2022 Community Grant Recipients
Leia Friedman, M.S.
Psychedelic Survivors
Leia Friedwoman was born and raised on traditional Pawtucket land (also called Lowell, MA). Leia obtained her master's degree in Clinical Psychology from Rivier University and worked as an in-home therapist before psychedelics turned her world inside out. She is now a psychedelic integration facilitator, a trainee in restorative and transformative approaches to conflict, and the host of a podcast called The Psychedologist: consciousness positive radio. Leia holds her permaculture design certificate from Starhawk’s Earth Activist Training, a program that emphasizes social permaculture and spirituality in activism.
Psychedelic Survivors is dedicated to supporting survivors of sexual abuse/assault, and/or direct personal harm within the context of psychedelic therapy, sessions or ceremony. They host a confidential online support circle for survivors of sexual abuse and interpersonal harm in psychedelic therapy, psychedelic sessions and ceremonies.
Vilmarie Fraguada Narloch, PsyD.
Sana Healing Collective
Vilmarie Fraguada Narloch, PsyD. is a licensed psychologist focusing on integrated treatment of co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. She is an activist working to end the War on Drugs and advocates for science and reality based drug education and harm reduction approaches for all. She approaches her work from a harm reductionist and humanistic lens, focusing on the individual needs of the person, group, or community. She received a certificate in psychedelic therapies and research from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2018.
Sana Healing Collective is a Chicago-based non-profit organization committed to individualized, client-led approaches promoting the well-being of the whole person and community. They are committed to the development of psychedelic-assisted therapy, including ketamine-assisted therapy, along with other integrative practices. Sana consists of a group of eight providers, including psychologists, psychiatrists, art therapists, and harm reductionists who are all graduates of the Certificate in Psychedelic Therapy and Research program of the California Institute of Integral Studies.
At Sana Healing Collective they embrace an ecological understanding of humans, recognizing that mind is inseparable from the body, and people live in the context of their relationships, environment, community, and culture. They aim to realize and integrate Sana, or healing, through a multidisciplinary approach incorporating cutting-edge innovation in mental health, bodywork, group, art, community, and environmental programs. They also recognize time-tested wisdom cultivated over millennia, and strive to weave this knowledge into our work at all levels. They are committed to individualized, client-led approaches that promote the wellbeing of the whole person, their community, and our environment.
Raúl Lescano
Soma - Las Drogas Como Son
Raúl Lescano Méndez is a freelance journalist and editor. For years he has worked or collaborated as a cultural journalist for different media in Peru and Latin America, such as Vice, Bocas, El Espectador, GK, LaMula.pe, among others. He was editor of the magazine Poder and fellow of the New Ibero-American Journalism Foundation (today the Gabo Foundation) and of the Diploma in Drug Policies, Health and Human Rights of the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE). He is also an editor for Smokeless Publishing.
Soma is a project that brings citizens closer to the most urgent, innovative and current debates and actions on the complex world of drugs.
In social networks: we search, select and, in a hundred words, we rescue and order the best and most innovative angles published by large media outlets and internationally renowned institutions on the multiple edges of the world of drugs. Every week we share new recommendations on Instagram , Facebook and Twitter.
On the ground: we carry out risk and damage reduction interventions in nightlife spaces, where we provide free posters and information brochures so that people learn to take care of themselves and self-regulate drug use and, thus, avoid bad experiences, illnesses or emergencies. We also offer talks and discussions on drugs and human rights in educational spaces.
At Proyectosoma.com: we develop long-term articles, with writers, journalists or specialists specifically selected for each content. In addition, we translate into Spanish great articles that we consider necessary for Spanish-speaking readers to have access to broaden the panorama of the debate on drugs in the region. We have done transcriptions and translations authorized by Mosaic Science , Penguin Random House , The International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service (ICEERS), Psymposia , Filter Magazine , and Harm Reduction.
Sara Barbosa
Mujeres Bachué Fundación
The Mujeres Bachue Foundation is part of the Muisca Confederation, that is a recognized indigenous community and has the endorsement of the Colombian constitution to have a fully independent government, culture, customs and systems of education and medicine. We operate within indigenous jurisdiction, and are legally safeguarded to work with entheogenic traditions and substances. The Mujeres Bachue Foundation is an established and trusted entity in the community, and has taken a leading roll in safeguarding traditional medicine and Midwifery knowledge in the Muisca community. Most recently, to facilitate our community mental health goals, we have forged an alliance with Origenes IPS to provide clinical support to intercultural integrative mental health models that are coherent to our cosmology. This is a unique project, being the first registered clinical bridge to many types of traditional indigenous medicine in Colombia. Eventually our plan is to expand these services to the general public as we are able.