Disabled survivor Amarachi Rachel needs support!

We need mutual aid!

Hey friends!

I am Ezyi. Amarachi Rachel Nwokoro and I am an artist, indigenous community healer and disability justice activist in London.

I am an Afroqueer, Transfemme, Disabled, Neuroexpansive, Autistic soul doing my best to stay alive! 

I have experienced creativity as medicine and so I experiment with the healing arts to heal hearts.

My work centres Black disabled, trans, queer & mad survivors through facilitating transformative spaces for community connection.

I am a soft, open hearted hedgehog as well as a descendant of warriors. Biafra, my homeland,  is still fighting for sovereignty and, through my advocacy practice: continue to dismantle oppressive infrastructures in myself and my environments. 

I dream of embodied collective liberation and remember how to rest for our grandmothers who could not. 

I experience co-morbid conditions that are disabling and painful. 

These include: Fibromyalgia, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Joint Hypermobility Syndrome, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Autism, ADHD and Irlen Syndrome.

I am still cultivating Black Mind - a art-as-activism space that centres disabled Black people in the UK and those with mental health conditions by wielding the expressive arts as a protest tool. I created Black Mind drawing from my lived experience of police violence, the mental health system and psychiatric wards.

This year has been rough! I’ve been healing from domestic violence, medical trauma and houselessness. I have to spend approx an additional £1600 extra per month on disability expenditure

While currently in a severe M.E relapse and temporary housing, i have had to slow down my justice work to battle state systems for the health & social care that I need to survive. It’s quite exhausting, fighting for justice and accountability and honestly, I rarely get to spend money to care for myself.

This overexertion results in an increase in my physical, mental and learning access needs. It’s actually boring to amplify my plight and wounds. Really what I want to say is that I love what i do SO much. I sincerely love creating safe space for others and I love art and I love collective trauma healing. But I can’t pour from an empty cup: i am reaching out to you to support my independence, safety and protection so that I can sustainably do what I do best: breathe, be here and care for this wild ass world ❤️

Some important things we need to spend the money on:

If you believe in me, have ever been touched or changed by my art, would like to support me to stay on this planet… and can afford to help me smash through systemic barriers to healthcare, then we invite you to donate and share this post far and wide. Love in action is delicious. 

Akuwamgbe: There is abundance out there! ⚡️

You can see more about my work : www.rachelshapes.com and here: www.blackmind.co.uk

Thank you: for still being alive. It isn’t easy and you’re doing great.

Love,

Amarachi