Kusum Crimmel

creator, facilitator, healer, writer, visionary

Kusum Crimmel’s work is to inspire people to live more deeply and firmly into accountability and integrity, thereby accessing higher levels of joy and embodied love.  She is a facilitator of transformational change and creates space for truth, (re)conciliation, and healing to reclaim our humanity and the humanity of others.   She has spent nearly two decades working with teenagers in non-profits and public schools. Eleven of those years were spent at Oakland Tech High School where she built up a vibrant and highly acclaimed, peer-based Restorative Justice program. Some of her students made a video to highlight this work here.  She is an LCSW, has 10 years of rape-crisis counseling experience with San Francisco Women Against Rape and more than 8 plus years of training with Generative Somatics, expanding her understanding of trauma and the impact of interpersonal, generational and socially pervasive trauma (racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, etc.).  

Her formal racial justice work began about 20 years ago with her initial participation in the Challenging White Supremacy Workshops, a training program led by Sharon Martinas. While working with racially diverse youth in the non-profit sector, she collaborated with three other white women, which expanded into a powerful crew of white educators, and built Y-Step: Youth Step Toward Addressing Racism, a racial-justice training program for white youth in the Bay Area (2003-2012).  She’s facilitated workshops & presentations in conferences such as the White Privilege Conference, Loving Decision Conference, and the National Association of Community & Restorative Justice National Conference as well as organizations such as Japanese Community Youth Council, California Institute of Integral Studies, SEEDS, Seneca Center, SOAR for Youth, The People’s Conservatory, the San Quentin Prison Interfaith Restorative Justice Roundtable, Head Royce School, Earthjustice, and Mission Preparatory School. She has designed and facilitated public programs such as, Dissecting Whiteness in Urban Education, a two day workshop; Restorative Justice Circle Series for White Folks in Urban Education, a 10 week program; “Healing Circles for Europeans Who Have Become White,” a 6 month drop-in space. She has also been a part of a collaboration of restorative justice practitioners to put together “Using a Culturally Responsive Lens to Build Community.” Kusum is currently doing restorative justice consulting work with SEEDS Conflict Resolution Center, training facilitation with Fred Finch Youth Center, is a co-lead with the teen program at Heart & Soul Center of Light and is a new board member with The People’s Conservatory, youth arts program. She has been a long time member, previously a performing member, of the Brazilian arts organization, Fogo Na Roupa.

Kusum is a proud parent to a fourteen-year-old singer, dancer and brilliant thinker.  She is auntie to a bright and courageous five year old, and an ongoing mentor to countless young people who she has connected with over the last twenty years. Dance is her favorite form of therapy and she loves to laugh until her belly hurts.