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Celina Esekawu

Organization: Ala Soul Earthworks/Dry Bones Heal Bottomland

Celina Ngozi (she, they) is a Black/Igbo agrarian and the founder of Ala Soul Earthworks/Dry Bones Heal Bottomland, which promotes connection to the earth through Afro-Indigenous practices, creativity, and nurturing community. Her earth-based practices are a convergence of her multi-cultural background. She is inspired by Igbo cosmology-being in relationship with Ala, Earth herself, understanding that just like a seed, we are born into her, out of her, and return back to her. Celina also embraces Southern Black traditions that evokes the ancestral wisdom on the land that has nurtured more than six generations of her family.

For a decade, she has grown food and worked with frontline communities to develop creative solutions to inequities in the food system. The summer of 2022, she transitioned full-time to her family land in a rural community in Central Texas. There she grows food from the Global South that supports an African Diasporic diet such as sweet potato, collards, okra, peanuts, cocoyam, beans, ginger, and turmeric and is building homes and the infrastructure to support community. Her plan is to specialize in locally grown ginger and turmeric for culinary and medicinal purposes. Projects in development include, a program for people of color that promotes (re)membering ancestral knowledge in order to support future generations of agrarians, upcycled seed libraries, and establishing a Black Agrarian Fund in Texas. She is a 2022-2023 Land Advocacy Fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition supporting equitable land access for growers. Visit www.Alasoulearthworks.net to learn more about Celina Ngozi’s work and to connect with her.

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