Friday, March 27th, 2020, 8:30 am – 4:30 pm
Minneapolis College
The Mindfulness & Equity Summit: Present for the Heart Work will provide an opportunity for participants to learn more about how mindfulness practice supports equity work. Throughout the day, participants will have an opportunity to build capacity to stay present with the range of emotions that arise during the contemplation and confrontation of suffering and trauma, as well as practice cultivating self-compassion and healing practices offered from a range of perspectives and cultures. The event is free, and open to all Minnesota State employees and students, as well as invited community partners.
Keynote Speaker
Femi Akinnagbe is a native of the Washington, DC area and received his Masters of Science degree in Physiology, Biophysics and Complementary and Alternative Medicine from Georgetown University. He is currently completing his final year of medical school at the University of Minnesota where, as a member of the Gold Humanism Honors Society, he hopes to serve as a bridge between Eastern and Western healing modalities for both mind and body. He is also an active member of the Mankind Project, an international men’s organization that seeks to redefine masculinity and sacred manhood in our modern age. Recently awarded the Innovations in Leadership Grant by the Minnesota Academy of Family Physicians for his work in teaching Mindful Self Compassion to communities of color in North Minneapolis, Femi is deeply committed to utilizing mindfulness as tool to help in the healing of individuals and communities.
Femi has been practicing yoga and meditation since 2004, and teaches both locally and nationally. Locally, he is an active member of the Common Ground Meditation Center community. At Common Ground he is a founding member of the center’s men’s group, serves on both the Inclusivity Advisory Council, and the People of Color (POC) sangha steering committee, and in 2019 he graduated from Common Grounds 2-year Dharma Leadership Training Program. He is a blackbelt in Shaolin Kung Fu and a nationally certified massage therapist. Of particular interest to him is how an embodied dharma practice can be utilized to meet the challenging needs and deep wounds of our modern society. To that end, Femi is deeply committed utilizing mindfulness as a tool to aid in the work of equity and social justice.
Summit Outcomes
- Participants will be able to articulate mindfulness as they come to understand it within their own identity and context
- Participants can identify at least 2 examples of how mindfulness self-awareness and healing practices connect to trauma and equity work
- Participants will experience at least one or more mindfulness or healing practice
- Participants will consider post-Summit application of the practice(s) they experience at the Summit
- Participants may increase connections to mindfulness and/or equity practitioners within the community
- Participants will gain access to relevant resources to support ongoing learning of mindfulness as it relates to social justice work
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Questions? Contact jenny sippel.
The Mindfulness & Equity Summit is taking place the day after the Shark Tank Open, Minnesota State Educational Innovation’s premier innovation event. Learn more and register for the 5th Annual Shark Tank Open.
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