Meet the stewards
Our cooperative school for the planet is possible thanks to our community, Earth Angel donors, and the labors of love from our cofounding stewards.
Our root vision
School for the Ecocene cultivates programs and community for planetary liberation. For us, planetary liberation means that all beings can live in safe, sovereign, and healthy habitat. Our cooperative school is an offering to Earth.
Our School’s Beloved Elders
Olivia Chumacero
Olivia Chumcaero (Raramuri, Apache) draws from her indigenous collective knowledge, weaving oral traditions, coyote stories, anecdotes, ceremonies, spirit runs, and observing the unspoken, the unwritten, the intangible.
Contemplate in gratitude while dreaming awake/Because/It takes a lifetime to know Yourself. —O.C.
Connect with Olivia Chumacero’s indigenous philosophy and poetry here, and learn more about her in-person and virtual class called Everything is Medicine, or eim.
Queen Hollins
Queen Hollins is a queer Black Indigenous healer and the Founder and Cultural Director of the Earthlodge Center for Transformation (the Earthlodge).
Her work centers those who struggle with mental, emotional, and spiritual health issues such as PTSD, abuse, depression, bipolar, and anxiety. Earth medicine gently interrupts the trauma and crisis, providing an opening for rebalance and harmony.
Queen Hollin’s book, Earth Doula is Ecocene Press’ inaugural digital and physical publication coming June 1st, 2024.
The Stewards
A council of nine worker-owners cofounded School for the Ecocene. Stewards seasonally stay active in helping to run our cooperative or go dormant, according to timing, school needs, and capacities.
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Chayo
PEOPLE STEWARD
Chayo, a first generation Binnizá (Zapoteca) indigenous mujer and mother to 3 children. She began her unschooling/homeschooling journey in 2018 marking the beginning to decolonizing education and recentering on what it truly means to raise free children.
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Dongyi
DESIGN STEWARD
Dongyi has roots in the subtropics of the Pearl River Delta, transplanted and blossoming on Ohlone lands. Their art/life practice is informed by the cyclical nature of all beings, kinship and growing relationship to the earth body/land.
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ink
COMMUNITY DESIGN STEWARD
j. nyla "ink" mcneill, DIY PhD, a dynamic polymath from Long Beach, California, bridges the gap between therapeutic approaches and business coaching and specializes in actualizing personal, professional, and collective visions with a profound focus on liberation for prioritized populations affected by systemic failures.
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Jenny
DESIGN + MARKETING STEWARD
Jenny, also known as Sapito, is your guide to BE THE VIBE. As an alchemical artist, authentic branding and creativity doula, energy healer, medicine woman, and embodiment of Love, she's dedicated to illuminating your path on this planet, acknowledging your gifts, and honoring your unique story. Residing on unceded Raymatush and Ohlone land known as San Francisco, California, Jenny has journeyed through the realms of logical, industrial technology and emotional, mysterious, altered states, always returning to the essence of Love.
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Johanna
ABUNDANCE STEWARD
Johanna Iraheta is a multidisciplinary and multicultural educator who is passionate about developing innovative, somatic and creative experiences that aim to cultivate intergenerational empowerment, healing and community resilience. Johanna is an ingenious artivist who aims to unveil and uphold marginalized communities’ intellect, identity and ancestral knowledge through art, movement, theater and storytelling.
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Sarita
POLLINATION STEWARD
Sarita is a cofounder of the DIY PhD to legitimize learning in body, mind, spirit, emotion and habitat for our deep callings and fulfillment in this life. She is a cofounding steward with School for the Ecocene Cooperative for nurturing ecopedagogías and pathways of repair as a planet.
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champoy
CO-FOUNDING STEWARD
champoy identifies as a gender non-conforming interdisciplinary Filipinx artist and educator of Bukidnon and Bisayan descent. They explore the layers of self and queer expression as a bamboo tree in a tropical monsoon.
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Mere
CO-FOUNDING STEWARD
mbgenerator is a generator of soil, medicine and community with love.
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Yoli
CO-FOUNDING STEWARD
Yoli is a queer 2-legged shapeshifter, re-indigenizing cornstalk, “mountain & shoreline” learning to be born. Their creation, listening (psychic medium), and body practices are devoted to “being” alive, play, queer constellations, and the body as a portal of connection.
Our guiding values
We are guided by Earth, community, ancestors, and spirit.
We are composting, transforming and emerging in cycles of learning and unlearning.
We respect all expressions of life—past, present, and future—as sacred and sovereign relatives.
We celebrate the unique expressions and divergence in our communities, seen and unseen.
We (re)distribute nourishment to our mycelia of beings.
We foster autonomy, embodiment and interconnectedness in education for new and seasoned Earthworkers.
We honor our bodies, communities, and habitats as teachers.
We are intergenerational, interspecies, intercultural, and guided by our Black, Brown, Indigenous and Queer elders and youth.
We weave baskets of care for ourselves, our ecosystems, and each other beyond borders.
Let’s create together!
We are available for consultations.
