Plainfield, VT — A growing team of co-creators join EmpowR to build anti-racist culture centered in humanity, equity, and belonging for collective liberation. Rae Carter, EmpowR founder, announces the following Vermont change makers to the EmpowR co-creator team who each bring dynamic lived experiences and backgrounds to the arc of personal, organizational, and cultural transformation:

Claire Wheeler of Montpelier, VT is a strategy, change, and repair facilitator. As an EmpowR co-creator, Claire is actively unlearning old ways of working and practicing showing up to work engagements with integrity, humility, and joy. She is the director of inclusive entrepreneurship with Mercy Connections and previously owned and operated a strategic design, facilitation, and consulting business, RE:WORK LLC.

“Systems are human creations. I do this work because I hold the responsibility to understand and dismantle the systems built on oppression that my ancestors created and because I hold the power to co-create new systems built on love that set us free.”
~ Claire Wheeler

Jennifer Grossi of Bradford, VT is a social justice advocate, musician, theatrical performer, and educator. She facilitates listening and other culture change practices in community and family settings, including as an EmpowR co-creator. Jennifer is a co-founder of Summer Street Music Series and The Listening Project, both in the Upper Valley region of Vermont.

“I work towards Justice Forever for marginalized people in our society. I engage in efforts with a vision for lasting change, which only a truly creative approach is going to help realize. Any change undergone through creative work is more sustainable, more deeply connective, and has the potential to go far beyond lip service.”
~ Jennifer Grossi

Ornella Matta-Figueroa of Greensboro, VT is a disruptor, visionary, investigator and speaker of dissonance, and scholar of resonance and connection. Her practices and approaches share a vision with EmpowR for co-creation opportunities and cross-collaboration. Ornella is a certified wellness coach and co-director of SafeArt, a Central Vermont based nonprofit of trauma-informed practitioners working closely with Vermont school systems.

“Embodying liberation is my life’s work. I am committed to weaving connections, exploring contexts, and supporting individuals as they discover their own expressions of awareness and interdependent freedom. I work from a place of inner retreat, integrating and healing every day.”
~ Ornella Matta-Figueroa

Saudia LaMont of Morrisville, VT is a mentor, organizer, advocate, facilitator, trainer, equity consultant, and author. Her commitment to networking with community partners, identifying resources, and reinforcing connections to help create a stronger sense of community influence EmpowR’s co-creation process with Saudia’s leadership. She serves on the Lamoille County Mental Health board of directors and is a Democratic candidate in training with Emerge Vermont.

“I am committed to dismantling systems that are unbalanced and harmful as an active racial, social, and educational justice advocate for youth, families, and community.”
~ Saudia LaMont

Stacy Burnett of Jericho, VT is a clinical social worker and psychotherapist who operates a private practice to address the behavioral impacts of trauma healing. She specializes in eating disorders, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, attachment and relationship challenges, and body and gender related issues. As an EmpowR co-creator Stacy examines how dominant culture negatively impacts both therapeutic relationships and the field of social work.

“I arrive at the intersection of personal and cultural transformation with curiosity, compassion, and willingness to be challenged into discomfort. I am motivated to keep digging, all in hopes of unraveling both my participation in white supremacy culture, and to inspire others to do the same.”
~ Stacy Burnett

Each EmpowR co-creator brings a different lens and layer to heart-centered wholeness, cultural emergence, and transformative justice.

The team’s collective experiences inform how EmpowR approaches relationship and trust building, embraces courage and vulnerability, identifies new group norms and processes, reconfigures relationships with time and expectations, deconstructs how we define and measure success, and cultivates different patterns of communication to release and heal from racism, classism, sexism, ableism, patriarchal dominance, and white supremacy culture. From personal healing and self-examination to organizational change and cultural shifts, EmpowR navigates the complexity of transformation by exploring the diverse entry points to the behavior changes required for a more just and loving world.

About EmpowR

EmpowR’s mission is co-creating cultures of empathy, healing, community, and accountability centered in equity and belonging. Personal support sessions, professional development, dialogue facilitation and conversation design, change management consulting services, educational programs, and community events are designed to empower holistic wellness, cultivate healthy communication, and build compassionate, anti-racist culture.

EmpowR works with individuals, groups, teams, organizations, businesses, and institutions who are navigating the complexities of change. As a container accountable to transformative justice and emergent strategy, EmpowR facilitates culture change; community building; interpersonal, group, and organizational dialogue; social and emotional healing; and new ways of being in relationship with our bodies, each other, and the Earth.

Learn more at EmpowR-Transformation.com.

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