Real Talk With Aminata Cairo: Holding Space – A Storytelling Approach to Trampling Diversity and Inclusion

Please join the Barner-McDuffie House and the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies in taking part in a Holding Space workshop. Aminata Cairo takes the audience on an exploratory journey into holding space for each other’s stories. What does it require? Why is it so hard? We have heard it said that change starts within oneself. Well, how do you do that? Through engaging in various activities drawing from various art forms, Aminata facilitates people to truly start from themselves and work towards collective change. She does not avoid the possible discomfort (ongezelligheid) that might accompany this journey, but just like in the Blues guides people through the hard stuff so they can come out better for it.

Aminata’s Holding Space workshop utilizes methodologies from the Inclusivity Pathway Training that Aminata Cairo developed in collaboration with The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Leiden University and In Holland University of Applied Sciences with the support of an NRO Grant.

For more information, contact euclid119@syr.edu.

About Aminata Cairo

Aminata Cairo was born and raised in the Netherlands to Surinamese parents and left for the United States to pursue her college education. She received a dual bachelor’s degree in psychology and physical education, master’s degrees in both clinical psychology and medical anthropology, and a doctoral degree in medical anthropology. She has done community work in the Netherlands, U.S., Suriname and Ghana. While on the faculty at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), she received the International Education Faculty Achievement Award in 2013 for bringing students to Suriname and Ghana. She was also recognized with the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award in 2013 for her efforts at SIUE.

She is the only scholar to have written about traditional Afro-Surinamese dance and received a Fulbright Fellowship in 2015 to further pursue this research. She founded the multicultural dance company, “Sabi Diri, so be it” in Kentucky, and performed throughout the United States and as far as Suriname. In 2016, she received the Honorary Order of the Palm, a state decoration by the government of Suriname, for her contribution in culture.

In 2017, she became the first and only lector of African descent in the applied university system in the Netherlands. Her focus was on inclusive education. Since then, she has become a sought-after speaker and consultant on diversity and inclusion issues. In 2021, Cairo published her first book, “Holding Space: A Narrative Approach to Trampling Diversity and Inclusion.” She began working as the lector of social justice and diversity in the arts at the Amsterdam University of the Arts in August 2022. Cairo is a proud mother, daughter, sister and Lyman T. Johnson scholar. Her work is always grounded in the spiritual and cultural traditions of her Native American godmother and her Surinamese heritage.

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