Arlène Elizabeth Casimir is a Brooklyn-based activist, educator, herbalist, healer, and writer. Her experience teaching middle school and elementary school in New York City and New Orleans awakened her purpose of drawing on culturally-sustaining and trauma-responsive teaching practices to nurture the inner genius and inner teacher in others. She founded, designed, and implemented a healing-centered curriculum for her students post-Hurricane Katrina. As a first generation Haitian American, Arlène recognizes the power of community, equity, literacy, and spiritual resilience to help others live with personal integrity, transcend their circumstances, and author their own lives. She enjoys working with teachers, families, schools, and community organizations to do the inner work for socially just outer change. She is currently studying Clinical Psychology and Education with a concentration in Spirituality Mind Body at Teachers College, Columbia University; and leading her educational consultancy, The Awakened Collaborative, LLC where she works as a staff developer and partner to various institutions that are aligned to her mission, vision, and values as an educator.
