jamilah malika abu-bakare is a senior teacher, mentor lead and anti-oppression teacher trainer with New Leaf Foundation since 2014, as well as teaching faculty for Kathryn Bruni Young’s 2020 Mindful Strength Teacher Immersions and Brown Girls Yoga collective member since 2011.
as the studio manager of a Kula Yoga Annex (2010-15,) she initiated immeasurable change in the downtown Toronto yoga community with director, Christi-an Slomka, through the positive space initiative, introducing consent cards, daily $8 classes, childcare during practice, brown girls yoga, queer yoga, a gender neutral changeroom as well as anti-oppression trainings and communications for staff and students regarding appropriation, language, transmisia, fatphobia, anti-blackness and more.
she is grateful these conversations are so much more welcome now and to lend her decade of experience towards more just yoga communities. in addition to teaching trauma-informed, mindfulness-based yoga, jamilah is a writer and artist (SAIC MFA ’19.)
