Ndindi Kitonga
Ndindi Kitonga, PhD is a Kenyan American educator and long-time organizer. She is a proud member of the ARE (Association of Raza Educators), a liberatory education grassroots teacher organization.
Ndindi grew up with a family who worked as counselors and educators in Kawangware, a large slum on the outskirts of Nairobi. Her early experiences working with under-resourced communities compelled her to pursue higher education in the United States with the goal of working with youth. It was not until Ndindi became a public school chemistry and biology teacher did she begin to understand and reflect on the socio-political and global implications of what, how, and who she was teaching. Although her first love and bachelor’s degree was in biochemistry, Ndindi returned to the university to earn graduate degrees in education to gain further insight on issues of learning, liberatory education, advocacy, and creativity for young people.
Ndindi is the co-founder of Angeles Workshop School, a democratic secondary micro-school in Los Angeles. In addition to her work in K-12 education, Ndindi works with teacher training graduate programs and teaches courses associated with non-western science education, critical pedagogy, anti-colonial and place-based education.
Ndindi is also a published scholar in critical pedagogy and democratic education and has written articles and book chapters such as In A Post-Floyd Era?: Race, Gender, Class, and Black Movements (2022), Black perspectives & What to Make of Mutual Aid? (2022), Where Do We Go from Here? Black Lives Matter as an Ongoing Movement (2021), Race, Class, Gender, and Revolution in Theory and in Practice (2020), Anticolonialism, Africa and Humanism (2019), Angeles Workshop School: An Experiment in Radical Student Voice (2019), Race, Capitalism, and Resistance (2018), The Critical Graduate Experience: An Ethics of Higher Education Responsibilities (2014) and Culturally Responsive and Socially Responsible Research Methodology (2013), Black vs. Black: Solidarity among the Black Diaspora (2010) among others.
In response to the horrific disparities the COVID pandemic exacerbated in my community, Ndindi co-created a small mutual aid network in my local community in March of 2020. The unhoused population in my community is comprised mostly of Black and Brown people, many of who are disabled and undocumented. The network, Palms Unhoused Mutual Aid (PUMA) has grown over the past three years from a small collective providing supplies and community defense to one involved in public education and advocacy.
Ndindi grew up with a family who worked as counselors and educators in Kawangware, a large slum on the outskirts of Nairobi. Her early experiences working with under-resourced communities compelled her to pursue higher education in the United States with the goal of working with youth. It was not until Ndindi became a public school chemistry and biology teacher did she begin to understand and reflect on the socio-political and global implications of what, how, and who she was teaching. Although her first love and bachelor’s degree was in biochemistry, Ndindi returned to the university to earn graduate degrees in education to gain further insight on issues of learning, liberatory education, advocacy, and creativity for young people.
Ndindi is the co-founder of Angeles Workshop School, a democratic secondary micro-school in Los Angeles. In addition to her work in K-12 education, Ndindi works with teacher training graduate programs and teaches courses associated with non-western science education, critical pedagogy, anti-colonial and place-based education.
Ndindi is also a published scholar in critical pedagogy and democratic education and has written articles and book chapters such as In A Post-Floyd Era?: Race, Gender, Class, and Black Movements (2022), Black perspectives & What to Make of Mutual Aid? (2022), Where Do We Go from Here? Black Lives Matter as an Ongoing Movement (2021), Race, Class, Gender, and Revolution in Theory and in Practice (2020), Anticolonialism, Africa and Humanism (2019), Angeles Workshop School: An Experiment in Radical Student Voice (2019), Race, Capitalism, and Resistance (2018), The Critical Graduate Experience: An Ethics of Higher Education Responsibilities (2014) and Culturally Responsive and Socially Responsible Research Methodology (2013), Black vs. Black: Solidarity among the Black Diaspora (2010) among others.
In response to the horrific disparities the COVID pandemic exacerbated in my community, Ndindi co-created a small mutual aid network in my local community in March of 2020. The unhoused population in my community is comprised mostly of Black and Brown people, many of who are disabled and undocumented. The network, Palms Unhoused Mutual Aid (PUMA) has grown over the past three years from a small collective providing supplies and community defense to one involved in public education and advocacy.