MEET MEKDELA
I was born to Ethiopian and Eritrean parents who met while seeking asylum in Los Angeles, California. I went from San Francisco to New York City and now live in Grass Valley, California where my dad began to root in the 90s. I’m stretched between worlds tending land, lineage and belonging in Nisenan and Maidu territory and Ethiopia.
HOW I CAME TO THIS WORK
About six years ago, I began one-on-one therapy for the first time in my life. Somatic therapy, thank gods. It was enlivening. But after about six months, I felt complete with it. What I was yearning for was group work. I wanted to heal in relationship.
I was invited into many different kinds of group containers, and one of them was conflict practice. There, I started to name something I had already been doing for a long time: being called in to support loved ones, family members, and colleagues through difference.
Group practice helped me see that peacemaker role clearly: when it was supporting me and my relations, and when it was hurting us.
I’ve come to see conflict as an invitation to intimacy, and difference as evidence that we’re alive.
Conflict and repair practice with me is about building the relational ecosystems we want to be alive within.
THE THREADS
Relationship is the thread running through everything I do.
I spent my twenties in New York City searching for self. While there I helped launch THE CITY REPORTER’s Open Newsroom project, which brought communities and journalists together in public libraries to rebuild trust and make reporting a more collaborative process. Today I carry that work forward as the Engagement Director of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration, where I tend relationships and connections across newsrooms around the world.
When I moved to Grass Valley, I was met with one of the worst wildfire seasons, and I leapt into a journey of repairing my relationship with fire, both the external element and my internal flame. I trained as a wildland firefighter and now volunteer with neighbors.
Inspired by the land, I keep a process-oriented art practice, working with foraged clay, plants, and minerals to make quotidian objects, sculptures, and installations. I’ve most recently collaborated with Bear Yuba Land Trust and HUṠWEJ on site- and time-specific pieces. I also serve as a Public Art Commissioner for Nevada City.
TEACHERS AND TRAINING
This work is not held alone.
Thank you to my direct teachers: Char Azad, Dr. Carrie Brown, Shilpa Jain, Meenadchi, Nkem Ndefo, Terry Parris Jr., Florie St. Aime, Lizzie Tilia, and Erika Wright.
My training spans decades across communications, restorative justice, land tending, mediation, guidework, shared leadership and facilitation, and trauma-informed somatic practice: facilitation and systems (AORTA), healing justice (Herban Cura), decolonizing food systems (Soul Fire Farm), site-specific building (Earthen Shelter), ancient art making and natural pigments (Wild Pigment Project), guidework (Gatherwell), and somatic practice (Lumos Transforms).
I hold a Certification of Mediation Fundamentals from UCSF Law School, a Master’s in Community Engaged Journalism from CUNY, and a Bachelor’s in Media, Culture and Communications from NYU.