Immersion and Leadership Training, LA
Partners & Projects
Leila Steinberg is an artist and community organizer who began working with youth twenty years ago in the San Francisco Bay area. Since 1998, through Alternative Intervention Models (AIM), Steinberg has been providing specialized programs incorporating poetry, music, and the arts, for youth within the juvenile justice system and residential treatment facilities. AIM programs confront juvenile crime and victimization, drug abuse and gang violence and other pressing issues facing at-risk youth in a workshop format that combines creative arts with an open dialogue. To learn more about Leila and AIM, click here.
Watch a video about Leila's work.
Aqeela Sherrills
Aqeela Sherrills has traveled as far as Ireland and Serbia to bridge conflicts between communities. He has worked with both gangs and government, and is best known for helping create the 1992 Peace Agreement between Los Angeles gang rivals, the Bloods and the Crips. The inspiration behind Aqeela’s work has been the canvas of his own life. He grew up in the Jordan Down housing projects in South Central Los Angeles, joined the Crips when he was 14 and witnessed the deaths of numerous friends. But going to college at UC Irvine years later began to open his eyes and change his course. Through intimate and academic circumstances he began to recognize the essence of all of the work he does today: the unequivocal value of the human spirit. Today he believes that these two things are the key to changing our society, and has begun the Reverence Movement to support “intentional conversation” in order to bring about connection and dissolve conflict between people. He supports purposes that help all people see both themselves and others as sacred.
Krishna Kaur has been teaching the art and science of Kundalini Yoga since 1970. She is Founder of Yoga for Youth, and the International Association of Black Yoga Teachers. Krishna has taught yoga and trained others to teach urban and incarcerated youth for the past 14 years. She also teaches regularly in West Africa. To learn more, click here.
Watch videos about Krishna's work:
Video 1
Video 2
Fidel Rodriguez
Fidel Rodriguez is a Senior Human Relations Consultant and Racialized Gang Violence Prevention Specialist for the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations. He has a broad experience working with “at risk” youth, incarcerated youth and adults conducting trainings on culture, history and physical education. Fidel developed a successful “Rites of Passage” program called “Spreading Seeds: Mind Body Spirit” based on raising consciousness, releasing anger and assisting in psychological and physical rebirths. He was host of award winning and number one rated hip hop radio show, “Divine Forces Radio.” Rodriguez was a McNair Scholar and a 1998 graduate of the University of Southern California with B.A.’ in Chicano/Latino Studies and African American Studies.
Watch a video about Fidel's work.
Tessa Hicks Peterson, PhD
Tessa Hicks Peterson, PhD, is the director of the Center for California Cultural and Social Issues and an Assistant Professor in Urban Studies at Pitzer College. As such, she guides students in connecting with their local communities through service, research and advocacy to address the pressing social issues critical to community members in the surrounding neighborhoods. Before arriving to Pitzer three years ago, Tessa worked with communities throughout Southern California on human relations and civil rights issues as Associate Director at the Anti-Defamation League and, prior to that, as the Youth Programs Director at the National Conference for Community and Justice.
Susan Phillips, PhD
Susan Phillips is an anthropologist who has studied Los Angeles gangs and the prison system since 1990. She earned a PhD from UCLA in 1998 and published her first book, Wallbangin: Graffiti and Gangs in L.A., in 1999. Since 2001, she has taught at Pitzer College in Claremont and just finished the manuscript for her second book on a Los Angeles gang sweep. In 2008, she was named a Soros Justice Media Fellow, and she continues to write and think critically about gangs, punishment, and urban violence globally.
Erik Milosevich "milo", Peace Officer
Milo has been a police officer in Los Angeles County for the past seventeen years. He has worked a variety of assignments from Undercover Narcotics and SWAT, to School Resource Officer and Police Activities League (PAL). He worked two years at PAL creating and developing programs for “At Risk Youth” He continues to be a mentor for a number of young men and is a father to two daughters of his own. Milo is currently assigned to patrol at the Santa Monica Police Department. On his own time, he volunteers at PAL where he teaches a martial arts and yoga classes. Milo is committed to being a “Peaceful Warrior”.
Francisco Letelier, Muralist
Francisco Letelier is an artist and writer born in Chile. He bridges continents and weaves together history and contemporary experiences, creating powerful and memorable work. For more than 25 years, Letelier has created art that crosses disciplines and cultures while building bridges between nations, individuals and communities. A passionate commitment to education and dialogue has placed his work at the forefront of human rights, cultural and environmental struggles. A long time resident of Los Angeles, Letelier has worked, taught and held residencies through many organizations and institutions in Southern California, including SPARC, The 18th Street Arts Center and The Museum of Tolerance. Through LA Theatre Works the artist conducted workshops throughout Los Angeles County with incarcerated youth, creating books, murals and installations that have been exhibited widely. As a founding member of The Brigada Orlando Letelier, a muralist brigade formed by Chilean exiles, Francisco worked on collective murals exhibitions and graphic works throughout the United States.
Miguel Rivera
My father was a doctor and my mother a nurse. I grew up in hospitals, clinics and operating rooms with the idea that I was going to be a doctor. After working in an emergency room my last two years of high school, I learned through observation that healing is not only about surgery and medication but it is also rooted in the soul; I decided to become a professional musician instead of a physician. In the early 1980's I began a relationship with several Native American elders that led to my participation in many of the traditional ceremonies which included Sweat Lodges, Vision Quest and Sundance. In 1996, I became involved with "Shade Tree" a mentoring group based in Los Angeles dedicated to working with youth at risk, introducing them to traditional Native American ceremonies and ways of knowledge; continuing the task to this day.
I have also taught drumming and collaborated as a presenter at the Minnesota and Mendocino Men's conferences, led by Robert Bly, James Hillman and Michael Meade since 1992. Working also with Martín Prechtel, Malidoma Somé, Jack Kornfield, Robert Moore, Haki Madhubuti, Luis Rodriguez and Orland Bishop.
In 2001, in collaboration with Robert Bly, I translated and published an English edition of the Guatemalan award winning Poet Humberto Ak'abal "Poems I Brought Back from the Mountain". I also collaborated with these bilingual editions "Tejiendo Las Huellas" Uruguay, 2006 and "El Animalero" Guatemala, 2009.
In addition I am a Supervising Sound Editor for films and television, several winning awards.
Francisco Letelier bridges continents and weaves together history and contemporary experience, creating work that is powerful and memorable. Born in Chile, he is known both for his visual art and his perceptive writing, spoken word and poetry. Letelier has completed murals, public artworks and priva
te commissions throughout the United States, Latin America and Europe, collaborating with diverse artists and writers such as Ariel Dorfman, Quincy Jones, Bonnie Rait, U2, Tom Hayden and Jane Goodall.
