Salim Rollins
CO-DIRECTOR
Victor Odhiambo
CO-DIRECTOR
STAFF
John Odhiambo
Program Manager
Nancy Mokera
Program Director,
The Empowerment
Program for Girls
Nasri Babu
Teaching Artist
Originally from New York, Salim has dedicated his professional life to empowering communities through wellness and cultural arts programs. As a Mestre of capoeira angola, Salim has received the highest title granted to a practitioner outside of Brazil by the renowned Grand Mestre João Grande to whom he has been a disciple since 1995.
In addition to his work with Inuka, he’s the Co-director of Synergy Yoga, a registered Yoga Alliance school that offers international yoga teacher training; retreats; Thai massage certifications and maintains a consultancy with Yoga Alliance focused on equity within the yoga community. He has maintained a dedicated yoga practice since 2000 and studied with several master teachers throughout India and the U.S. Salim has curated numerous wellness festivals and retreats including Synergy Journeys Peru; Feel Good In Zanzibar; Nairobeing: The Wellness Experience; the Divine Feminine, Sacred Masculine series in Kenya; and Yoga on Dub among others.
For five years he was the Outreach Programs Director at Destiny Arts Center in Oakland, California, where he hired, trained and supervised more than 30 Teaching Artists per year. The program offered dance, theater and martial arts with an integrated violence prevention curriculum to youth in schools and community organizations throughout the Bay Area, serving up to 1400 youth annually. His extensive experience as a Teaching Artist has included residencies in capoeira, yoga, conflict resolution, violence prevention and video production in schools and community centers in New York; the Bay Area; Thailand; Kenya and Angola. He facilitated yoga, dance and poetry residencies with incarcerated youth at the Alameda Juvenile Justice Center.
Having moved to Kenya in 2014, Salim served as the Program Director of Katangoma Youth Arts for a year and a half, training and supervising Kenyan Teaching Artists and directing numerous summer camps, classes, and workshops in movement and music arts.
Salim deeply values his mission of sharing healing practices and curating wellness experiences through the arts.
Salim Rollins
Victor is a community organizer, dancer, arts activist and youth development professional from the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. In 2010 Victor founded the non-profit organization, Kibera Social Arts (KSA) as an artistic resource to support youth in the community following Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence. KSA’s mission was to promote peaceful coexistence, positivity, therapeutic healing, and capacity building among youth in Kibera.
The organization’s flagship program – Slum Dance Africa – has become an important cultural institution throughout East Africa through their regional breakdance “eliminations,” which bring Victor and his team to numerous East African countries every year to host a series of competitions. Finalists of the eliminations are invited to an all-expense paid trip to Nairobi to participate in a series of workshops with an international dancer and they compete in the Slum Dance Africa final competition. Slum Dance Africa has played a critical role in establishing breakdance culture in East Africa.
In addition to his work as the director of Kibera Social Arts, Victor facilitates workshops and professional development seminars internationally. He has partnered with Columbia College (USA); Circartive Pimparello (Germany); School of the Art Institute (CUSA); Chicago Waldorf School; and the Dance Movement Therapy Conference (USA) among others as a featured presenter. His message focuses on the healing potential of art and creative expression and the transformation he has helped facilitate amongst youth in Kibera.