INDIGI GOLDEN HERBALS
REVERENTIAL FOLK LORE
COMMUNITY LED
HERBAL EDUCATION
HERBAL MEDICINES
&
HERBAL STEWARDSHIP
IN SOLIDARITY WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
As Brown, Black, Indigenous, and all People of Color, the message is being heard loud and clear. We must support businesses, companies, healing facilities, farmers, medicine makers, activists, movers & shakers owned by people who share similar sentiments and stories. In this colonized world, it is important to re-align our values and ensure that our actions help in liberating all Indigenous peoples. Marginalized communities are often forced to support larger corporations that are illiterate in terms of our unique health and wellness necessities & we POC are paying for this. Decolonizing our wellness practices first starts with our relationship to this Earth and with the pre-colonial ancestors. We must strengthen our connections with our allies, utilizing a well rounded and wholistic approach to becoming the songs our ancestors sang over us. Healing with herbs and learning the human vessel is as old as Buddha, Osayin, and Imhotep. Our ancient ancestors had a prayer that we would pass along the Indigenous healing traditions that they guarded as sacred. Then, every person had a role to fulfill in society and everyone contributed to the collective healing of the community. We can all reawaken the magic of our ancestral prayers by simply remembering their songs. Medicine holder, herbalist, educator, birth worker, yogini, farmer, and Indigenous reclaiming activist, Jen Elyse along side Gardener, activist, songstress, forest school teacher, medicine holder, and artist Alyssa Vilela steward a non profit platform for Brown, Black, and Indigenous POC folks to support one another in ancestral reclamation. Our mission is to preserve the rites and passages of becoming and maintaining our ancestral connections that ultimately serve our earth and heal our communities. Being a BBIPOC herbalist comes with the responsibility of self-actualization.
OUR MISSION IS TO PROVIDE THE HIGHEST QUALITY OF SINCERE SUSTAINABLE ETHICALITY FOR BBIPOC COMMUNITIES THROUGH THE RECLAMATION OF OUR ANCESTRAL MEDICINE TRADITIONS
THE INDIGI GOLDEN HERBALS PLATFORM SUPPORTS AND UPLIFTS OUR BBIPOC COMMUNITIES THROUGH NATURAL AND ETHICALLY SOURCED MEDICINE, HOME GOODS, BUSINESS INSPIRATIONS , AND FOOD GUIDANCE.
THE FOLK: WHO MAKE THIS PLATFORM WORK
Lead Herbalist//Founder Jen Elyse invests in community by providing plant therapy sessions, co-hosts an online herbal school for BBIPOC folks, and making medicine for those in need, Ifarike Ajoke Okunsalewa is truly making her stance, and voting for what is obviously most important for BBIPOC communities. Supporting and creating our own natural and ethically sourced medicine, homes, economy, businesses, and growing our own food is obviously most important. Ifarike was born Jennifer Elyse Woolery named after her Great Grandmother Jenni Woolery. Ifarike Ajoke Okunsalewa is her Ifa name given to her by her Nigerian God Mother The Olori Abiye Osunbunmi after receiving initiation as a Yoruba devotee and Olokun Priestess. Jen Elyse is an avid farmer with over 10 years of hands on lived experience, ethical medicine maker, group facilitator, meditation and yoga practitioner, and Indigenous activist. Jen Elyse the great granddaughter of sharecroppers and farmers established this communal space and opened enrollment to teach others in the autumn of 2018 with the permission of Buffalo Woman an Apache First Nations herbalist, mother, spirit runner, journalist, activist, and traditionalist.
Co-Teacher // Admin Alyssa Vilela is a gardener, teacher, and community health herbalist. She has been gardening for over 5 years at large-scale community farms, rooftop gardens, backyard gardens, and indoor growing in her apartment. Alyssa has worked with children as an outdoor educator leading farm tours and mindful observation of the natural world in parks around NYC. Connecting with the land sparked a passion for learning how black women have not only survived but have thrived by tending to their mother’s gardens and by using herbs as food and medicine. Alyssa has immersed herself in spiritual herbalism through the lens of black women and has completed two certifications to be a community health herbalist most recently through Indigi Golden Herbal Academy. She has an online apothecary, Alchemist’s Vision, and continues to explore her multilayered passions in the arts, medicine, and indigenous agriculture. Alyssa has also spent time in Africa interviewing Indigenous women about traditional herbalism and healthcare. A creative at heart, Alyssa provides song, art, and nature study workshops for the IGHA platform.
THE INDIGI GOLDEN
HERBAL FOLK ACADEMY
INDIGENOUS AND INDIGENOUS RECLAIMING BBIPOC FOLKS ARE INVITED TO JOIN OUR ONLINE 12 MONTH COMMUNITY HERBAL FELLOWSHIP
PLANT ALLIES & THE ANCESTORS
A REVERENTIAL JOURNEY OF RECLAMATION
This program is designed to inspire, introduce, and provide you with information about how to connect deeper with the earth, thus deepening your own relations with your ancestors. The prospective student will obtain the necessary knowledge to heal themselves, help their families, and their communities so to walk the path of Indigenous reclamation all the while decolonizing their homes, medical choices, food choices, and earthly habits.
The course material can take you three to six months to complete but the integration of the herbal practices will take you a year! This is a one year fellowship.
There are quizzes and a thorough exam based on an alternative medical criteria from an academia perspective. Giving each one the sacred opportunity to study scientific and clinical herbal theories alongside Indigenous folk lore.
This program amplifies the voices of Indigenous POC influencers, leaders, and healers from various parts of the world.
Created in 2018 this herbal apprenticeship has been in operation for 5 years, certifying dozens of unique herbalists, and serves as a communal healing hub for over 260 BBIPOC folk herbalists.