Creative Director |
Jumana Risheq
Jumana Risheq places her belonging and identity as a daughter of the land, a student of natural design, and a story keeper.
A second-generation refugee of occupied Palestine born in Jordan raised in Ontario, she has come to settle in Coast Salish, W̱SÁNEĆ, and Lekwungen/Songhees lands, known today as Victoria.
As a story-teller, herbalist, and educator, Jumana’s journey has included an intensive education and practice in traditional and modern herbal medicine and permaculture design, ongoing mentorship and indigenous knowledge preservation with the Ammarin Bedouin tribe, grassroots work in Palestinian and Syrian refugee camps, and collaboration with the local food sovereignty initiative Palenke Greens.
Jumana is devoted to building bridges between medicine from the earth to medicine for the earth by re-invigorating our embodied experience of relationship with plants, culture, ecology and each other.
Her approach recognizes that permaculture design and indigenous ways of knowing must be re-integrated from landscapes to relationships to health and to social design; she strives to teach, share and embody these approaches.
The heartbeat of her work moves to the knowing that we belong to each other and through land-based connection, fierce compassion, and collaborative solutions we can move forward in a way that honours the wisdom of those who came before us and those who will follow us.
You can find her in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, listening and sharing the stories of her community, curating herbal medicine, cooking with the spirit of her grandmothers, in the clinic and dancing to the rhythms of the world.