Village is Possible

Village Is Possible seeks to address and heal cultural roots through the restoration of families and community (village) destroyed through colonization and genocide of Black and Brown Bodies.

Village Is Possible provides culturally sustaining, holistic, and intergenerational communal healing to youth and their families that have experienced sexual exploitation and community displacement by the child welfare system. When California Senator Lee created the first known State Bill in 2012 to address survivors of sex trafficking, he referenced his experience as a psychiatrist and noted that sexual trauma is one of the most invasive traumas we can experience to our identity and sense of selves. Youth who have experienced the foster care system are particularly susceptible to being recruited into the sex industry due to unmet needs around love, community, belonging, stable housing and a higher disposition to trauma bonding. “Child welfare involvement, specifically out-of-home foster care placement, is one of the top contributors in increasing the chances of sex trafficking (Davey, S. 2020).” Traffickers take advantage of this natural need for love and belonging, and manipulate their victim’s sense of self to the point where brand new identities are created as part of the survival mechanism. “A report conducted in 2016 by NCMEC found that 86% of the likely sex trafficking victims were in the care of social services when they went missing” (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children). Even with this knowledge, there are few consistent direct services provided for youth who have experienced exploitation. Staff shortages, funding scarcity and lack of cross system coordination serve as barriers in delivering services these youth deserve. Village Is Possible stands in the gap.

Village Is Possible cultivates healing-centered spaces of BEing for families caught within systems of human trafficking, child welfare, and incarceration, that allows them to heal and build bridges of connection to identities stolen from them by systems of oppression. We utilize a community-driven approach that involves grounding through collective healing, listening and acknowledging the hearts and needs of children, youth, and families, and restoring well-being through the development of intergenerational villages of care around them and the providers who care for them. We embody a sankofa approach of restoring connection to ancestral and future versions of ourselves, our community, and the land to achieve outcomes of liberation. Through this intentional and holistic process of re-connection, we are able to produce DEEP MEDICINE that can heal generations to come as well as the land we are connected to.

Our Services: 

• Capacity Building & Program Development: Partnerships that facilitate the embedding and advancement of liberation in public and private organizations and systems.
• Reconnecting with the Land: Opportunities for system impacted youth to develop a relationship with plants through herbalism and regenerative farming.
• Community Participatory Action Research: Collaborative approach to research that involves all stakeholders throughout the research process, from establishing the research question, to developing data collection tools, to analysis and dissemination.
• Nourishing Village Roots (coming July 2023): Culturally relevant services provided weekly to families impacted by the child welfare system and human trafficking.

Mailing address: 887 Sonoma Ave, #23, Santa Rosa, CA 95404