HOMEplxce Founder

LAKHIYIA is the spoken word consultant is a public health cultural shapeshifter, freedom art alchemist, inviting us to remember who we are, call all of our fragmented parts home, and get y/our power back.

Depending on our community needs at hand, this may mean masquerading as a business consultant, poet, participatory action researcher, singer, director, dancer, curriculum developer, kuringa/joker, educational curator drawing forth leadership wrapped in y/our radical authenticity–and you name it.

Lakhiyia holds a Bachelors from Northwestern, Masters from USC, Cornell University Certificate in Womxn’s Entrepreneurship, lecturing years at UCLA, and is currently a Critical Disability Studies Adjunct Instructor in the Portland State University School of Social Work. Pedagogy/Theatre of the Oppressed ground Lakhiyia's feet with deep roots in multidisciplinary means for being the fact of our freedom in a world designed to systematically undermine belonging as birthright. Lakhiyia has over 16 years of lived, academic, and professional experience community-educating and consulting in public health, including community-health worker model integration; participatory action research; diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism organizational change; transformative justice accountability systems design and implementation; capacity-building; monitoring and evaluation; curricula-development; and staff retreat facilitation.

Growing up GenderQueer, Blxck, and Bible-Belted in the U.S. Midwest, Lakhiyia means “home” in isiXhosa and Haitian Creole. The voice of Sermon I Wish I’d Heard and Get Y/Our Power Back–available exclusively in the HOMEplxce App (IOS and Android)–Lakhiyia co-hosts HOMEplxce to be an educational, business, and strategy consulting space committed to Self-determined Intergenerational Wealth Cultivation™ as a practice of Economic and Transformative Healing Justice. Publications available.

https://www.lakhiyia.com/
@lakhiyia | nø pronouns

HOMEplxce COLLABORATIONS LIAISON

DR. MANDISA HAARHOFF completed her Ph.D. at the University of Florida in 2018 on a Fulbright scholarship, and currently works as an Assistant Professor at Penn State University. She completed her MA in Drama at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal with funding from the National Research Foundation.

Dr. Haarhoff is a recipient of the National Research Fund’s Black Academic Advancement Program for her first book project, “Kaffirland/Vaderland: White indigeneity and Black Absenting in the South African Farm”. The monograph examines the ways in which farm novels and Plaasroman participate in constructions of white indigeneity and enact black absenting throughout the late-colonial and apartheid period.

Dr. Haarhoff’s research interests are concentrated around postcolonial theory, black studies, settler colonial and anti-colonial studies. Her teaching centers on African and diasporic literature.

In her Collaboration Liaison Role, Dr. Haarhoff volunteers with HOMEplxce Retreats.

She/Her/Hers
@ndine_bali

HOMEplxce INTERNATIONAL LIAISON

NOKUZOLA SONGO is a political feminist geographer currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the University of Toronto, Department of Geography and Planning. Her research efforts focus on using creative methods to explore conflict-induced internal displacement and transitional justice. Nokuzola holds an MSc. in African Studies from the University of Oxford (UK), as well as a MA in Drama Therapy from Wits University (SA).

Nokuzola is a Mandela Washington Fellow with over ten years of experience in social development in South Africa, Europe and the US. Her professional experience ranges from facilitating youth development programs, forming HIV support groups to consulting in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion development programs and initiatives. Nokuzola is working to make a documentary about her research to promote and increase access to academic engagement.

As International Liaison, Nokuzola supports Healing Justice Capacity-Building efforts through HOMEplxce Consulting.

She/Her