Impact
Across the Central Valley, people are working every day to transform their lives and their communities. Our region has a long history of community organizing and a rich culture shaped by the hard-working families who call the Valley home.
Yet, too often, our advocacy and organizing spaces leave out conversations about health and sustainable mobilization of resources. For Black, Indigenous, and Immigrant communities, and Communities of Color, support for mental health is especially limited. The systemic disparities at play in the Central Valley can keep health, hope, and healing out of reach.
Our programs and experiences are custom-built to meet the emerging needs of our community partners. We also host ongoing programming that invites our neighbors on a healing journey that is rooted in culture and connection.
Abolition Reading Materials — Abolition in the Central Valley
Decolonizing Therapy
The Home-Grown Fellowship was created as a component of ExpresArte’s programming with the purpose of supporting therapists of color in the Central Valley who are on the journey of becoming licensed therapists, and for licensed therapists to unlearn their biases and the ones inherent in the Medical Industrial Complex. Members of the cohort will be supported with tools, training, coaching, and programming centered on decolonizing therapy and building relationships in the community rooted in trust, culture, and healing justice.
Applications for 2021 are closed.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us: victor@expresartewellness.org
The Home-Grown Therapy Fund, is an ongoing Mutual Aid effort to ensure Central Valley residents are able to access quality Mental Health Care that is culturally competent and decolonized. Funds will be redistributed to residents of the Central Valley who wish to seek Mental Health Care from a list of trusted and licensed practitioners.
If you would like to make a contribution, click the button below and make sure to add in the notes that your donation is specifically for the therapy fund.
Individual Trainings
Recordings of our trainings will soon be available for those who are interested, with the donation/monetary contribution to the Home-Grown Therapy Program.
The Black Youth
Empowerment
Program
In collaboration with Central Valley Scholars, the Black Youth Empowerment Program creates a network of Black leadership across the Central Valley, and advances Black wellness, education, creativity, and empowerment of the Diaspora.
Have you been affected financially by COVID-19?
ExpresArte is a part of the Central Valley Mutual Aide Network, a grassroots collective that formed in March 2020 to address the emerging needs of our most vulnerable local community members. All members are from one of the eight San Joaquin Valley counties (Kings, Tulare, Kern, Madera, Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Merced and Fresno) and many members are from fellow San Joaquin Valley organizations that work with low-income communities, undocumented individuals and families, workers, LGBTQ+, and communities of color. CVMA centers displaced Black, brown, indigenous, disabled, migrant, and LGBTQ+ in our efforts and the unincorporated areas of the San Joaquin Valley through an intentional and intergenerational approach.
All Bodies Yoga
We recognize that true liberation requires not just liberation of thought but also the physical liberation of our bodies. Every year many folx put their bodies through immense amounts of stress by setting health related resolutions that end up doing more harm than good. By holding space for folx of every color, body shape and ability, All Bodies Yoga served to break the cycle by representing a form of healing that has been gatekept and appropriated by the wellness industry in a more inclusive light.
NOT Your Mom’s Support Group
NOT Your Mom’s Support Group is a storytelling series by and for Disabled and Chronically ill folx. Often impairments and ailment isolates and impedes the ability to form community in a physical capacity. Stories of disabled and chronically ill people are also mishandled and told without input of disabled folx. By centering the stories told directly by our community member we hope to bring awareness around the limitations of disability rights and the movement for disability justice.
Watch the livestream here.
They Got Skillz: Gender Affirmation + Healing
Our workshop on gender confirming make-up was an effort to collaborate with The Source LGBT+ Center: another local organization that serves the LGBTQIA+ communities of Tulare county. We know that the validation of one’s gender is super important to one’s wellness and healing. By developing makeup skills in a away to confirm one’s gender identity, we hope to promote gender euphoric experiences, as well as hold space in the community for folx to express their identity freely.
They Got Skillz: Knitting Workshop
Our very first workshop was held at Dulce Upfront in Fresno. Crafting is a great tool used to destress, and knitting is especially helpful. Because of the ability to create pieces of apparel for yourself while also indulging in time to craft, we wanted to produce a series of workshops that focused on skill sharing, and knitting was something our Program Director Adrienne knew how to do and knew how to teach.
