The Joanne M. Braxton Institute for Sustainability, Resiliency and Joy, Incorporated, is organized exclusively for charitable and educational purposes. Our purpose is to foster sustainability and renewal—physical, emotional, and spiritual—for those in the helping and healing professions and others engaged in social transformation and service roles and to empower individual health and wholeness for the larger good of humanity. A not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the public good, we give priority attention to those in historically under-represented or displaced groups and communities; we promote sustainability for those whose identities mark them as less valued by the dominant society, and we affirm diversity in all its forms, including race, gender and gender expression, ethnicity, sexual preference, physical ability, and religious affiliation or lack thereof. Our goals include intersectional justice, authentic inter-religious, multi-faith, multi-cultural and multi-racial community-building and fostering a greater understanding of the ways that perceptions of race, ethnicity, poverty, sexuality and sexual orientation, gender and gender identification and subtle and overt forms of discrimination influence personal and professional life.
The Braxton Institute co-creates collective strategies to repair and heal harms and traumas of historically oppressed communities and to lift up legacies of resistance and joy. We do this by employing education, the arts, ritual, and spiritual traditions to support leaders with marginalized identities, foster community building across generations, advance research, teaching, public dialogue, and advocacy, and to provide healing, resilience, and sustainability in dangerous times. We envision a world in which -- through restorative justice and human creativity -- legacies of harm are transformed into patterns of peace and joy, embodied in just and sustainable communities; a world that affirms human ecology and biodiversity in all its forms, including race, gender and gender expression, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical ability, religious affiliation, or lack thereof.
Our Goals are:
- to generate public symposia and dialogues on resisting and thriving, led by activists, practitioners, scholars, faith leaders and artists; to foster sustainability for communities of resistance by harnessing the power of narrative to bring knowledge from the margins to the center of public discourse; to educate and inspire.
- to foster education and research on reparations, health equity, and moral injury; to contribute to academic curricula in the liberal arts, law, religion/ethics, and healthcare, as possible.
- to create and hold sanctuary space (retreats and restorative Circles of Care) for historically marginalized leaders of color (especially Black change-makers) in high stakes situations, to facilitate evidence-based strategies for self-stewardship and self-care; to harness the resources of the arts, humanities, and sacred traditions for spiritual grounding.
- to advocate for public policy changes to advance justice-making and reparations (we are signatories to HR 40).
- to promote greater understanding of the ways that perceptions of race, ethnicity, poverty, sexuality and sexual orientation, gender and gender identification and subtle and overt forms of discrimination influence personal, professional, and collective life; to cultivate just and sustainable community-building by partnering with related organizations and efforts.