Co-Directors
We offer this course to bring the knowledge and skill we’ve earned throughout our time as students to our local communities.
SHABINA LAFLEUR-GANGJI
Shabina is a mixed Indian, Persian, and French herbalist who has been involved in healing justice work last decade. She works to support people in reclaiming their traditional knowledge through their connection with ancestral plants and has used herbal medicine as a way to fundraise for movements for freedom and liberation.
She holds an advanced diplomat from Humber College’s Traditional Chinese Practition and Acupuncture Program and is a graduate of the the School of Ayurveda and Panchakarma in Kerala and the Living Earth School of Herbalism. She has studied alongside herbalists such as Dr. Nadine Ijaz, Janette Cormier, Scott Reid and Janice Canning.
STEPHANIE MORNINGSTAR
Stephanie’s maternal lineage is Kanien’kehá:ka, Wakeniáhten (Mohawk nation, Turtle clan), with ancestors rooted in Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. Her father and his ancestors were from Western and Eastern Europe. She is a plant nerd, medicine tender, bridge builder, soil and seed steward, scholar, student, and Earth Worker dedicated to decolonizing and liberating minds, hearts, and land- one plant, person, ecosystem, and non-human being at a time. She loves to learn and share stories about medicines; builds soil and reintegrates mycelium at Sky World Apothecary and Farm; teach about the plant-human-non-human-ancestral connection through a decolonial lens at Seed, Soil, + Spirit School; and liberates land with and for Indigenous, Black, and people of color as the Relationships and Reciprocity Co-Director at the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust. Stephanie is also PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies Graduate Program focusing her work on Biocultural Restoryation at the SUNY ESF Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.