Founder/Program Director

Cara Cruickshank is an educator, community organizer and women's advocate. She has lived in France, Brazil and the U.S. She is founder and host of Cafe de la Culture, a nonprofit organization that facilitates cultural exchange and intersectional community conversations on important topics. Cara is writer, director, and producer of theater for social change, including "On the Subject of Girls", "The Alchemy of Imperfection", and "The Halloween Journey". Cara has designed and led empowerment, diversity and gender studies workshops and courses for marginalized and international communities in the U.S., Brazil, Turkey, and France including programs through Laguardia Performing Arts Center, NY’s Board of Cooperative Educational Services, and the University of Balikesir. She has curated and moderated conference panels with frontline activists, indigenous leaders, scholars and artists nationally on topics such as #MeToo, BLM, Indigenous Rights, and the Refugee Crisis, to name a few. Most recently, Cara co-designed and ran Global Village Day Camp, an empowerment and holistic educational summer camp for refugee and immigrant youth in Aurora, Colorado in 2022. That same year Cara gave public speaking engagements in women's advocacy at Bard College and the University of Michigan, was Featured Poet at Spoken Word Paris, France and Spotlight Poet for World Slam Champions Rachel McKibbens and Dominique Cristina in Denver, Colorado. In February 2023, Cara launched her Self-Empowerment and Feminism course for Afghan women with the Afghan Youth Leaders Assembly and later partnered with Generations of Change. She aims to continue developing and expanding this important work.