sankofa roots

crisis & emergency preparedness

Sankofa Roots offers day-long and multi-day outdoor preparedness trainings that build practical, life-saving skills for individuals and communities. Our curriculum covers earth-based “wilderness survival” skills like fire making, natural shelter building, navigation, water sourcing and filtration, and rope-making — as well as critical emergency response skills like wilderness first aid, crisis readiness, go-bag preparation, and neighborhood emergency planning.

We have trained over 1,700 participants across California, Oregon, and Washington. Our trainings are designed specifically for communities that have been systematically excluded from emergency preparedness infrastructure — ensuring that when crisis comes, our people are ready to respond and to lead.

cultural organizing

Cultural organizing is the foundation of our work. The severance of Black, Indigenous, and Queer communities from their ancestral lands, practices, and knowledge is a deep and ongoing harm — and healing it is inseparable from building the resilience our communities need to survive what is coming.

We support participants to reclaim the foods, songs, practices, and lifeways of their ancestral lineages that have been lost over generations. Through traditional basket weaving, clay and pottery, cordage making, wild food foraging, plant medicine, natural dye work, and fire tending, we recover practices that sustain our communities ecologically, spiritually, and culturally.

In every training, we ground ourselves in the wisdom of our ancestral lineages and draw on Indigenous technologies and land-based medicine for our collective survival and healing. We open and close our courses in ceremony. We honor the elements and our ancestors through ritual. We prepare and eat foods that re-hydrate our memories and imaginations from our lineages. We play traditional cultural games. We make and dance to music that heals us from the inside out.

Throughout our trainings, we intentionally cultivate a village — a living, breathing community where everyone has a role, everyone belongs, and the act of being together is itself a form of healing.

first responder career pathways

Black, Indigenous, and Queer communities are on the frontlines of wildfire, climate disaster, and environmental collapse — yet are among the least represented in the emergency response and environmental stewardship fields built to address these crises. Sankofa Roots is changing that.

We provide training, mentorship, and certification support for participants pursuing careers in wildland firefighting, emergency management, and environmental leadership through hands-on training in outdoor stewardship skills, Wilderness First Aid, and certification pathways in emergency response. Our programs integrate FEMA-aligned curriculum with ancestral knowledge of fire, land, and community care — cultivating a new generation of first responders who are technically skilled, culturally grounded, and positioned to lead.

Representation in emergency response is not optional. It is a justice imperative and a public safety necessity.