Meet Our Facilitators

The Mothers of The Coven

Oya Heart Warrior

Oya Heart Warrior, is a black yoga teacher and somatic dance facilitator based in london, who founded unapologetically black yoga to build compassionate spaces, for black people of african descent to feel free and deeply cared for.With a background in mental health, yoga therapy, energy healing & somatic dance, Oya developed a racial trauma informed practice that tends to black wellbeing in black only spaces.

Oya believes that connecting to our intuitive body wisdom and collective power are vital to healing dis-ease in our bloodline.

Dominique Christina

Dominique Christina is an award-winning poet, author, educator, and activist. She holds five national poetry slam titles in four years, including the 2014 & 2012 Women of the World Slam Champion and 2011 National Poetry Slam Champion. Her work is greatly influenced by her family's legacy in the Civil Rights Movement.

Dominique is the author of four books. Her third book, "This Is Woman's Work", is the radical exploration of 20 archetypal incarnations of womanness and the creative process. Her fourth book "Anarcha Speaks" won the National Poetry Series award in 2017.

Chia Phoenix

Director of the screenplay 40TY Elephants, Chia Phoenix is a London based spiritual activist, and arts educator who’s has worked across the arts as an actor, playwright, poet and director, as well as in the criminal justice system using the arts as a form of rehabilitation.

Her work centers the authenticity, freedom and spiritual wellness of Black women, men and youth through performance art and activism. She works with both young people and adults in the community inspiring others to feel free in who they are as their authentic selves.

Furthermore, through shadowwork, she teaches how to hold accountability for how they show up and own who they need to be not - just who they want to be.

Dr Kokahvah Selassie

Star of the Netflix documentary In Our Mothers' Gardens Dr Kokahvah Zauditu-Selassie (affectionately known as Mama Koko) is a retired Professor of English at Coppin State University in the Humanities Department.

She earned her Doctorate in the Humanities from Clark Atlanta University. She is the author of an award-winning book of critical essays titled, African Spiritual Traditions in the Novels of Toni Morrison a 2009 publication of the University Press of Florida.

Her research and teachings focus on highlighting ritual acts of memory and resistance.

Shiann Croft

Shiann (aka Sincerely Shyy) is an international speaker, arts educator and poet whose work pushes the envelope of social justice. Born on the South American land of Guyana, Shiann meaning ‘she who speaks another language’ ascends from a matriarchal lineage of West African and Afro Caribbean Indigenous ancestry via a long legacy of the survived middle passage, immigration and alchemy.

Shiann is the Founder + Director of The Coven; a contemporary rite of passage and interdisciplinary creation space that centres, explores, and frees the Black voice, body and womb through the fusion of language, literature, activism, wellness, mysticism and storytelling. Learn more about Shiann