Ubuntu Village strengthens the people who teach and raise the next generation — through culturally rooted education, art, technology, and rites of passage. We train, advise, and build alongside the educators, families, and elders around young people of color.
A person is a person through other people. Our humanity is bound up in one another — and so is our healing, our learning, and our future.
Ubuntu Village starts there. We believe young people thrive when the whole village is present: when culture is honored rather than erased, when learning connects to who they are and where they come from, and when growing up is marked, witnessed, and celebrated.
Founded by educators, artists, and scholars Hodari Touré and Shylah Hamilton-Touré, we bring education, creative practice, technology, and ceremony into one conversation — so that communities can build, support, and sustain themselves.
Four areas of practice. In each, we design, train, and advise — and the people closest to young people lead. Together they form a whole approach to how young people learn, belong, and grow into who they are.
Growing into who we are.
Young people want to be recognized, initiated, and accepted. When a community stops marking those passages, youth create their own — sometimes in harmful ways. We design culturally grounded rites of passage with communities, and train the elders and mentors who lead them.
Making space for our stories.
Film, storytelling, visual art, and site-specific practice that connect creativity with ancestry and reflection — so young people see their histories as a source of power and possibility.
Learning that opens doors.
Our founders design curricula, learning platforms, and educational games at the intersection of culture and technology. We bring that experience to the schools and programs where young people build real skills while staying rooted in who they are.
Rooted in one another.
We are working toward self-sustaining communities that care for the land and for each other — connecting urban growing, food, and relationships across urban and rural life.
We meet people where they are. Our partners' programs run in schools, community spaces, and on the land — in the places young people and families already know. We stand behind them.
Ancestry, language, and tradition are the foundation of our work, not an add-on.
Young people learn alongside elders, families, and mentors. The whole village has a role.
No two communities are the same. We co-design each program around the people it serves.
We build local capacity so communities can sustain the work long after a program ends.
Ubuntu Markets is a separate company founded and owned by Hodari and Shylah Touré. It builds apps that help families and communities keep their culture, stories, and connections alive, carrying the same values into homes far beyond Oakland.
Families save their recipes along with the voices and stories behind them, and can turn them into printed heirloom cookbooks.
Family gatheringA family reunion planner: invite everyone in, gather the RSVPs, and keep the stories and photos from the day.
Community learningA living learning commons for courses, cohorts, live teaching, and cultural archives, rooted in African diasporic knowledge.
We're raising $10,000 by December 31 from 100 founding donors. Every gift counts, and so does every name: when foundations see a hundred neighbors backing us, doors open for everything that comes next.
Ubuntu Village is a 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 42-4285210. Gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Donations are processed securely by Givebutter.
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Whether you fund community work, run a school or youth program, or want to build something together, we'd love to talk.
Ubuntu Village is an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) public charity, and contributions are tax-deductible. We welcome general operating, program, and capacity-building support.
We partner with schools, districts, and youth-serving organizations to design culturally grounded programs and train the people who run them.
Artists, elders, land stewards, and organizations who share our values: there is work for many hands.
Ubuntu Village is led by its co-founders, who bring decades of combined work in education, art, scholarship, and technology.
An educator working at the intersection of culture, technology, and learning. Hodari designs learning programs and technology platforms that open doors for young people of color, grounded in a background in social and cultural education.
An artist, scholar, and educator with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Associate Professor of Critical Ethnic Studies at California College of the Arts. Her work spans experimental documentary, educational game design, and ritual practice across the African diaspora, and her writing appears in Sternberg Press and Frontiers.
Explore Shylah's work ↗Ubuntu Village is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity.
| Legal name | Ubuntu Village |
|---|---|
| EIN | 42-4285210 |
| Entity type | California nonprofit public benefit corporation |
| Federal status | 501(c)(3) public charity — IRC 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) |
| Exemption effective | August 5, 2026 |
| Contributions | Tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law |
| CA Secretary of State no. | B20260357753 |
| Physical address / Principal office | 3255 Blandon Road Oakland, CA 94605 United States |
| Fiscal year | January – December |
Tell us what you're working toward. We'll follow up to explore how we can support each other.
Or write directly: hodari@ubuntu-village.org