Beyond Diversity 101 – Whole System Transformation Series
With Niyonu Spann, Dr. Darya Funches , Zhenevere Sophia Dao and Dr. Jamila Lyiscott
March 18 - 22, 2027
A four-part workshop series focused on cultivating the capacity to consciously interrupt patterns of oppression, recognize energetic shifts within systems, and move skillfully with emerging possibilities to create transformation within organizations, communities, and ourselves.
Together we cultivate the capacity to consciously interrupt patterns of oppression, recognize energetic shifts within systems, and move skillfully with emerging possibilities rather than reacting from habit. Participants deepen understanding, strengthen practical skills, and learn through direct application, reflection, and supportive feedback.
Throughout the series, cohort members work, practice, create, and play together while developing conscious creator-ship—learning to know themselves as creators within communities of co-creators.
Whatever your particular calling or medicine, making the leap from dominator culture toward a lived experience of interconnection, shared responsibility, and collective liberation requires more than good intentions. It calls for expanded imagination, embodied practice, courageous action, and continual inner transformation.
While we are living through a time of profound societal crisis, we are also witnessing beautiful expressions of human creativity, resistance, mutual care, and possibility. As many continue to cling to systems rooted in separation and domination, others are being called not only to dismantle those systems but also to boldly imagine, build, and sustain communities grounded in radical truth, radical love, and shared liberation.
Learn more about Whole Systems Transformation or visit Beyond Diversity 101’s site for more details about the program.
About the Leaders
Niyonu Spann
Niyonu Spann (she/her/hers) – Lead Teacher Niyonu Spann is a member of Chester Monthly Meeting of Friends (Quakers) in Chester, PA. She is a singer-songwriter, organization development practitioner, coach, and mom/grandmom of three amazing sons and three delightful granddaughters! Niyonu designed and led the first Beyond Diversity 101 Intensive in 1999 after some 10 years of facilitating “diversity workshops” and becoming […]
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Dr. Darya Funches
Dr. Darya Funches is an author, inspirational speaker, educator, consultant, coach and ceremonial leader who has dedicated her professional life to the evolution of humanity to reach its highest potentials to benefit current and future generations at work, home and in community. In different professional practices, she is a corporate consultant, executive advisor, transformational guide and […]
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Zhenevere Sophia Dao
Zhenevere Sophia Dao, a transgender woman, is a poet, novelist, playwright, and existential and cultural philosopher. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University in Poetry and Literature, before leaving academia for the equestrian professions and to become an independent scholar. She is the founder of Mythosomatics, an original body of mythopoetic movement art, and […]
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Dr. Jamila Lyiscott
Dr. Jamila Lyiscott is an Associate Professor of Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she is the founding co-director of the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research. She also serves as a co-Editor-in-Chief of the highly reputed Equity & Excellence in Education Journal. Jamila is a community-engaged scholar, nationally renowned […]
Learn more about Dr. Jamila Lyiscott