“Selam brings an honest, open, experienced perspective to her course. She manages to balance the sometimes hard content with grace and fortitude. She provides clarity, relevant learning opportunities, and creates a safe space for deep work. ”

“Selam’s course helped me dissect that for myself and is an excellent guide for engaging challenging, uncomfortable conversations with yourself.”

“The content of Selam’s teaching combined with the process of examining my socialization and context helped me to find the clarity that I sought for so long and left me with new questions for the next steps on this life-long journey. Selam’s wisdom, encouragement, honesty, and courage provides a space for learning that leads to change. ”

“Selam’s personal experience, dedication to research, background in yoga and mindfulness, and balance between tenderness and compassion, and, accountability and action made her a powerful guide and mentor. The reflection and call to action within the course make it the perfect training ground for moving from learning and talking about antiracism to living in to the work outside of the course. A course that can be taken again and again with new insight every time. Thank you, Selam.”

“Selam’s got a gift to meet people where they’re at and to nudge for next steps on the road of racial awareness. She challenged and encouraged with the steady reminder to lean in - to lean in when uncomfortable, when uncertain, when afraid or ashamed - to keep going and questioning, self-reflecting and examining one’s history, experience, actions and identity. From that place one’s belief system, implicit biases and ways of perpetuating racist systems are easier to see and to work towards dismantling. ”

“Selam’s antiracism course was profound. Selam does a brilliant job at covering many areas impacting the BIPOC communities and the one week we spent learning about indigenous roots and the deep seeded indigenous racism rooted in our country; that was heavy but necessary to hear and learn. The course really allows you to continue to learn and grow to be an Ally. This course is critical and crucial. ”

“I have had the profound opportunity to have met and learned from Selam Debs. Selam is a walking, talking, breathing change maker. It’s an honour to know her and benefit from her knowledge, experience and support through this, sometimes confusing, journey through unpacking colonization and the impact it has had on all of us.”

“I am thankful for Selam’s wisdom. She is a passionate educator who challenges us to listen, see, research, question, and rethink what we have learned, to examine our privilege and our understanding of race, racism, and anti-racism, and to act for real change. ”

“I am a white woman who never saw myself as white. I never thought of myself as a race. I never noticed predominantly white spaces or realized the movies and books I consumed were mostly white. Then my son asked me why I mostly only have white friends. This made me very uncomfortable. I attended the WOKE Woman event last year and had my eyes opened a wee bit. From there I registered for Selam’s anti-racism training and my eyes got WIDE open. I learned about white fragility, white supremacy, and how I promote white solidarity when I don’t speak up and call people in for racist remarks. I notice whiteness everywhere now. I understand that I have been socialized to believe white is ‘normal.’ I understand how I have committed micro-aggressions against BIPOC folks (and probably will make more mistakes yet). My white privilege has allowed me to turn a blind eye to the injustices against BIPOC because it is too painful to ‘go there’. This training with Selam has really pushed me to reflect on my biases and get really uncomfortable with them.”

“Powerful, inspiring, humbling, and enlightening are only just a few words to describe the incredible speaking engagement Selam Debs delivered to our employees about ‘Black History and Black excellence in Canada’. While we learned and unlearned during this session, we were also moved by Selam’s beautiful singing voice, her anti-racism activism, and her authenticity. Black history and Black excellence was highlighted in ways we were never taught before by colonial education systems. We were guided to think critically about applying an anti-racism lens to the equity, diversity and inclusion work that we do at the City of Mississauga. We praise Selam for impactful and meaningful work.”

“We hired Selam to do a session for parents at our school as part of our parent education series. Selam has a way of delivering critical, thought-provoking information with compassion as well as with the urgency that is needed to inspire moving into action. We appreciated the way that she brought unique, relatable examples and held space for learning and more importantly, unlearning. I so appreciated the approach of not just delivering a didactic “presentation” but included opportunities for deep reflection and calls to action as well. Selam and her team were great to work with in all ways, and I’d highly recommend her to anyone and everyone”

“The impact that Selam and the AntiRacism Course has had on our organization cannot be overstated. She coached our Board of Directors and Leadership team through a deep process of learning and unlearning, which has caused us to rethink every aspect of our organization and the work that we do with our service users. Selam challenges and inspires; she brings her lived and learned expertise and a deep sense of compassion to her anti-racism work, which creates the conditions for deep reflection and real change. ”

“Selam spoke at our branch town hall to help cultivate and advance our initiatives to build an antiracism culture. With empathy, gentleness, and compassion, Selam brought much needed perspectives that reflected current antiracist thinking. From history to terminology and even diving into her own experiences, staff raved about her ability to convey important messages to mobilize positive change that stick with us to this day. Her session was engaging and interactive. While talking about racism and its intersection with gender, socioeconomic status, Indigenous, and LGBTQ perspectives, she made it easy to understand and instilled a sense of purpose in each and every one of us to become an antiracist. We are grateful for Selam’s story and her expert approach to teaching. We highly recommend her to anyone looking to advance their antiracism learning journey learning like she has done for us. Understanding that becoming an antiracist is a lifelong journey, we’re a lot further along because of Selam. Thank you! ”

“It has been a pleasure to partner with Selam Debs on Lutherwood’s Antiracism journey. We appreciated Selam’s professional and compassionate approach recognizing that employees were in various stages of learning. She took the time to really understand our needs as an organization.



The Antiracism Course provided Lutherwood employees with a solid foundation and understanding of what it means to work through an antiracist and anti-oppressive lens, and it helped us to strengthen our racial literacy to better serve our diverse community. The content is broken down into small lessons that provide flexibility for employees to work through the modules when it suits them. Feedback from our employees regarding the supplementary resources available throughout the course was positive. Selam provided coaching sessions throughout the course to support employees in their learning. She helped us on our path towards a more equitable workplace.



Selam’s guidance and leadership through an organizational assessment helped us identify the gaps that existed and gave us a deeper understanding of where were at as an organization. Selam’s recommendations gave us powerful insights into our employee’s experiences which is helping us shape our Equity strategy.”

“The antiracism course with Selam Debs is exceptional helping us think critically about the terms inclusion and diversity, shift our language, and continue our everyday work to decolonize our thinking and propel us into action to create the communities we want to live in for future generations. As a proud trans guy I have tremendous respect for the incredible work Selam is doing to make much needed change to fight against systemic racism, transphobia, homophobia, discrimination, and oppression. THANK YOU!”

“Working with Selam was such a pleasure. She is graceful, full of women, and the communication with her team was easy. I found her session extremely informative, and it elicited some serious reflection on my own biases and how I incorporate an anti-oppression lens to my work. ”

“I had the privilege of having Selam (virtually) visit our College. I was deeply engaged by Selam’s knowledge and expertise the entire hour and 30 minutes that she spoke. Her ability to explain challenging topics with conviction and compassion is incredible. I’d like to express my sincere gratitude for the work she is doing and thank her for sharing her personal experiences and expertise with us. I left the talk reminded about my privilege and whiteness and I rededicated myself to identifying and deconstructing instances in our institution where white is considered the norm. If you are unsure about how you can do more to challenge racism and white supremacy or if you are struggling to understand structural racism and its effects on our society, attending Selam’s anti-racism workshop is a must.”