Yvette Phillips Aldama is a Cultural Keeper, Cultural Practitioner, Cultural Bearer, Earth Shaker & Ice Cream Maker.  She is an Oakland resident initiated into the mysteries of Chango in the Afro Cuban Lukumi tradition and is trained in its customs, ritual practices, songs, food and history. Her lifework is centered on the wellbeing of Black women and girls in Oakland, organizing around such issues as reproductive health and justice, equity, disparities, and educational achievement in public schools, self-help groups, and commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC). She is a Co-Spiritual Advisor and Co-Leader of Processions and Rituals  for House/Full of Black Women – a site-specific ritual performance project in Oakland, CA.  She is a 2017-2018 Isadora Duncan Dance Awards winner for Visual Set Design:  House/Full of Black Women: Episode 12; passing/through/the great middle.

Her experience includes teaching and mentoring persons in Lukumi Afro-Cuban customs, ritual practices, divination practices, songs, food and history.

• She is trained to identify and prepare ritual plants for ceremonial and medicinal purposes. 

• Trained in the intrinsic sacred art and code of ritual beading. 

• She is a trained Ashero, a title given to those who have mastered the preparation and cooking of ritual foods for the Orisas. 

• She has 25 years of building sacred spaces and religious altars.

She is an Ice Cream Maker of small-batch ice creams.