Want to join us? The Council is open to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color individuals or representatives of their intentional communities.

BIPOC Council Membership Process

  1. If interested in joining our network please fill out this form to let us know more about your intention.
  2. Once you request to join via the membership form, you will be invited to join the BIPOC Council Google Group. Here you can receive email updates from the Council and engage with your questions and offerings.
  3. You are welcome to review the documents linked in the group such as the BIPOC Council Agenda or other meeting minutes.
  4. Attend a BIPOC Intentional Community Council meeting or subcommittee meeting.

Council Staff & Board Members

Paola Diaz,
Managing Director

Paola’s lineage comes from Muisca and Pijao territories, and of the campesine culture, which honors reciprocity with the land, growing our foods and medicines in community, and defending our sacred territories. First generation person born in the so-called United States, raised in New York and bi-coastally based in California. As a daughter of immigrants, their calling involves weaving the stories and knowledge of the North and South. Her work involves mobilizing the redistribution of wealth and power in the form of land, money, and resources for land-displaced peoples, facilitating in the land justice movements, as well as space holding for ancestral healing. She’s a queer land listener and land steward, corn, cacao, and cumbia lover, committed to revitalizing cultural, ecological, and spiritual memory of the ancestors.

Zarinah, a light skinned female presenting person wearing a white blazer with a black shirt underneath

Zarinah Agnew,
Co-President

Studying, building & supporting experimental commons and autonomous communities. Related endeavors that might be of interest here include – Haight St Commons – a Bay Area collective of around 70 intentional community houses that brings together people from different co-living spaces and helps them cross-pollinate, curate open-source resources, guides and financial models to help others get set up, District Commons – a non-profit geared to support experimental commoning across the globe, and The Second Life Project – building intentional communities centered around the needs and wisdoms of the formerly incarcerated.

A person smiles wearing glasses and a blue shirt.

Crystal Byrd Farmer,
Co-President

Crystal Byrd Farmer is an organizer and speaker in the intentional communities movement. She serves as Co-Director with the Foundation for Intentional Communities and is on the Editorial Review Board of Communities Magazine published by the Global Ecovillage Network-United States. She also serves as Co-President for the BIPOC Intentional Community Council. In 2020 she published The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization. Crystal is passionate about encouraging people to change their perspectives on diversity, relationships, and the world.

Dr. Myra Miller

LaRahna Hughes

Sister Maria Muhammad

a headshot of a black woman wearing a white headwrap and checked suit

Aleta Toure’

Aleta Toure’ a homeschooling mother, liberation organizer/community strategist and worker-owned cooperative member with Parable of the Sower Intentional Community Cooperative, a co-lead for Just Recovery through the Climate Justice Alliance. Aleta has six documentary films on PBS/WFSB -TV, The first being “Eyes On the Prize II Documentary Film and together their cooperative members will be doing organizer services and products, which will include the film documentary “Reviving the Black Cooperative Movement.”

Council Members

Organizations

Afro-Eco Collective
Anti-Racist Oasis
Apothecary on Farms
Arrowrock Farm
Artistic Apothecary
Ayni Herb Farm
Baldwin House Community Collective
Batwa Indigenous Development Organization
B2tB community
The Blackyard Collective
Banua SaGana KOLAB
Calvin H. Waller Legacy Community
Casa Sabera of the Life Center Association; Gente de Tierra
CCNN Churingaveni
Dandelion Medicine Liberation Coop
Deepstep Collective
District Commons
The Earthlodge Center for Transformation

Ekaha Village
East Texas Land & Legacy Collective
Emergent Phoenix
Endue Enterprises Inc.
Farm to Food Pantry
Forever In Recovery Everlasting
The Freedom Georgia Initiative
Gardens of Alchemy
Grandmothers’ Village Project
Granted
Green Horizons
Healing at the Longhouse
Healing Joy Farms Intentional Community
Healing Ribbons
Heathcote Community and Educational Activity Center
High Pastures
Indigenous Mothers Community Land Trust
Insomnaics, Inc
JL Soul Camp
Kerawa Village at Rancho Spondylus
Let’s Be Whole
Liberated Lands
Liberation Farm
Mirrored Fatality
Moonseed
Nature Bliss
Nawaya Village
Niweskok
OurSpace World, Inc.
Our Collective Power
Our House
Parable of the Sower Intentional Community Cooperative
Paradise East Cohousing
PLACE (People Linking Art, Community, Ecology)
People of Color Sustainable Housing Network
POCSHN Midwest
Ráithold Cooperative Union
Ravenswood
Regenerative Institute of Community Education’s: Intergenerational Land Stewardship for Sustainable Community Development
Resale Therapy
Sage Magnolia
Sankofa Village Arkansas
Santa Fe Indigenous Center Programs
Serenity Solidarity
Shiloh Divine Farms
Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (Snap Co)
Somos Espejos
Songhomes for the Orisha
Soul Sanctuary
Springfield Food Policy Council/40 Acres Farm and Market
Stellar Roots Coop
Taino Nation of Boriken
Taino Woods Sanctuary
Tender Care Farm
Together for Nature
Twin Oaks Community Racial Equity Team
Uptown & Boogie Healthy Project
Venus In Aquarius Events
WaiHau Conservation Foundation
Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi
Waterfall Unity Alliance
The Worm Farm Project
YASHAPI

Individuals

7000COILS
Yardenna Aaron
Omowale Adewale
Elizabeth Swanson Andi
Zarinah Agnew
Ahimbisibwe Alex
Casey Bastiaans
Arcadian Barrett
Addison Bates
Jamal Bashir Bey
Adae Black
Briana Blueitt
Michael Bonilla Del Rio
Ashley Brazil
Patricia Brickhouse
Brandy Brooks
Yolanda Brown
Tami Buffalohead
Francis Burroughs
Delano Burrowes
Tevin Carr
Katia Carranza
Chalchiuhkoatl
Hoiyee Cheung
Helena Cragg
Stephanie Craig
LesleyAnne Crosby
Quanta Jana Cutler
Rev Dele
Diwa Malaya | Lauren Marie Sevilla Faustino
Binta Dixon
Emily Carris Duncan
Sarah Elisabeth
Crystal Byrd Farmer
Kweemoy Felix
Bruje Fuego
Steve Fuji
Nancy Cinthya Gonzales Perez
Jay Gregory
Rosey Hakim
Marcy Hendricks
Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi
LaRahna Hughes
Christina Hylton
kuwa jasiri Indomela
LaQuinta S Jackson
Isa Jamira
Gaianne Marie Jocquin
Danielle Jones
khadija
Diana Marie Lee
Raymund Lew
Edith (Edie) Lewis
Lida
Donnie Austin Livingston
Liz O’Gilvie
Shanika Malcolm
Porchea Octavia McGuire
Joni McSpadden
Amber Michal
Ashley D. Mocorro Powell
Alyssa Moncure
Kirah “Layla” Monroe
Angela Moon
kaamilah muhammad milton
Felix Naitoro
Rafaella Nepales
Evvie Ormon
Leonardo Æshwa Rainbow Dragon
Rev. Dr. Sandy Range
Chantel Rivera
Syreeta Sevé
Ashley Scott
Muirén Ní Sídach
Alina Talladen
Aleta Toure
Fern Tupelo
Whitney Tymas
Amara Ullauri
Ericka Williams Rodriguez
Joy Williams
Queenmother Nina Womack
Christine Wyche