Mental health | The Harriet Tubman Institute

Toni Achebe Bell

rebsl — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:50:10 +0000

Toni Achebe Bell is the founder of Black Cat Impact Media and the creator and host of the What's Up with Docs Podcast. She was the Impact Producer for The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales by Abigail Disney, Fruits of Labor, and the award-winning A Woman on the Outside. She teaches media and impact at Saybrook University. She has worked as an Impact Strategist for Odyssey Impact Partners, Looky Looky Pictures, & Auburn Seminary’s Hartley Media Impact Initiative.
Toni spearheaded the impact campaign for RePresent Media’s initiative, The Power of Personal Documentary Films, and previously served on the advisory board of the Southeast European Film Festival. She has worked as a facilitator and mentor for Doc Society’s Good Pitch Local. A sought-after industry expert, Toni has been a speaker, panelist, mentor, and juror at leading documentary film festivals and labs, including NALIP, Dok Leipzig, HotDocs, IFP Week, Berlinale’s European Film Market, Outfest, Docs by the Sea, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, and Korea Next Media.
Toni has also contributed her expertise as a grant reviewer for Firelight Media’s William Greaves Fund and Impact Funds, California Humanities, the Jerome Foundation, and numerous other funding organizations. She was part of the inaugural cohort of Art Equity's BIPOC Leadership Circle and formerly served as the Filmmaker Services Manager at the International Documentary Association (IDA).
Toni holds a MAT-TESOL and an MA in Visual Anthropology from the University of Southern California (USC), an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University, and a certificate in Professional Screenwriting from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology and Social Change at the California Institute for Integral Studies

Keywords: Mental health, Afromexicanas, identity formation

Mbalu Lumor

rebsl — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 15:27:36 +0000

Mbalu Lumor has a sociology degree and completed her Master's degree in Leadership and Community Engagement at 91��ɫ. She is currently a doctoral student in Health Policy & Equity at 91��ɫ. Mbalu is a community organizer with over 20years experience working with survivors of torture. Her research explores the intersectionality of distress and decolonial trauma care approaches for refugee survivors of violence such as torture.

Keywords: Refugee, Forced migration, Mental Health, Trauma, Colonial, Postcolonial, African

Margaret Alala

alexall5 — Sat, 13 Nov 2021 17:45:34 +0000

Margaret is a doctoral student whose research highlights coloniality in contemporary mental health practices and its impacts on Black women in the global North who are diagnosed with schizophrenia in the mental health system. She is also interest in therapeutic community alternatives to carceral mental health practices.