KAPWA Racial Equity Transformation is a racial equity and organization and leadership development consulting, coaching, training, and mediation practice founded by Amihan Jennifer Matias to create deep and sustainable racial equity transformation within individuals, organizations, and communities that are invested in the work of collective healing, liberation, justice, and equity.

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Shared Humanity​

KAPWA is the Filipino word for community. It means shared identity, equality, and being with others in in a way that recognizes our common humanity. It is the recognition of the self in others that honors and celebrates the inextricable link that connects us to one another. It is a core value that guides KAPWA's racial equity work.

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Racial Equity Requires Transformation

​A true commitment to racial equity requires a deep and thorough transformation of the organization's systems, structures, practices, policies, norms, and culture in order to prioritize ​and fully embrace the value, dignity, and humanity of all of its people. To move towards racial equity transformation, we must accept that our collective liberation is bound together and create new structures and ways of being with each other that honors this.

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Welcome and Inclusion

Organizations committed to racial equity transformation must create a community and culture that welcomes, centers, and amplifies the voices, stories, experiences, and needs of people who have been marginalized so that we all can truly thrive and contribute. A commitment to racial equity transformation obliges organizations to interrogate, disrupt, and dismantle the status quo of white supremacy/white dominant culture and replace it with an inclusive race equity culture. Most organizations struggle with how to create a culture of equity and inclusion that values, supports, retains, and develops its BIPOC staff and community members. Supporting organizations to build equitable cultures of welcome and inclusion is a primary focus and strength of KAPWA.  

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Be the Change/Lead the Change

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Building and sustaining a race equity culture is a daily practice and one that includes being the change as well as leading the change. Organizations need to commit time and resources to support individual and collective learning that includes understanding and challenging systemic racism and white supremacy structures, practicing cultural humility, interrogating personal biases, building empathy, and accepting the discomfort that is a necessary catalyst for growth and change. These are some of the practices and processes that KAPWA is skilled at guiding and cultivating.

 

Head, Heart, and Hands

We have an integrated head (reflection), heart (feelings), and hands (embodied action) approach to engaging in this work because we know that changed people, with changed hearts and minds, change systems. Racial equity transformation requires that people and organizations be willing to make changes, first within themselves, then in relationship to others, and finally systemically and structurally within the larger organization and community.

 

Partnership

We would be honored to partner with you to help guide your organization through this racial equity transformation process.

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