The Goddess Commune Promise: Inclusive Care for BIPOC Womyn

Dr. Francine “Olivia” Shakir is a San Francisco, California native and Founder of The Goddess Commune. The Goddess Commune was created to offer a love-centered safe space for womyn seeking to re-balance from trauma and “dis-ease”, and to foster total wellness informed by holistic and natural remedies. Their vision is to operationalize self-care by optimizing human survival through preventive wellness essentials; Transforming the mind, body, and spirit to support the body’s natural systems for optimum health; Expanding the range of knowledge to new communities and generations.

Dr. Olivia Shakir’s work in holistic wellness emerged from the need to effectively advocate for her daughter who, by the age of 30, began suffering from a debilitating hereditary nerve condition. As a Black womyn with three young children, navigating healthcare systems to get a proper diagnosis and pain relief became a horrific realization of the effects of medical bias. The traumatic phenomena of medical inequality in the U.S., and specifically in her daughter’s health management, incited enough rage and passion to bring forth The Goddess Commune (TGC). 

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The Goddess Commune’s Vision is to create and maintain a roadmap to holistic wellness that informs wellness protocols for Black womyn and other women of color and advances the preservation of our communities. The Goddess Commune’s Mission is to address the inequities in healthcare and health outcomes for Black womyn and women of color by providing loving and holistic healing experiences.

What They Do: 
By engaging the practices of healers, teachers, and transformational coaches, The Goddess Commune works to restore balance to the emotional, spiritual, and physical aspects of each participant’s life.
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Practitioners in the Goddess Commune Network offer the following healing modalities & more: 

• Reiki
• Divination (African and Mayan traditions)
• Natural Medicine (herbal remedies, flower essences)
• Vegan Nutritional Counseling
• Womb Wellness and Holistic Reproductive Health
• Yoga (group and individual support)
• Sustainable Farming
• Child and Family Talk Therapy
• Art Therapy
• Dance Therapy

As an educational leader and director at San Francisco State University, Dr. Shakir’s work was fashioned to raise the consciousness of young adults to rouse social activism in their personal lives and their communities. As the universe would have it, she met Shellie Adrian Stamps, a graduate student and a healer in her own right. Shellie helped to shape and grow The Goddess Commune model during its first year-and-a-half of operation. Other students in Dr. Shakir’s path, as well as family members, inspired her to be steady on the path to her highest purpose - holistic wellness for womyn. 

Dr. Shakir purposefully began to link the dynamics of holistic wellness with education and culture. Hence, TGC was created in January 2019 as a model for a unique wellness movement to sustain Black and Brown lives and their indigenous cultures. Since womyn are the carriers of the culture of wellness, Dr. Shakir brings together local womyn healers and wellness advocates, across the gender spectrum, to provide healing experiences and ancestral knowledge to the community. In all aspects of her life and work, Dr. Shakir operates from a place of gratitude, promoting the values of revolutionary love, cultural wisdom, humility, and openness.

COVID-19 has impacted in-person workshops and services, however, TGC is creating virtual spaces for healing and kicking off The Goddess Commune Therapy Scholarship Fund this December 2020. Urban Health Group LLC and The Goddess Commune are partnering to raise funds to provide mental health support for BIPOC womyn. 

Please join in December 16th to the FREE Virtual Writing Workshop, “Your Write to a Healed Life” by Gail Mitchell. Donations accepted and will go to The Goddess Commune Therapy Scholarship Fund. 

Register here:
​https://www.eventbrite.com/e/your-write-to-a-healed-life-writing-workshop-tickets-131292799297

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Visit The Goddess Commune at http://www.thegoddesscommune.org to learn more about the Medicine Womyn Collective and their holistic ways to mind, body, and spirit wellness. 
Instagram: @thegoddesscommune
Facebook.com/thegoddesscommune