A Beginning Rooted in Something Ancient and Something New

Welcome to the very first blog from GOC COLLECTIVE INC — a moment that feels both like a beginning and a return.

For years, I have held a vision: a world where women and girls of color are not an afterthought, an asterisk, or a risk category to be managed — but a global constellation of leaders, storytellers, healers, innovators, and culture-shapers. A world where our brilliance isn’t extracted, but invested in. Where our stories aren’t filtered, but centered. Where our wellness isn’t a luxury, but a birthright.

GOC COLLECTIVE INC was created to make that world real.Not someday. Now.

Why GOC? Because Our Communities Were Already Building the Future

When I began this work as a young sociologist and community organizer, I saw something radiant in neighborhoods people often dismissed: girls of color leading with creativity, tenderness, and courage. What they lacked wasn’t talent — it was support, safety, space, and systems that believed in them.

GOC was built on one core truth: Our girls do not need saving. Our communities already hold the solutions — they simply deserve resources worthy of their brilliance.

That’s why we lead with training, listening, and co-creation.That’s why our model honors local expertise, global connection, and ancestral wisdom.That’s why every program — from healing circles to safety skill intensives to storytelling labs — is shaped withcommunity, not for it.

What We’re Building: Healing, Storytelling, Leadership, and Futures

At GOC COLLECTIVE INC, our work lives in four interconnected spaces:

1. Training & Certification

We equip women, girls, and community partners with culturally responsive mentoring and facilitation skills — the foundation of sustainable change.

2. Healing Circles & Wellness Activation

Trauma-informed, culturally rooted spaces that braid movement, storytelling, and community care.

3. Storytelling & Narrative Change

Because when Black and brown girls tell their own stories, culture moves.

4. Leadership Activation & Global Connection

We prepare girls and women of color to lead locally and connect globally — forming a constellation of sister communities.

This is our ecosystem. This is our liberation in practice.

Our Promise: We Build Power, Not Programs

GOC COLLECTIVE INC isn’t a franchise or a one-size-fits-all curriculum.It’s a movement infrastructure.

Every city, every partner, every group of girls brings their own gifts.We simply strengthen what’s already there and weave it into a global network.

Our principle is simple:We don’t bring change to your community — we bring resources to support the change you’re already creating.

Why This Blog, Why Now

Because our work deserves to be witnessed — not just in grant proposals, retreat rooms, or community sessions — but in a living archive where we can share lessons, visions, stories, and strategies.

This blog will be a space for:

• updates from our programs and partner communities

• reflections on healing, leadership, and wellness

• stories from women and girls shaping their futures

• thought leadership on culturally responsive practice

• behind-the-scenes glimpses into how we build, dream, and grow

Most importantly, it will be a space where you — our community — see yourselves reflected.

A Personal Note

Across decades of mentoring work, teacher education, youth development, and now leading both GOC COLLECTIVE INC and Sol to Root Wellness LLC, I’ve learned one timeless truth:

Our liberation is intergenerational.Our healing is collective.Our futures must be co-created.

This blog is an open door into that journey.

Thank you for being here at the beginning.Thank you for choosing to build with us.Thank you for dreaming a world where women and girls of color rise — not in spite of, but because of who we are.

We are the storm and the seed.The blueprint and the bloom.And this is only the beginning.

In just eight days, on December 2 at 6:30pm, we launch GOC COLLECTIVE INC into the world—on GivingTuesday, a day rooted in community care and collective power.

If our mission moves you…If you believe in the futures of girls of color…If you want to help build a global constellation of healing and leadership…

This is your moment to invest in the world they’re already singing into being.Join the Launch + Give: www.goccollective.org

With love & vision,

Desireé Robertson

Founder & Chief Visionary Officer

GOC COLLECTIVE INC

Join the Launch + Give