RAGE HEALING MINI GRANT #2020

Image: Epiphaunye Crystals

In honor of the winter solstice and the great conjunction, we launched our very first RAGE Healing Mini Grant on December 21, 2020. The purpose of the grant was to support young people on their social entrepreneurship/healing journey. We believe youth innovation and creativity can be a difference maker for children and adults throughout our community.

Thanks to unexpected gifts from Black Womxn United and Psychologists for Social Responsibility we planned to fund two grants; after our community stepped in, we were able to sow a seed into the healing business of six young people. Winners were decided by a committee of RAGE youth & student volunteers.

Keep reading to learn more about each of the winners, and most importantly patronize their business and support them on their journeys!

Epiphaunye Crystals

Aunye Scott-Anderson is the founder of Epiphaunye Crystals, a crystal shop that grew from Scott-Anderson’s desire to share her respect for crystal energy, after she made the conscious decision to stop taking pharmaceutical drugs to solve ailments that could be treatable with meditation, crystal healing and intentional breath work. The crystal’s energy is manifested through her designs, created to hug and display the crystal's natural beauty.

Follow Epiphaunye Crystals on Instagram or their website.

Suave Art

Luis Garcia with Suave Art's intentions are to create art for the community in order to inspire youth and showcase a healthy art form of self-expression. Garcia proposes to organize and teach spray paint art classes. Luis has a first hand experience and knowledge of struggles and tough circumstances youth face daily and strives to motivate and provide the tools and resources necessary to self-heal through art.

Follow Suave Art on Instagram.

The Sistaaz Collective

Nyabingha Zianni McDowell’s organization The Sistaaz Collective believes in the healing of Black Women. McDowell incorporates a number of different aspects to her business that hold space for transformation and growth. McDowell believes that revolutionary self care, radical self love, and the diaspora of self discovery are essential to a healthy mental, physical and spiritual state of being. With the money from the grant, McDowell plans to aim to create A Black Woman's Guide to Self, fleshed out in different chapters with real life stories, advice, tools and strategies. Nyabingha also offers one of a kind, handmade jewelry.

Follow The Sistaaz Collective on Instagram or their website.

Sanando Linaje

Lupe Renteria Salome provides personal development coaching and co-creates spaces for young people to recognize and acknowledge the areas for growth and healing to build-self awareness. Renteria Salome envisions a consistent space that serves as a bridge for inter-generational wisdom exchange between elders and youth for transformative healing. Salome is working towards a group coaching cohort in 2021 where she plans to provide stipends to young people committed to self-work and also compensate the elders for sharing their knowledge.

Follow on Instagram or go to her website.

The Original Goddess

Liza Bustillo is a holistic healer aiming to assist and spark others on their self-healing/conscious journey through card readings, reiki sessions and other healing forms. Bustillo aspires to become an Holistic Psychologist and a well-rounded healer.

Follow their Instagram and website.

End Game Clothing

Tazia Bost is the founder and CEO of End Game Clothing. Thier brand was founded on life struggles, meaningful lessons, and a drive to never give up. With a will to change the mindset of others, Bost desires to encourage others to not give up on fulfilling their purpose in life and not lose sight of their personal ambition. She stated in her own words that "although it may be a hoodie to some, it can be a changing force in the mentality of others."

Go to their website.

The RAGE Project thanks every single applicant for sharing their business dreams and visions with us. We are convinced YOUth are what YOUth need. We also encourage you to support these young healing entrepreneurs by shopping in their stores and marketing their services on your own social media sites. Finally, this mini grant made way for the RAGE HEAL Fellowship. A healing, entreprenurism and leadership program for Sacramento's youth social entrepreneurs. To donate to the fellows, or help fund future mini grant winners, please click here.

To Ease Reentry, Help the Hosts Who Offer Couch Hopping

When Carlos first came to live with us he was about 16. A friend of my son’s, he had a long history of family and housing instability and had been recently kicked out by his mom. As his informal host, I thought I did everything “right.” We already had a strong relationship; I met with his mom, laid out house rules and talked about his plans for the future. 

What I didn’t take into account was the influence of all the systemic factors he battled on a daily basis. As a black woman, I understood the impact of racism, poverty and the other oppressions Carlos had to navigate. Understanding alone doesn’t prevent us from experiencing the harm.

As a young black man, there were concrete ways these frames played out in Carlos’ everyday life. He couldn’t get a job due to his felony, and even though he had a roof over his head and food in his belly, that wasn’t enough to prevent him from making money the way he knew how. Carlos also battled mental health issues due to childhood trauma; aside from anger management classes, there were very few resources for young black men to engage in healing. Finding housing was just the beginning of the support he needed. 

Carlos stayed with us on and off for a few years. I heard rumors he had been getting in trouble and didn’t want to bring any negative traffic to our house. So, without giving me a lot of details, he decided it was time to move on. A few months later he was arrested for a robbery, and after a few probation violations and some new charges, served a couple of years in prison. He would call periodically. I thought of him often. 

When Carlos was preparing for his release from prison, he struggled with finding a place to go. He paroled to a relative’s house and almost immediately showed up on our doorstep. He said, “There was too much going on over there Mama Stacey.” We hadn’t communicated as much as we would have liked while he was gone, but there was no way we were going to have him on the streets.  Continue reading here:

Machine Learning and Ethical Risk Management

By Jody S. Johnson, JD.

"The application of an ethical risk management framework is vital to the accurate assessment of the liability we expose ourselves and agencies to when operating within collaborative efforts."

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In the first chapter of Lewis Carroll’s 1865 classic, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Alice follows the White Rabbit into his burrow, which transports her to a strange, surreal, and nonsensical world of Wonderland. When it comes to risk management and the finding of liability, the rabbit hole can seem “strange, surreal, and nonsensical.” This can be true whether one is trying to avoid liability or trying to figure out who to sue. In this brief article, I will analyze a real-world case study as it pertains to ethical risk management and introduce an ethical methodology I have coined the 1+1=4 Approach. Although this ethical framework has multi-disciplinary applications, which will be discussed in future publications, this article will focus primarily on its application within the field of machine learning and the race to find a vaccine for COVID-19.

To read the rest of this article click here.