Malaika Aaron-Bishop
Senior DEI Consultant | Director of Methodology & Learning
Malaika Aaron-Bishop (she/her) identifies as an Afro-Carribean and Black woman. Born in Guyana, she came to the US during high school, landing in a predominantly white town in central New Jersey and having the experience of being placed in ESL classes, despite English being her first language. Heading to NYC for college, Malaika heaved a similar sigh of relief as Alethea and has since had a career in broadcast TV, anthropology and higher education, to name just a few touchpoints. Although she has lived in many places in the US, she currently lives in Brooklyn and calls it home.
Malaika considers herself to be an ACTIVIST at heart and what brings her to this work is her experiences as a community organizer encountering roadblocks when looking to partner with organizations and institutions to help create change. Her desire to bring movement language and concepts to organizations and institutions comes from her investment in ensuring that organizations are prepared to become community partners and to join community members in their push and for change and equity for themselves.
Malaika is an experienced and thoughtful facilitator. She creates space for learning while improving levels of engagement and connection between people on teams, both large and small. Her facilitation is informed by her adaptability, insight, keen observation, humor, and an openness for the idiosyncrasies of our shared humanity. While the objectives of her facilitation change with the needs of each organization, several factors are critical to every session she leads: a racial justice lens, an understanding of power and power differentials, and the ability to engage difficult conversations across lines of difference.
As Director of Methodology & Learning at Co-Creating Inclusion, Malaika leads the work to develop and iterate on our methodology and approach to delivering collaborative learning experiences for clients that creates individual and organizational change, transformation and growth. She identifies patterns and learning points from within and across projects, as well as draws from literature and research from a variety of fields.
Professionally, Malaika came to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in partnership with DARE Consulting at the New York City Department of Education. She spent more than a decade working in academia at the City University of New York. Her community organization work is concerned with racial justice, energy justice, women’s health & reproductive rights, health justice, and criminal justice. She is committed to working with educators, change-makers, and advocates to build the knowledge, agency, capacity, and empathy that ultimately fuel the work of manifesting justice.
As Director of Methodology & Learning at Co-Creating Inclusion, Malaika leads the work to develop and iterate on our methodology and approach to delivering collaborative learning experiences for clients that creates individual and organizational change, transformation and growth. She identifies patterns and learning points from within and across projects, as well as draws from literature and research from a variety of fields.