Virginia Cumberbatch & Meagan Harding

Inspired by our own lived experience as a civil rights attorney and a social justice advocate in higher education, we often reflected on the complexities of having to navigate spaces and systems not built for us as Black women and then be tasked with dismantling the oppressive practices, paradigms, and policies that upheld those institutions.

As such, we boldly envisioned a platform that allowed us to create equitable futures for BIPOC bodies through innovation, creative storytelling, and disruptive practices. Rosa Rebellion is a space anchored in celebration through this disruption. In midst of this work as creative activists, advocates, and agitators, we also recognized the need for BIPOC leaders and WOC specifically to take stock of their mental health and get equipped to combat the physical, mental, and spiritual exhaustion of racial trauma. Through spaces that served to acknowledge those on the front-lines of community change, we wanted to offer rest, reprieve and restoration. This is the mission of Rosa Rebellion's REBEL + REST project.

REBEL + REST is a thoughtfully curated retreat space that encourages activists, educators, and community advocates of color from across the Americas to rest, rejuvenate, and restore. This dynamic experience provides intentional space to exhale and commune with like-minded people as they explore healing practices that respond to the ongoing trauma of Black, Latinx, Asian and Indigenous bodies, the political pain surrounding people of color, and the grind of systemic racism. REBEL+REST extends support and empowerment to those navigating systems of oppression and using their voices and platforms to dismantle systemic racism. Participants are invited to take part in active exercises that help them both individually and communally learn to rest and protect their peace, in the midst of our national collective resistance.