On creating spaces that feel safe enough (and how we got here)

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We received an email yesterday that stopped me in my tracks.

Someone who had attended one of our introductory workshops wrote to say thank you, not just for the content, but for the way the space felt. She said she had felt safe. And then she asked a question that I think really matters:

“What led you to be so intentional about creating a diverse and inclusive space, given that both* founders are not people of colour?”

*there were in fact 3 original founders of Homa but only two of us were present at this Intro Workshop

It’s a good question. And it felt important to answer it fully.

For me, Sophie, this story starts back in 2018.

At the time, I was part of an organisation called Women in Power. I was part of a large team running initiation weekends for women. Deep, immersive experiences that were meant to be transformative. And like many organisations doing this kind of work, we believed we were doing something good. And in many ways we were.

And then, feedback started to come in from women from the Global Majority.

And it was clear.

We were not creating a space that reflected them or their needs. More than that, we were doing harm. The work was deeply white-centred and that wasn’t just a theoretical issue. It was something women from the Global Majority who attended these initiations were experiencing in their bodies, in the room, in the dynamics, in the silences.

It was a wake-up call. A real one.

To their credit, the directors at the time didn’t shy away from it. They commissioned Holiday Phillips to carry out a full, independent review of the initiation process. She produced a detailed report that laid out, very clearly, where we were going wrong and what needed to change.

A dedicated team was formed: The Initiation Review Group. They went through the weekend with a fine-tooth comb. Every aspect of the experience was examined through a different lens: what does this feel like if you are a woman from the Global Majority? Where are the microaggressions? Where are we unintentionally centring whiteness? Where are we excluding, even if we don’t mean to?

We made changes to the weekend.

A lot of them.

And things did improve.

But if I’m honest, it still wasn’t enough.

Because underneath all the adjustments, the space itself was still fundamentally shaped by whiteness. And that creates a kind of pull back to what feels familiar and known. You can tweak and refine and adjust, but if the core dynamic doesn’t shift, people still feel it.

By this point, I had stepped into a director role, alongside two solid, committed women who I am now fortunate to call dear friends: Sue and Trupti.

Listening to Trupti’s experiences, really listening, made it impossible to ignore what was still happening. Not in an abstract way, but in a lived, real, ‘this is what it feels like to be in this space all the time’ way.

So we decided to be bolder.

We made a very deliberate decision that the next initiation would be made up of 50% women from the Global Majority and 50% white women.

Not as a token gesture. Not as a nice idea. But because we believed the composition of the room itself needed to change if the experience was going to change.

I was inspired by George Dei's view of inclusion:

“inclusion is not about bringing people into what already exists; it is about creating a new space, a better space for everyone."

And we did create a new space and in many ways it was better.

Women from the Global Majority told us that, for the first time, they were not the odd one out, not one of just a few in a group of 50 or 60 women. Many spoke about what it had been like before; being hyper-visible and invisible at the same time, holding a quiet vigilance, measuring what felt safe to say or not say, carrying the subtle but constant pressure of being in the minority.

Being part of 50% shifted something. There was more ease. More presence. More space to just be, without that background awareness running all the time.

And almost all of the white women spoke about how much richer, more human, more real the experience felt, how it opened something up, both in themselves and in the group as a whole.

It wasn’t perfect. Some white women resisted it. Some didn’t like it at all. And there were still mircoagressions and hurt.

But overall, it was better. And importantly, it showed us what was possible.

We always saw this as a first step, not an endpoint.

Because the intention was never only about race. It was, and still is, about creating spaces where anyone who experiences marginalisation in society can feel they belong. That includes people who are queer, disabled, neurodivergent… anyone who is used to adapting themselves to fit into spaces that weren’t designed with them in mind.

In 2023, Women in Power closed, for a range of reasons.

But the learning didn’t disappear. Me and Trupti carried that experience into Homa.

By that point, Homa had already been created by me, (Sophie) Robbie and Jane. Trupti and I brought all our knowlege and experience with us, not just the practical changes, but the clarity that had come from it.

A clarity that social justice, anti opression, diversity, equity and inclusion can’t be add-ons or one time modules.

These are not conversations we have on one weekend and move on from. It’s not something we “cover.”

It has to be woven into everything:

Into who is in the room.

Into who is leading and teaching.

Into how decisions are made and who makes them.

Into how we respond when harm happens.

Into how we treat people, every day.

And it’s part of why Trupti joined Homa, initially to help design the Race, Power & Privilege work, and now as a director. Together, we know we can do what’s needed. Not as a performance, and not as a box to tick, but as something that has to be lived and held in practice, every day. And while she wasn’t part of the small group that originally founded Homa, her experience and that of the women from the Global Majority at Women in Power, has very much shaped the values at its heart.

It’s why we have deliberately chosen supervisors from the Global Majority, not as a symbolic gesture, but so that we remain accountable and so that there are ongoing, honest conversations about the experience of trainees from the Global Majority and other marginalised groups.

It’s also why we are growing the tutor team in an organic way, bringing in more people from the Global Majority, more Queer tutors, more neurodivergent voices, because representation matters and it needs to be real.

It's why we have an annual Race, Power & Privilege Art Exhibition, designed and curated by our Year 2 trainees as a form of activism, to make space for voices, stories and truths that are often overlooked, and to engage the wider community in the work, not just the classroom.

And it's why we are aiming for a 50/50 cohort for the Homa Foundation Year in 2027

This work is about whether someone walks into a space and feels they can exhale.

Whether they feel they can train, grow, speak and be part of something that feels like a community or even, at times, like a family.

We’re not under any illusion that we’ve got it right.

It feels important to say this: no matter what we put in place, these spaces will still be uncomfortable at times, particularly for people from the Global Majority and for those who are neurodivergent, disabled or queer. We cannot ensure that everyone who joins Homa arrives fully aware, fully resourced or fully on board. None of us do.

We have all grown up in cultures where oppression is pervasive, where certain groups are centred and others marginalised. That doesn’t disappear just because we have good intentions. We all bring our assumptions, our blind spots, our learned patterns and experiences of privilege with us, often without knowing it. So microaggressions and harm still happen. The difference, we hope, is that we are willing to stay with that reality, to notice it, to name it and to keep working with it rather than paying lip service to change or brushing it under the carpet.

Part of how we do that is through creativity and dialogue. We believe creativity expands our capacity to meet difference, to open up new ways of understanding, to approach each other (and the inevitable tensions between us) from more than one angle.

Through embodied exercises, mark-making and creative practices, trainees begin to experience complexity not as a threat, but as an invitation. An invitation to stay present. To get curious. To remain in relationship, even when things feel uncomfortable. We aim to create the conditions where trainees can express themselves with confidence, listen with real attention and compassion and engage thoughtfully with differnce, so that disagreement doesn’t lead to complete disconnection.

And we ask the same of our tutors and of ourslves as directors: a commitment to this way of being and an ongoing willingness to learn, unlearn and stay in it.

We’re still learning. We still get things wrong. There are always more edges to meet, more to understand, more to unpick.

But the commitment is there.

To learn.

To stay open.

To listen.

To meet each other in our shared humanity.

To keep taking action.

And to keep creating spaces where more people, especially those who don’t often get to feel this, can say:

“I felt safe [enough] here.”