It Will Take All Of Us.
Our Community of Practice
Some of the seeds of Collective Tapestry were sown over 10 years ago as I began to sense a need for a different & unique type of space for collaboration, partnership and collective ways of being. It was not to be another traditional institution but a space for gathering, for mutual accompaniment and for shared exploration.
Within the past 10 years I have found myself in continuous co-creation with creative global facilitators as we keep encountering each other on common playgrounds.
Together we often conspire around ideas for communal strategies that allow something new to emerge, finding its shape along the way.
We are a global team of practitioners and community builders who are part of an emerging tapestry and we each bring our creative strands to the table.
- Shabrae Jackson
The story can no longer only be about the courageous act of the one hero or the charismatic leader. We are in a time in which the story must re-center on communities.
The diverse challenges before our world are large and some may feel at times, impossible to meet. Through partnership we have learned that these challenges always invite us to move beyond ourselves and consider possibilities beyond the normal response. It brings one to the conclusion that it will take all of us to bring about such a change.
It will take unique and unprecedented partnerships between fields of thought, frameworks, methodologies, governments, schools, religions, NGOs, and groups.
It will take each person offering what they have, working together in collaborative ways, reimagining a shared future.
Our Team
Shabrae Jackson
Shabrae Jackson is an expressive arts facilitator and educator who has worked in numerous communities internationally & in the US. Her work centers around themes of belonging, healing, group dynamics, and peace-building. Believing strongly in the power of community and local leadership, she enjoys exploring how personal and collective narratives can renew spaces for connection and healing - creating the conditions for the arts, play and transformation to meet.
Shabrae has in-depth experience implementing grassroots community-led projects and lived in Mexico for over 15 years. She is co-founder of UMBRAL, an organization engaged in arts-based psychosocial trauma & healing in Mexico City and at the border with migrants & refugees. Shabrae has facilitation certifications from Training for Conflict Transformation (TCTT) and EXIT (Expressive Arts in Transition). Her undergrad work is in the area of Social Work, a MA in Expressive Arts for conflict transformation and peace and a postgraduate degree in Sports for Peace. Shabrae has recently begun her doctoral process where she is exploring ritual and restoration in groups and communities through cultural & contextualized resources and pedagogies for healing and peace.
Lyd Pensado
Lyd Pensado holds a degree in Special Education with extensive experience in supporting migrants, refugees, and victims of human trafficking. She has a master's degree in Divinity and another in Mental Health, as well as various postgraduate studies in pastoral psychology, art therapy, psychological first aid, and logotherapy. She is also a certified spiritual director and is in the process of applying for membership in the Association of Spiritual Directors of the European Union and the United States. As the Executive Director of El Pozo de Vida AC and co-founder of Borra la Violencia AC, her main focus is on trauma restoration through the arts, spiritual development, and professional training to broaden their intervention perspective and prolong their impact.
Mylinda Baits
Mylinda currently works with International Ministries ABC-USA as a Global Consultant for Training using the Restorative Arts, sharing arts-based healing resources with social change agents, global peace builders, faith and community leaders, alongside trauma survivors across the globe. She works in tandem with others to weave community learning, art-making and relational practices to promote expression, sustain health and resiliency, nurture peace building, and empower positive change. Like a mosaic maker, she has gathered bits of wisdom, experience and beauty from people and places across educational contexts, cultures and continents. Holding advanced degrees in behavioral science, divinity, and the expressive arts, she finds the playful intersection of science, faith and art to be compelling and complementary. This kaleidoscope of many colors and shapes continues to shift into new wonders as she accompanies communities impacted by displacement, tragedy and collective ambiguous loss. She is passionately playful, seriously silly, and contagiously curious; finding the sacred in ordinary spaces and beauty in broken places.
Elisabeth Yupanqui-Werner
ELISABETH is a founding member of adis e.V., a collective leadership institution that focuses on empowerment and anti-discrimination work within organizational development, training and counseling. She is a trained expressive arts in Transition facilitator and practitioner and works with different empowerment-groups and communities in Germany. She works as a supervisor and coach (DGSv) with diverse teams and grassroots organizations in transformational processes towards social justice. Elisabeth believes that spiritual practice is foundational for personal and inter-generational healing in order to embody liberating realities that bring deep change. Her background lies in social work, adult education and psychodrama.