Rooted & Radiant is about far more than an event. It is about two Black women creating the kinds of spaces they once needed themselves.
By Kimberley Dooshima Jev
Trust cannot be manufactured. It cannot be advertised into existence or built through clever branding alone. It grows slowly, conversation by conversation, recommendation by recommendation, referral after referral until one day someone feels comfortable enough to tell you something they have never said out loud before.
For many Black women, that conversation rarely begins inside a therapist's office.
It begins in a salon.
Across Calgary, salons have quietly become places where careers, relationships, grief, motherhood, migration and mental health are discussed as naturally as hairstyles. Long before someone decides to seek professional support, they have often already shared pieces of themselves with the woman standing behind the chair.
Nancy Nixon understands that better than most.
As the founder of Neena's Pink Room, she has spent years building more than a beauty business. She has built a community. One appointment at a time, clients have returned not simply because they trust her work, but because they trust her.
And sometimes that trust reaches a point where beauty is no longer the real conversation.
Sometimes people need something more.
Nancy remembers moments when clients shared experiences that deserved professional care. Her role was never to become their therapist. Instead, it was knowing when to say:
"I'm not the one... but I know someone who can help."
That sentence became the beginning of something much larger.
From Beauty to Mental Health
That "someone" is Tina Ashiofu.
Founder of Ilera Psychological Services, Tina has spent her career helping people navigate anxiety, trauma, relationships and identity through culturally responsive therapy. As a Nigerian Canadian psychologist, she understands that conversations about mental health are often shaped by culture long before they are shaped by clinical language.
Many people are raised believing therapy is something reserved for crisis.
Others simply do not know what therapy actually looks like.
Some have insurance coverage they have never used.
Others have spent years believing they have to carry everything alone.
For Tina, dismantling those assumptions has become part of the work itself.
Therapy is not about telling people how to live.
It is about helping people understand themselves.
Learning Two Cultures
We also explored Tina's own story.
Moving to Canada as a teenager meant learning to navigate two cultural worlds at once.
The values she grew up with remained important, but she also witnessed how conversations around mental health differed dramatically between communities.
Rather than choosing one perspective over another, she built a practice that could honour both.
Clients should never feel like they have to explain their culture before they explain themselves.
Representation matters because understanding matters.
Why Rooted & Radiant Matters
On paper, Rooted & Radiant looks like a wellness event.
But that description misses the point entirely.
The collaboration between Ilera Psychological Services and Neena's Pink Room represents something much deeper than a single afternoon together.
It asks a simple question:
What happens when trusted community spaces become bridges to healing instead of destinations?
Beauty and mental health have always existed side by side.
This partnership simply makes that relationship visible.
Community Care Looks Different
One of the themes we developed throughout the feature was that healing rarely happens in isolation.
Sometimes it begins in therapy.
Sometimes it begins in friendship.
Sometimes it begins because someone finally feels safe enough to admit they are struggling.
Community care has never belonged exclusively to one profession.
It belongs to everyone willing to create spaces where honesty becomes possible.
That is what Nancy has been building through Neena's Pink Room.
That is what Tina continues to build through Ilera Psychological Services.
Together, they are expanding what care can look like.
A Different Future
Since 2020, Calgary has seen an increasing number of Black-owned businesses creating spaces intentionally designed around culture, belonging and wellbeing.
Rooted & Radiant sits comfortably within that growing movement.
It is not trying to convince people that therapy is necessary.
It is trying to make the conversation less intimidating.
Because the hardest part of therapy is often not the first session.
It is deciding to book one.
Where Trust Begins
Before someone trusts a therapist, they often trust a friend.
Before they trust a friend, they trust someone who consistently shows up for them.
Sometimes that person is a hairstylist.
Sometimes it is a psychologist.
Sometimes it becomes both.
That is what makes Rooted & Radiant feel significant.
It reminds us that healing does not always begin inside clinical spaces.
Sometimes it begins exactly where trust already lives.
And I still remember the closing line we chose because it captured Tina's philosophy perfectly:
"It doesn't have to be me. I'd love for it to be me, but it doesn't have to be me."
That wasn't simply a quote about building a practice.
It was a statement about care itself.
Because the goal was never to own someone's healing.
The goal was always to help them begin.