Discover Our Expertise
At Mending the Chasm, we center the needs of those most deeply impacted by the challenge we’re working to address, and ensure our approach is empowering and asset-based. Our cultural transformation model for facilitating equity, inclusion and belonging transformation is grounded in four key pillars:
Accountability
Resourcing
Conflict Transformation
Social Capital
Accountability means keeping promises and being responsible for our actions and choices. In equity and inclusion, it ensures fairness for everyone. When we're accountable, we build trust and fix things when they go wrong. It's like being a good teammate; we all work together to make sure everyone feels valued and treated right.
Resourcing practice is vital for fairness, kindness, and justice. It means making sure everyone has what they need to do the work they are being invited to do or being called to do. In the words of Resmaa Menakem, "Resource" is anyone or anything that promotes growth and healing.”
Conflict transformation is like turning disagreements into understanding and growth. In equity and inclusion, it helps us learn from differences and find common ground. Instead of fighting, we listen, learn, and work together. Conflict transformation builds bridges, ensuring fairness and unity where everyone's voice matters.
Social capital, like having good friends, is crucial for fairness and togetherness. It means connecting with people, helping each other, and making sure no one feels left out. Just like a strong friendship circle, social capital creates a community where trust is abundantly flowing, and everyone can experience dignity, safety, and belonging.
These pillars are woven into all of the work we do in a way that is intended to build organizational and individual capacity and practice in these areas so that, over time, the organization is shaping and creating a culture that truly centers the belonging, dignity and safety needs of every team member and community member.
Inclusive Process Design
Inclusive process design is an approach and set of practices that aim to create equitable and accessible processes by centring diverse perspectives and needs. It involves designing systems, policies, and practices that promote inclusivity, recognizing all individuals' unique experiences and contributions.
This approach seeks to remove barriers and biases, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to participate and contribute. Inclusive process design also emphasizes creating conditions to leverage the generative potential of conflict, viewing conflict not as a hindrance but as an opportunity for growth and innovation.
Inclusive design fosters collaboration, creativity, and sustainable solutions by embracing diversity and conflict as integral parts of the process.
Embodied Social Justice Approach
An embodied social justice approach integrates the physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of human experience into the pursuit of social justice. It recognizes that social injustices are not just abstract concepts but are deeply felt and experienced in the body.
Informed by the work of somatics and leaders like Resmaa Menakem, Nkem Ndefo, Rev Angel Kyodo, and Prentis Hemphill, this approach emphasizes practices that cultivate awareness, empathy, and healing, recognizing the interconnectedness of individual and collective well-being. It also acknowledges the impact of trauma and oppression on the body and seeks to address these effects through somatic practices and mindfulness.
By centring the body on social justice work, this approach aims to create more compassionate, sustainable, and holistic solutions to systemic injustices.
Build Your Organization’s Culture Equitably
Intersectional Lens
We bring an intersectional lens to our work that recognizes individuals' overlapping identities and experiences, such as race, gender, class, and ability, and how these intersect to shape their lived experiences.
Our approach acknowledges that individuals can face multiple forms of discrimination and privilege simultaneously, and we work with clients to integrate awareness of these intersecting dynamics holistically and inclusively.
In consulting, an intersectional lens involves analyzing policies, practices, and systems through this multi-dimensional perspective, with Gender-based Analysis Plus, identifying and addressing barriers and inequalities that may be overlooked by a single-axis approach.
This approach fosters more equitable and inclusive outcomes by considering the complexity of human experiences and identities.
Conflict Transformation
Conflict transformation is an approach we use to respond to and resolve conflicts by transforming the underlying issues and relationships involved. Unlike conflict resolution, which aims to resolve conflicts through compromise or negotiation, conflict transformation seeks to change the dynamics that give rise to conflict fundamentally.
This approach involves understanding the root causes of conflict, addressing power imbalances, and promoting dialogue and understanding among conflicting parties.
Conflict transformation also emphasizes building accountability practices, resourcing ourselves to approach conflict meaningfully, and building social capital to address the underlying systemic issues that contribute to conflict so that any solutions collectively arrived at are sustainable in the long term.
Strategy Development
Our strategy development process for strategic plans and anti-racism or equity action plans focuses on creating comprehensive roadmaps that align with organizational goals, values, and commitments.
We begin by conducting a thorough assessment of the current environment, including a review of policies, practices, and cultural norms. Our approach emphasizes inclusivity and equity, ensuring all voices are heard and considered. Through collaborative workshops and data analysis, we develop actionable strategies that address systemic racism and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Our plans include measurable goals, timelines, and accountability mechanisms to track progress and drive meaningful change.
Leadership and Community Development
We understand that the work of transforming cultures starts with each of us, as individuals, committing to practices that will create the workplaces and the community that we want to see, where everyone can experience belonging.
Our programs are designed to enhance leadership skills, promote collaboration, and strengthen community relationships Through workshops, training sessions, and coaching, we help clients develop the tools and confidence needed to address challenges, inspire others, and drive sustainable development.
Our approach emphasizes inclusivity, resilience, and innovation, ensuring leaders can navigate complex environments and foster thriving communities.
About Leena Sharma Seth
Founder & Principal
Leena is a settler who is cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, and a child of Hindu, Punjabi (India), and Brahmin immigrants. Leena brings a set of lived and intersectional experiences to her work as a facilitator, strategist, and process designer in the equity, justice, inclusion and belonging space. Leena’s practice is grounded in the belief that equity work is sacred and that healing, wholeness, and embodiment are critical to creating a just and inclusive present and future.
With over twenty years of experience in various leadership roles, both in Canada and in Asia, Leena has worked in non-profit, consulting, education, philanthropy, and supplier diversity spaces.
FEEDBACK
Client Feedback
"Mending the Chasm is a fantastic partner. They are skilled, honest, clear and extremely helpful when things get tough. Their ongoing attentiveness, coaching and recommended approaches were a perfect match for our organization... It was truly customized, emergent, and iterative, as it needs to be, given how sensitive/difficult/raw/challenging but rewarding this work can be"
"We chose Mending the Chasm because of their deep expertise as well as their access to partners they work with. Another deciding factor was their body based , and trauma informed approach. Our agency has been fully trained in Trauma Informed Perspective and this was very helpful and welcomed.”
"Leena's vast knowledge of the diversity and inclusion space was invaluable in shaping our journey as a team and it served as a lens by which we explored and adjusted our practices - old and new. Leena is not uncomfortable having difficult conversations and comes to the table with an open spirit, a willingness to share and a genuine desire to build the most inclusive cultures.”
"Leena has an effective style as a facilitator and handled our sessions with participants well at different points on their journeys regarding intersectionality, power, and privilege in our lives, including our work and volunteer roles. Since our training, we have more consistently incorporated an equity, diversity, and inclusion lens into many of our programs, offerings, events and tasks.”
"Thank you for guiding us on this journey - it’s been a true joy to learn and grow with you. You have such skill and care with the various individuals in the group, meeting each person at their current level of knowledge and understanding. You’ve opened an important conversation about diversity and inclusion, and navigated us through it expertly - always leading with kindness, empathy, and just enough push.”
