wellness education through athletics as the head of the McKim Center. Mr. Warren is a graduate of Morgan State University and an iconic athletic director, physical education teacher, and wrestling coach whose cerebral approach to sports have advanced the highest ideals for thoughtful, reflective sportsmanship for decades. In 2020, the Maryland State Wrestling Association honored Mr. Warren with the Johnny Eareckson Award for Lifetime Service. He continues to coach wrestling at Mergenthaler Vocational Technical High School in his 70s until this day. He has taught thousands of students and is an incubator of peace programming in Baltimore City. His mentees and students have become leading figures for credible messaging for peace and nonviolence in the greater Baltimore area. Mr. Warren is a pioneer in community education and a lifelong proponent of youth engagement typified by structure, discipline, love, and respect. Mr. Warren helps lead expeditionary learning and field trips for Wisdom Projects in our partnership with the McKim Center. |
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Jasmine Carter, IGR Engagement Specialist
Pronouns: she/her Jasmine Carter provides transportation and engagement services for our Inner Ground Railroad program. Transportation is a habitual barrier to healthy, just living for fixed income, low-income, the disabled, and marginalized people, and we are fortunate to have Jasmine's expertise. Jasmine graduated from Coppin State University with a BS in Criminal Justice with certification in Forensic Science. She’s spent many hours working with the DPSCS as an intern as well as for the Office of the Public Defender. After college, she spent time working towards a Master's degree in Forensic Psychology. Jasmine currently works as a paralegal for Steptoe & Johnson and also works part time baking in her home kitchen. She crafts cakes, cupcakes, and cookies for local friends and families in Baltimore City and surrounding counties. |
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Sara Carney, BWP Intern and Youth Leader
Pronouns: she/her Sara Carney is a 16-year-old youth leader and student at Towson High School who excels at photography and multimedia. She serves as the BWP's Intern. Sara is the point person and co-grant-writer for Wisdom Project's youth-led initiatives. She is committed to human rights, social justice, inclusion, arts education, and LGBTQ rights and equality. Sara is also one of the youth leaders in the Journeymakers program. |
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The Journeymakers
The Journeymakers are a group of predominately Black youth leaders between the ages of 14 and 18 in East Baltimore who work with the Baltimore Wisdom Project and the McKim Center to uplift peace education. Sometimes these youth work in inter-age projects with younger youth or cross-culturally in collaboration with other youth leaders in the Baltimore City area. All Journeymakers receive adolescent-oriented pre-career/pre-college mentoring, restorative justice advising, community participatory mindfulness, and social and emotional learning. The Journeymakers are divided into three subgroups. Sometimes individuals within the subgroups overlap. Most Journeymakers work at the McKim Center and receive small stipends for their employment from the Baltimore Wisdom Project.
Journeymakers Subgroups
The History of the Journeymakers Project In 1988, the late, great Mr. Ernest Johnson, an after school teacher with the Greater Washington, DC Urban League, asked Miss tree turtle (now the CEO of the Baltimore Wisdom Project) if she would teach a few workshops on peace practice, restorative justice, and trauma to local high school students who were, as Mr. Johnson described them, "real troublemakers." Miss tree responded that sometimes our preventions and interventions begin with how we think and speak about the people that we serve. She suggested to Mr. Johnson that, instead of calling the youth "troublemakers" that they be called journeymakers in recognition of their progress and achievements through the challenges in their lives. On that day the Journeymakers™ project was born. Since that year when Journeymakers began, the project has continued in various guises at different schools, community centers, and community colleges for over 30 years. The program's mission has always remained the same: to give marginalized youth who are often viewed as "broken," who endure bullying, who may face contact with the criminal justice system, or who face high rates of suspension, expulsion, and over-correction, opportunities for the following:
Most recently, in 2020 and 2021, the Journeymakers program was in residence at Towson High School in Baltimore County. |