Healing In Community: Practicing Ubuntu and H.A.R.M.O.N.Y. in Youth Work

YouthREX is excited to host this online Teach-In featuring Special Guest Shayla S. Dube.

In this powerful and interactive session, participants will be introduced to Ubuntu – an African worldview rooted in collective care, interdependence, and sacred relationality. Moving beyond individualistic models of healing, this event centres the wisdom that “a person is a person through other people” and explores what that means in the context of youth work and community wellbeing.

Shayla will also guide participants through the H.A.R.M.O.N.Y. Framework – a culturally-grounded, justice-oriented approach to healing that addresses relational trauma, systemic harm, and community restoration.

Participants will:

• Explore the principles of Ubuntu and their relevance to youth work.
• Contrast Western trauma frameworks like Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) with Resmaa Menakem’s HIPP (Historical, Intergenerational, Persistent, Institutional & Personal) theory.
• Learn how the H.A.R.M.O.N.Y. Framework fosters dignity, belonging, and collective healing.
• Reflect on how to build villages of care rather than reinforce individualistic cages of competition.
• Leave with practical tools to create trauma-responsive, psychologically and culturally safer spaces for youth.

This offering is designed for youth workers, educators, mental health professionals, and community builders who are engaging with – or open to – exploring healing as a shared responsibility. Together, we will examine how justice begins with how we show up in relationship, and how we can build equitable coexistence and communal solidarity that nurtures collective liberation.

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We will use Zoom for this event. You will receive the link to join the live event by email.

Live transcription/closed captioning will be available in English.

Although the presentation will be recorded and archived, the Q&A/discussion will not be recorded.

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Facilitator:

Shayla S. Dube (she/we), MSW, RCSW-S, is a board-approved clinical social worker and two-time York University alumna (BSW, MSW). She is the founder of Wellness Empowered Community Services and Sabuntu Intercultural Society.

A child and youth mental health specialist, advanced Tree of Life practitioner, sessional social work instructor, and experienced workshop/training facilitator, Shayla is also a sought-after Ubuntu and cultural humility centred keynote speaker and educator on liberatory anti-racism. She champions culturally grounded, identity-affirming, and decolonial approaches to mental health and wellness. Her work reflects a deep commitment to community-rooted, anti-oppressive practice, critical clinical social work, and the advancement of mental wellness for racial equity–seeking communities.