Hey Young World, my name is Iresha Picot. I am a Virginia bred Sista, currently living in Philadelphia. I am a Licensed Behavior Specialist and Therapist, Doula and Community Activist.

I co-edited a book on mental health, titled “The Color of Hope: People of Color Mental Health Narratives”. You can purchase it on amazon.com

I also have a website for my Doula business, 52nd Street Doula Service,

In 2011, I received an Art and Change Leeway Grant--a grant for Women to create social change through their artistic and cultural work for my photography project entitled "Mamas". In 2010, I was awarded the first ever Black Women's Blueprint "Black Woman Rising Activist Award" and a grant from Philadelphia's Fund for Survival Support Work for my "Summer for the Sistas" Project (www.summerforthesistas.blogspot.com); a subversive project I created of positive images of Black Women with words of encouragement, beauty, and upliftment, written by Black Women for Black Women in their community.

I am the co-creator of The Assata's Daughters Project--a collective for Black Women activists to create work and projects situated around Black Women's struggles in Philadelphia and I am also the creator behind the Ntozake Shange School of Literary Thought, a literary circle and safe space for Black Women to create through the written word and is one of the members and founders of the Black Feminist Working Group, that produced the 12 point platform on Black Feminism, "What Sistas Want, What Sistas Need. https://blackfeministworkinggroup.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/what-sistas-want-what-sistas-believe-black-feminist-twelve-point-plan/