Why Attend?
The BIPOC Outdoors @ NMU Summit and Rest Retreat offers meaningful benefits for all who join us within the BIPOC community and beyond. Curious about how this experience can benefit you? Explore the information below to learn more about the valuable takeaways you’ll gain from attending.
Outdoor Educators, Guides, and Environmental Advocates
- Connect with BIPOC-led movements that are reshaping the future of outdoor access, education, and conservation.
- Learn best practices for inclusive programming and help create outdoor experiences that welcome all identities.
- Gain culturally responsive strategies, build meaningful partnerships, and amplify underrepresented voices in outdoor spaces.
Community Organizers and Grassroots Leaders
- To join a collective conversation about access, power, and stewardship of natural spaces.
- Explore how outdoor equity aligns with social justice, food sovereignty, and community health.
- Share and gather tools, build regional and national coalitions, and gain visibility for your local efforts.
Cultural Practitioners Using Land-based Healing and Storytelling
- Engage in intergenerational dialogue around ancestral practices, land relationships, and the power of story in cultural and personal healing.
- Showcase your work, collaborate with other practitioners, and nourish your practice through shared rituals and connection to place.
Students and Scholars Focused on Environmental Justice, Outdoor Equity, or Indigenous Knowledge
- Exchange research, expand community-engaged scholarship, and deepen interdisciplinary understanding of equity in environmental contexts.
- Network with practitioners and policy-shapers, identify collaborative research opportunities, and apply theory to practice.
Artists and Creatives who Explore Identity and Nature
- Showcase your art, find inspiration in place and people, and join conversations on how creative expression shapes narratives about land, belonging, and resilience.
- Participate in spaces that center BIPOC voices in environmental imagination.
Student Organization Leaders and Members
- Engage with real-world topics that connect cultural identity, climate justice, and outdoor leadership. Create space for student voice and activism.
- Meet potential mentors, gain leadership skills, and represent your organization in a transformative summit experience.
BIPOC Community Allies
- Be in solidarity and support your whole community.
- Help promote BIPOC representation in outdoor communities.
- Build deeper understanding, accountability, and authentic relationships.
- Contribute to a more just and inclusive outdoor movement.