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Make sure your public statement isn’t window dressing: There is your public statement, and then there’s the work

Written by Ava
June 2, 2020

A cartoon in early 1900's style with two men admiring a window dressing that says,

By: Ava Holliday and Aparna Rajagopal In her essay “Poetry is not a Luxury,” Audre Lorde wrote "there are no new ideas-there are only new ways of making them felt." (Sister Outsider, p. 39). Over the past week we have heard people speak their truths and share ideas, and we…

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Video & Resources on COVID-19 & Conservation/the Outdoors

Written by Aparna
April 1, 2020

an introductory slide from a presentation that says,

Dear Community, Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we at the Avarna Group have been trying to figure out our role, what to say, and how to move forward. We know that COVID-19 has exposed structural inequities and injustices that predated the pandemic, and that individual and institutional responses…

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Why it’s not enough to enlist board members of color: a cookie tale

Written by Aparna
December 10, 2019

A plate of chocolate chip cookies white and dark chocolate chips; each cookie has variable numbers of white and dark chocolate chips

As the year draws to a close and my family enters cookie baking mode, I’m thinking about a harder nut to crack than chestnuts on an open fire: white-led conservation and outdoor nonprofit boards.  We’ve noticed that in their urgency to diversify, many conservation and outdoor nonprofit boards have been…

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The role of white affinity spaces in anti-racism work

Written by Ava
September 20, 2019

In the spring, PGM ONE organizers asked me to write a piece about why white folks shouldn’t show up to PGM ONE. It was a piece that flowed out of me easily. I had been having the conversation about the importance and value of affinity spaces for people with marginalized…

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And . . . here’s yet another equity v., equality (v. justice) image series

Written by Aparna
May 25, 2019

three image series of people of the same height on varying terrain in front of a fence demonstrating the difference between equality and equity; the last image all the fence is gone to demonstrate justice

We wanted to tell you the story of why we decided to create yet another equality v. equity (v. justice) image series, which you can access here. For those of you who have been engaged in some conversation about equity in the past ten years, you inevitably have come across…

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Bearing witness to painful stories

Written by Aparna
April 24, 2019

Drawing of a woman with black hair looking distressed

Similar to when Camber Outdoors unveiled its 2019 Pledge, we (Ava and Aparna) have had a lot of thoughts and ideas swirling around in our heads as the #WontTakeSHIFTAnymore campaign has rolled out. We have brains that tend to go into a mode that we lovingly call, “entropic processing overdrive,”…

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When you fail to do the work

Written by Ava
February 6, 2019

A statement by the founders of the Avarna Group. As a company, we’ve been quiet about the announcement of the Camber Outdoors CEO pledge over the past few days, but not for lack of thoughts about the whole situation. On the contrary, we’ve been teeming with thoughts. In between flights,…

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Another year around the sun

Written by Avarna Group Admin
December 20, 2017

   Dear colleagues and friends, 2017 has been another momentous year for the Avarna Group. We want to thank you for continuing to support us, inspire us, and serve as champions for a more socially and environmentally just world. Here's our year in numbers: 101 days of travel 32…

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“But we’ve always said ‘biner!’” exclusionary words in outdoor recreation and education

Written by Aparna
September 25, 2017

Actually written by Guest Contributor Monserrat Alvarez [caption id="attachment_2568" align="alignleft" width="225"] Monserrat (Guachichil/Mexica) is an outdoor educator from the South who works for a more equitable and inclusive Outdoors. She currently works at cityWILD as their program assistant where she combines her love for the Outdoors, youth development, and social…

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Nature’s calling — for diversity to be about more than just race

Written by Aparna
September 19, 2017

stick person in the middle of image and surrounded by the various identities spelled out, such as race, education, sexuality, etc and arrows pointing to that stick figure

Dear CNN, Like many colleagues, we were thrilled to see that the topic of diversity in the outdoors has made it to mainstream media with your article “Nature's calling -- for more human diversity.” And we were even more pleased to see so many partners and friends gaining a national…

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Connection the dots: white supremacy and monuments

Written by Ava
August 21, 2017

image of Mt Rushmore in the ancestral homelands of the Lakota people

In the wake of Charlottesville this past weekend, I have been thinking quite a bit about how these events connect to the work our partners and clients do. So, in this third installment of our “connecting the dots,” series, we’d like to talk about monuments and memorials. Last week the…

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Equity means supporting single identity spaces

Written by Aparna
May 24, 2017

a box of crayons with all brown crayons

We know diversity allows organizations to think out of the box, be more creative and innovative, problem-solve better and see around corners. But leading with diversity can undermine equity, especially when it comes to single identity experiences for people with marginalized identities. To be clear, today we're talking about single-identity…

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