Through Unlock Your Story, Cierra and the team offer writing, editing, and content development services, public speaking coaching, storytelling workshops, and storytelling for social justice consulting. We also create spaces for the storytelling community to come together for support, healing, and strategy.

Unlock Your Story has worked with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Boys & Girls Club, WeWork, The VIVA Shool, DC Web Fest, Rutgers University, Louisiana State University, Pennsylvania State University, the Institute for Women’s Leadership, DC Design Week, 305 Fitness, and more.

Black Girls S.O.A.R. was created out of Cierra’s dissertation work, which explored Black girls’ experiences in a virtual summer arts program focused on exploring Black Feminist Thought, Black history, leadership, activism, social change, and community organizing through a healing-centered lens. Throughout the program, Black girls were co-researchers and presented their findings through art in a culminating Community Arts Showcase.

We work alongside Black girls and TGNC youth to disrupt systems and structures of oppression by: 

• Creating joy-filled and arts-based spaces for Black girls and TGNC youth

• Training and supporting Black girl and TGNC organizers, activists, artists, and researchers through political education, liberatory pedagogy, and intergenerational strategizing

• Engaging in school partnerships to infuse social justice curriculum and professional development for educators from the perspectives and leadership of Black girls and TGNC youth

Evoking the principle of Sankofa — the West African Adinkra symbol meaning, “Go back and get it,” which emphasizes the need to reflect on the past to build a successful future — this podcast will help empower educators, students, parents, and community organizers to apply the lessons of the past to the struggle for Black lives today.

In addition, the podcast will provide pedagogical strategies for educators to center Blackness in the classroom and support the social and emotional wellbeing of youth. The podcast weaves together interviews with historians, students, and educators about aspects of the Black Freedom Struggle that are often not taught (or mistaught) in schools.

The podcast will cover topics such as: The Black Panther Party, SNCC, the history of Black education, and abolition and the struggle against police violence.

In a moment when there is a national spotlight on what safe and supportive schools look and feel like, Communities for Just Schools Fund (CJSF) convened our national network of partners (youth, parent, and teacher-led organizing groups) to press back on harmful narratives about safety -- and to instead place conversations about safety into the more holistic, appropriate container of culturally-affirming social-emotional learning (SEL).

Through the year-long Community of Practice, we collected survey data from our partners about their work related to safety and SEL; conducted site visits to places like Long Beach, California, and Juneau, Alaska; hosted in-person and virtual learning exchanges, facilitated a Twitter chat, and held an #SELWebinarSeries. These gatherings centered the critical perspectives of organizers and gleaned important insights about what truly makes schools safe and ensures students feel a sense of belonging. The findings from this year-long exploration of culturally-affirming SEL are detailed in this radport.