Black, Indigenous, and Racialized (BIR) students’ Social Justice and Healing Group

This is a virtual, closed 4-week healing group for Black, Indigenous, and Racialized (BIR) women-identified, non-binary, and gender non-conforming Laurier and University of Waterloo students. This group hopes to provide connection to community while exploring ways to heal from all forms of violence, including systemic, racial and gender-based violence. Some of the topics we are planning to focus on include tools for staying grounded, self-worth, relationships, and finding hope and resistance.

This free and confidential group will be facilitated by Adria Joel, Counsellor, Specializing in Black Student Support at University of Waterloo, and Maria Wallis, Sexual Violence Response Counsellor from the Sexual Violence Response team, Office of Human Rights and Conflict Management (Consent is Golden).

Facilitator

Maria Wallis is a community capacity builder, an academic/scholar, and a registered social worker trained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She has a PhD in Sociology from York University, Canada. She has worked in the immigration and settlement non-profit sector for over 15 years. This work has focused on gender-based violence (GBV), racial trauma and youth-at-risk among other social justice issues. She has also co-facilitated Partner Assault Response Groups for men, and anti-racism and leadership workshops/camps for BIPOC youth with Toronto District School Board and the York District School Board. Maria has worked in the post-secondary sector for over 15 years. She has co-edited 3 academic books that focus on intersectionality and racial justice framed within a social determinants of health perspective. Maria is the eldest of 5 girls in her family, is a South-Asian woman from Karachi, Pakistan who migrated to Canada in the 1970s, and is the mum to adopted daughter, Rose. Princess, the black Labrador and Red, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel round up the family. 

Adria Joel (she/her) - I am a Counsellor, Specializing in Black Student Support at UW. I am a mixed-race black woman with Trinidadian and Italian heritage and identify as bisexual. My lived experiences inform my work and I strive to work from an anti-oppressive, anti-racist, decolonial, trauma-informed, intersectional, person-centered approach. For over 10 years I have worked in the social work field in a variety of settings, including the university community and community-based organizations. I am passionate about collective healing and love facilitating groups. Outside of work, I am a parent of two young kids who help me rediscover the awe in life daily. I also enjoy outdoor activities, board games, dancing and cozying up with a good book.

Who can join?

This group is open to any Black, Indigenous, and Racialized (BIR) women-identified, non-binary, and gender non-conforming Wilfird Laurier and University of Waterloo students.

When and how do we meet?

The group will meet online.