We recently connected with Leilani Salvador and have shared our conversation below.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Leilani Salvador and I’m currently the full-time Director at BAY-Peace (Better Alternatives for Youth) and have been with the organization since 2015. With BAY-Peace, I oversee our operations and development to ensure that we have effective systems and adequate resources available to sustainably carry out our mission. BAY-Peace’s mission is to offer holistic youth leadership programs where we empower Bay Area youth to transform and heal from militarism, systemic violence and intergenerational trauma. One unique implementation that I’ve put in place at BAY-Peace is our Community Based Art project practices, where we create projects that utilize a community engaged process around a particular issue of interest to our youth. Within this project, we integrate a Youth Participatory Action Research method. It is this work, in particular, that I believe sets us apart from other organizations and is unique for organizations within the youth justice movement.

Independently, I also work as a Cultural Arts Consultant and contractor, supporting large-scale events for various companies around CA with event planning in the field of community, cultural arts or wellness. I support these companies with integrating more art and wellness practices as well as implementing more efficient registration and customer service strategies.

In all of my work, I am committed to cultivating more of a wellness-centered working culture, while also promoting the value of cultural arts strategies in both for-profit and non-profit industries.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I first started my own business, Wage Art, I initially was operating with a non-profit structure and model. Until I learned about Social Entrepreneurship and undergoing business coaching with Fresh to Def Collective. After operating under a non-profit structure for almost 3 years, I decided to shift because I began to realize the inherent value and the extremely unique offerings that I had through my work. Not only that, but with a full-time exempt salary in the non-profit field, I felt that trying to also do a non-profit as a “side business” would not allow me the financial freedom that I desired for myself and my family. So after 4 years of officially operating as a non-profit, I shifted my business structure to now operate as a Sole Proprietorship where, other then doing mission-oriented work that made a difference in the world, making more money was my greatest intention. That year, I almost tripled my income through my side business!

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Ultimately, my creative journey is driven by an extreme need in society for community building, healing and personal/collective transformation. It is my philosophy, that life is our greatest creation. So when individuals tell me, they aren’t artistic or “artsy,” I always ask them the question, “Well, what is the life that you are trying to create for yourself? or the life that you have or are actively creating for yourself?” As a creative, my mission is to use the arts and creative expression as a vehicle for building community, healing trauma and supporting positive transformation, both on a personal and a communal level. While I have my formal training in Polynesian & Jazz dance, Theater of the Arts and Community Based Art, I believe that “Art” has no bounds and when we engage in any act of creative expression, it can easily be a spiritual, revolutionary, radical practice of liberation.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wageart.org
• Instagram: @peace.love.lei
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leilanisalvador711/
• Youtube: @leilani.wageart

Image Credits
Lara Kaur. Kayla DeGuzman.