Team — Who Heals the Healer?

Please note that Who Heals the Healer is a volunteer-lead experience. We are able to operate on micro-grants for specific initiatives, but do not earn revenue or turn a profit. grants have been utlized to pay for venues, operating costs and most importantly, our presenters and collaborators a small honorairum.

Veronica agard (she/hers)

Founder, Creative Director

Veronica Agard is a writer, educator and connector at the intersections of Black identity, wellness, representation, and culture. Of Afro-Caribbean, African-American and Indigenous descent, she continues to experiment with creative healing modalities and puts theories learned into practice. She is the curator of the Who Heals the Healer series and the conference of the same name, the first generation of the Reparations: Wellness Clinic, and facilitates the Ancestors in Training educational project.

www.veronicaagard.com @verosgotthejuice

Lyrica Fils-Aimé (she/hers)

Lyrica Fils-Aimé, LCSW-R, RPT-S, was born in Haiti and Kreyòl was her first language. Her mother is a WASP from New Hampshire and met her father in Haiti. The convergence of these two very different backgrounds has informed Lyrica's experiences with identity with every step that she takes in life. Lyrica serves as a Director of Equity Transformation and Culturally Responsive Environments at the New York City Department of Education. Lyrica is a NY State Licensed Clinical Social Worker, a Registered Play Therapist, and runs a private practice in Harlem. Lyrica obtained her BA from the University of Richmond in Psychology and Business, an MSW from New York University and a Master of Science in Nonprofit Leadership from Fordham University. Lyrica began working in equitable education and counseling while working at Children's Aid College Prep Charter School as a Community School Director. In this role, she created and designed equity teams, diversity councils, affinity groups, multi-cultural programming and supervised social workers with an anti-racist and anti-oppressive leadership focus.

Rigoberto lara guzmÁN (they/them)

Director of Production

RIGOBERTO LARA GUZMÁN (PRONOUN FLUID) IS A XICANO CONCEPTUAL ARTIST AND ORGANIZER INTERESTED IN DECODING OPPRESSIVE SYSTEMS AND RECONSTITUTING RADICAL CARE COMMUNITIES. HE IS A BAY COASTAL ORGANISM BORN IN CENTRAL MEXICO RAISED IN OHLONE TERRITORY AKA THE SF BAY AREA CURRENTLY INHABITING THE UPPER NY BAY INDUSTRIAL WATERFRONT BARRIO OF SUNSET PARK, BK WHERE HE CARES FOR A SMALL COMMUNITY GARDEN AND ORGANIZES WITH AN ABOLITIONIST COLLECTIVE KNOWN AS SPLF. RIGHT NOW, HE IS WORKING ON DECOLONIZING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CURATING BIMONTHLY BONFIRE GATHERINGS.

Sheena Crystalyn SepulvedA (she/hers)

Co-Creation Manager

Sheena Crystalyn Sepulveda is a Nuyorican Artist, Co-Creative, and Urbanist based in NYC. As a third-generation Nuyoricaña within the Puerto Rican diaspora her individual and collective projects are heavily influenced by the actions of collectivity and creative power, POC and Nuyoricans have historically enacted on to shape their New York City. With a strong passion for Urbanism with direct intangibility to community + artistic growth, Sheena is actively involved in the relationship public space, cultural programming, and conceptual sustainability have in shaping an elevated dreamy POC inhabited New York City landscape. Sheena is currently engaged in creative consulting or planning an array of collective projects, along with brewing her own brand of herbal mixology and future gatherings under Boriqua Tea Party. Sheena currently resides in the Bronx, NY where you can often find her dancing and holding space in beautiful terrain.

Sonya Joseph (she/hers)

Volunteer Army Captain

Sonya Joseph is an entrepreneur, visionary, public speaker and community activist on a mission to mentor, heal, empower and cultivate liberated black communities.

Born in Toronto and raised by parents of Caribbean decent (St. Kitts & Antigua) in the heart of East New York Brooklyn, was unsatisfied with the lack of resources and opportunity in her neighborhood. At the early age of 10, she expressed a deep devotion to develop solutions to address racial inequality through law and politics. In 2016 she obtained her Bachelors of Arts in Political Science and Africana Studies from Brooklyn College.

Her most recent positions held include NYC Criminal Justice Community Organizer; Affordable Housing/Tenants Rights Organizer in effort to combat gentrification in Brooklyn, Deputy Campaign Manager for former City Council Candidates, & Senior Intern Supervisor at the City Hall Offices for elected officials.

Currently, Sonya is working in community to become a holistic health practitioner and women’s empowerment life coach.