Coming Soon— Sign up below to get notified when registration opens.
liberationwellbeingComing Soon

Find Your Voice

Our stories have the power to transform systems that were never designed for us. In this class, we will empower you to unpack your racial trauma, explore your identity, and find your voice.

Taught by Sarah Seraj, PhD & Saamiya Seraj, PhD
Live Online8 sessions x 60 min

Course Overview

In this class, we unpack racial and generational trauma as a community, explore the roots of our identities, and learn to find our voices in a world that often wants to silence us. We retrace history to understand how modern society upholds white supremacy and causes extensive harm to BIPOC communities. Using that knowledge, we consciously move away from white models of success, learn how to become more comfortable with our identities, and re-design our life based on the values that matter most to us. We will also learn how to leverage our voice and power to organize in community and create the systemic shifts we need to usher in a better world.

Topics covered:

  • Understanding systems of oppression and its effects on the present world order
  • How western imperialism rewrote the history of the world
  • The psychological damage of the white gaze on our identities and self-esteem
  • Reconnecting with our identity and reclaiming our voice, confidence, and power
  • Uncovering racial and intergenerational trauma to start the healing process
  • Dismantling the lie of meritocracy and white models of success and professionalism
  • Redefining success based on our own values and terms
  • Strategies to counter racism and uplift the most marginalized voices
  • Understanding how our liberation is connected and learning to create a network of allies
  • Making space for joy and internalizing that rest is an important part of liberation work

Who Is This Course For?

The course is best for folks with marginalized identities who are questioning the role of systems of oppression in their lives and are looking for ways to feel more comfortable with their identities and advocacy voice. While the course is most suitable for BIPOC, white allies can also benefit from the class if they are looking to decolonize their mindset.

What You'll Learn

  • A better idea of how systems of oppression affect the your life and well-being
  • A greater understanding of racial trauma and ways to heal from it
  • More clarity and comfort around identities and values
  • More confidence in yourself and advocacy voice
  • An deeper understanding of leadership and community through a decolonized mindset
  • Strategies on how to use your voice and advocate for yourself and your communities

What's Included

Live Sessions

Interactive classes with your instructor

Session Recordings

Lifetime access to all recordings

Community Access

Connect with fellow learners

Certificate

Proof of course completion

Course Modules

1

It's not you - it's the system

In this first module, we'll look at systems of oppression and gain an understanding of the effects of historical segregation in present systems. We'll also reflect on which of our past failures that were most likely connected to systemic barriers we faced.

2

Reconnecting with our identity

This module is all about getting comfortable with the various facets of our identity. We'll talk about how systems of oppression affect our identity and self-esteem and the psychological effects of the white gaze. We'll also figure out the steps to reclaim our confidence and heal from racial trauma.

3

Exploring our racial trauma

This module is about unpacking what ideas of success we need to unlearn. We'll work on dismantling white models of success and professionalism.

4

Redefining success on our own terms

This module is focused on creating a vision for our life based on our own terms and values. To do this, we will reflect on our core values and connect those values to our identities.

5

The white supremacy playbook

In this module, we’ll unpack which strategies of white supremacy (such as perfectionism, neutrality, divide & conquer) have been used against us and how to counter them.

6

Finding and using our voice

In this module, we’ll talk about how to use our voices and unique strengths to push for systemic change. We will cover strategies to counter racism and about how our collective liberation is connected.

7

The cost of our resilience

Navigating the world as the “other” is exhausting. In this module, we’ll talk about our perpetual exhaustion, how racial trauma hurts our wellbeing and health, and how to manage our nervous systems and energies.

8

Organizing in community

For our final module, we’ll talk about how to organize in community with others, because the work is impossible to do alone (and nor will we move the needle that way).

Real-World Project

A collection of writings and reflections about your personal life philosophy and how you want to live and lead. We will work on these together during each class. The idea is that these writings will serve as a guiding compass that you can refer back to for clarity about where you are headed in life when feeling lost. It represents who you are and your core values. Learners can also choose to attend, volunteer or host a community event that feels closely connected to their personal life philosophy, and deliver a short report on their experience.

About the Instructors

Sarah Seraj, PhD

Outspoken Psychologist. Data-Driven DEI Advisor. I help organizations become anti-racist using research-backed methodologies. I also support BIPOC in professional spaces.

Sarah Seraj, PhD is co-founder and CTO at A Better Force, where she conducts workshops and consults with companies on improving workplace culture and systemic inequities by using the latest findings from the social sciences. In her data consultancy work, she uses computational language tools to answer social psychological questions and develop best practices for companies. As a woman of color and an immigrant, one of the main goals of her work is to have more inclusive spaces for women, BIPOC, and other underrepresented groups. Sarah got her PhD in Psychology from UT Austin in 2021.

Saamiya Seraj, PhD

Saamiya Seraj, PhD

Co-instructor

Fierce BIPOC Coach helping individuals find their voice and thrive

Hi there! I am the CEO and co-founder of A Better Force, a leadership development company with a special focus on empowering BIPOC, immigrant, and other historically marginalized communities. For individuals, I’m a fierce and loving coach, giving equity-oriented and culturally sensitive solutions. For companies, I serve as a strategic advisor, guiding them on how to dismantle systems of oppression and grow with equity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Definitely! Contact us at contact@abetterforce.com to schedule a 30-min chat. You can also schedule a call through our coaching page: paperbell.me/abetterforce

Get Notified

Sign up to be notified when registration opens.

Format

Live Online

Class Size

25 students max

Sessions

8 sessions

Duration

60 min each

You Might Also Like

Coming Soon

Building Our Capacity for Resistance

While it is imperative that we resist the oppressive systems we currently live in, intergenerational and racial trauma often tricks us into believing that assimilation will keep us safe. In the workshop, we will unlearn these harmful narratives, dig deep into our roots to learn from ancestral knowledge and sustainably increase our capacity to advocate for our communities. The class will cover our past, present and future – the history of how we got here, the present fears that hold us back, and how we can overcome those to build a better future. Why take this class? Without doing the important work of learning from history and healing from the past, we are doomed to continue our cycles of violence. Moreover, the work of resisting oppressive systems and reimagining them is a long and arduous journey. We need to build our resistance muscles if we want to sustain the long fight, and healing from our racial and intergenerational trauma will help us get there.

LiberationWellbeing
Sarah Seraj, PhD
Sarah Seraj, PhD · Outspoken Psychologist. Data-Driven DEI Advisor. I help organizations become anti-racist using research-backed methodologies. I also support BIPOC in professional spaces.
Live Online25 students max4 sessions
Coming Soon

The World on our Plates: Culture, Politics, and Food Systems

This course takes as its starting point something we all need in order to survive - food - and examines how the personal is entwined with the social and the political. It must be clear this is not a course on “clean” eating or dieting - rather, it aims to examine how our individual choices are shaped by the larger food systems around us. Together, we will examine the various systems and processes leading to the food that ends up on our plates - where it comes from, what it is made up of, who is involved in putting it together - to reflect on larger questions around culture, cuisine, and community. Figuratively speaking, we are less interested in the breaking of bread than in the actual baking of bread. That is to say, whilst the symbolic and cultural elements of food are generally known, this course aims to focus squarely on the material dimensions of how food is made. We will consider how questions around labour, migration, race & gender, coloniality, capitalism and the climate crisis are wrapped up in the production of food. Together, we'll consider how our choices around the food we consume are shaped by the larger social and political contexts we are a part of. We'll see how these contexts affect our lives - not just nutritionally, but socially and environmentally as well. Our weekly sessions will culminate in a bread-making workshop led by Josefina Venegas Meza, a professional baker & pastry chef who has worked in some of London's best kitchens. In addition to acquiring a practical and valuable skill, we intend this practise-based session to function as an opportunity to personally reflect on the various topics we've covered together, and how they might apply in our individual lives. You will also receive a comprehensive and exclusive bread-making handbook with all the essential information you might need to refer back to should you wish to continue baking in future.

LiberationWellbeingWorldbuilding
Josefina Venegas Meza, PhDPavan Mano, PhD
Josefina Venegas Meza, PhD & Pavan Mano, PhD
Live Online25 students max8 sessions
Coming Soon

Beyond Sustainability: Connection, Wisdom, and Regenerative Leadership

We are living in a time when environmental conversations are often dominated by crisis, urgency, and fear. The narratives we hear most frequently focus on collapse, destruction, and emergency. While these realities cannot be ignored, constantly operating from this place can leave us feeling overwhelmed, drained, and powerless. What if there was another way to engage with this work? This course invites you to explore the environmental and sustainability space from a different perspective, one rooted in empowerment, connection, and renewal rather than stress and overwhelm. Over time, the sustainability field has increasingly been shaped by institutions, corporations, and NGOs. While many important efforts happen within these spaces, the deeper essence of environmental stewardship, the relationship between people, land, culture, and ancestral knowledge, can sometimes get lost. This course creates space to reconnect with that essence. Rather than approaching sustainability purely as an intellectual or technical subject, we will explore how to embody other ways of being that allow us to engage with the environmental field from a place of authenticity, care, and inspiration. Drawing from environmental psychology, behavioral change, storytelling, and ancestral wisdom, participants will explore how inner transformation can lead to more meaningful external impact. When we lead from this place, we are able to contribute to healthier systems while showing up with less guilt, less pressure, and more clarity, purpose, and power. By the end of the course, you will feel more empowered to engage with environmental work from a place of inspiration, grounded in a deeper connection to the land, to community, and to the wisdom that has guided humans for generations. Throughout the course, we will reflect on questions such as: - How can we engage with environmental work from a deeper, more life-affirming place that invites both ourselves and others into the conversation? - How can we move from intellectual understanding to embodied practice in sustainability? - How can personal transformation shape broader transformation in global systems? - How can we design and share initiatives, ideas, or projects that emerge from inspiration and authenticity rather than pressure or urgency? - How can we lead and communicate in ways that reconnect people to the land and to each other?

WellbeingNarrativeLiberation
Najla Abdellatif Vallander
Najla Abdellatif Vallander · Environmental Advocate
Live Online25 students max4 sessions

Join our mailing list

Stay updated on new courses and events.