Decolonizing and Re-Indigenizing Our Mind-Body-Spirit Connection through the Baobab Tree by @ngoma_mulema_se
Decolonizing and Re-Indigenizing Our Mind-Body-Spirit Connection through the Baobab Tree by @ngoma_mulema_se
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About the Event
DATE: Sunday 17th August 2025
TIME: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM BST / 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM ET / 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM PT
A knowledge share integrating ancestral understandings of the Baobab tree to nurture mind-body-spirit connections through Disability Justice values and Indigenous lenses that allow us to witness our mental states in liberating, heart centered ways.
This knowledge share will explore how we can decolonize and re-Indigenize our healing through the Indigenous ancestral understandings of the Baobab tree, a tree Indigenous to various regions of Africa and Australia. We will reflect on how the spirit of the Baobab tree can help us find meaning from Disability Justice and Healing Justice approaches.
Indigenous knowledge systems all over the world turned to nature to more deeply witness and understand various mental conditions, states, and experiences now referred to in the western world as neurodivergence.
In many African regions, the tree is a meeting place, a point of ancestral connection, and provides much nutritional value that can help us nurture our mind-body-spirit connections.
FAQs
Who can attend this event?
This event is open to Black and Brown people only (i.e., those who are part of the global majority, the African, Asian, Indigenous, & Caribbean diasporas who are racialised as Black or Brown).
There's an option available for white people who would like to sponsor a ticket!
Are the tickets/places limited?
There are a limited number of places, so book now to avoid missing out!
Do I get a discount if I'm a member?
Get your discounted member-only ticket from within your membership account! Become a member.
Will this event be recorded?
This event will be recorded and made available to members. Become a member.
For the full experience, sign up to the live event before places run out!
Additional questions?
Contact NEUROMANCERS. We'll reply ASAP.
About the Facilitator
Elmina Bell is an Indigenous African Psycho-Spiritual Practitioner. Her work as a trauma-informed peer support facilitator, crisis worker, sidereal astrologer, sound healer, medium, and sound healer is guided by Ngoma Mulema Se philosophies of their various African ancestors spanning Sawa Bantu from Cameroon, Ewe/ga peoples in Togo and many more across the continent.
Elmina is working with her ancestors on various projects such as BlackPolarBrain (a holistic Indigenous ancestral perspective on her bipolar diagnosis) and 'Indigenius Mental Health' to build healing structures beyond carceral Western systems of care that have led to the murders of Sonya Massey, Ryan Gainer, and too many other Black people with mental conditions.
As an academia dropout who honors education outside of formal university settings, Elmina's work aims to decolonize and re-indigenize mental health by sharing her ongoing journey of Indigenous African spirituality to help people remember their ancestral lineages that were violently disrupted but still survive on in us, and by embracing the knowledge of those with lived experiences with mental states/conditions/disabilities.
Access Info
- Camera Optional
- Mic Optional
- Chat Available
- Breakout Rooms Included
- Active Participation Optional
- Break Included
- Slides (screen-sharing on the day)
About NEUROMANCERS
NEUROMANCERS is a peer-led organisation providing autonomous, abolitionist, and accessible mental health care for and by the neurodivergent+ community.
To NEUROMANCE means to 'fall in love with divergence'.
The mainstream healthcare system fails our community by labelling neurodivergent+ people 'defective' and 'disordered'.
NEUROMANCERS seek to provide an alternative. Instead, we fall in love with divergence. Our traits are neither 'curses' nor 'superpowers'. We are simply people surviving a society that oppresses and excludes us in the best ways we know how.
NEUROMANCERS is here to support you - at whatever stage of the journey you are on - by providing autonomous, abolitionist, and accessible mental health care, by us and for us.