About Rissi
Rissi D’Gouso grew up in a small forest village of the Odenwald as one of five daughters who were born at home, raised by the Spirit of the trees. Her family practiced hand-making their tools and collected mushrooms from the forest. With her father being the towns’ local chimney sweeper their home served as a ground for community-gatherings, honoring sun and moon cycles around fire ceremony while developing collective initiatives.
With roots of Native American/Cherokee (Mother) and German (Father) ancestry, Rissi’s parents prioritized a discipline around peace-making as a central element in their upbringing. As an immigrant and survivor, Rissi’s Mother nurtured a perseverant Spirit in her daughters - of multicultural dimensions and intuitive guidance. Rissi’s stepfather became a significant pillar to the family as a master physicist, he encouraged a great passion for scientific and mathematic inquisition of nature’s elements and energies. With close-knit loyalty to their sisterhood and family values, Rissi’s sisters brought these principles into their work becoming a civil-rights judge, a doctor of neuroscience for cannabis medicines, a teacher for specialized education and a social work manager for the organization Creative Change. Rissi created Peace.Rise.Bloom.
In her childhood Rissi received Exceptional Distinction under the Royal Academy of Dance and became South-German track team champion. Her Mother encouraged Rissi to begin her pilgrimage as a teenager and follow her calling to the Native Motherland.
Rissi began this path working as a care-taker for young children in New York City, where she was accepted into the LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts. She studied moral education and developed mentorship program within her school. She was honored with the LaGuardia Spirit Award, the Father Fame award for Excellence in Academics & Dance and graduated with an Advanced Regents Diploma in Math and Science.
Rissi was recruited and awarded the POSSE Full Tuition Leadership Scholarship to complete her studies at the University of Southern California, with the mission of empowering diverse groups of leaders who transform communities, the United States and the world. With her calling to foster roots of unity through the inclusive Spirit of the Arts, Rissi co-founded Sokamba and engaged her work in social responsive education programs.
As a program coordinator in higher education, Rissi guided the USC Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program with the mission to diversify faculty ranks and give voice to historically underrepresented fields of research. She served as a committee member in creating the annual USC First-Generation College Student Summit, launching the USC Food Pantry, supporting the USC Trojan Guardian Scholars Program for current and former foster youth and consulted the USC Joint Educational Project on culturally competent training methods/program structures.
She collaborated on creative projects with James Taylor, the UN World-Peace-Day project Secret Weapon, Opera Virtutum, Summit Series LA and taught master classes at Pepperdine University and LAUSD classrooms.
As a facilitator, Rissi worked with Fulcrum Adventures, leading youth and professional programs for social-emotional development, and served as an academic coach for students with severe-learning-support at Davinci School of Communications. Rissi was assigned the former lead-organizer of the Imagining America SoCal Cluster with the intention to foster just and liberatory community-based learning in higher education institutions. She co-authored a chapter about the work of the IA SoCal cluster in Dr. Maria Avila’s book Building Collective Leadership for Culture Change: Stories of Relational Organizing on Campus and Beyond (Publicly Engaged Scholars: Identities, Purposes, Practices). In extension of the relational work through the cluster, Rissi presented her research in collaboration with Western Washington University “Integrating Permaculture Principles in Learning Communities” - A Learning Together Training.
Rissi provided guidance for the healing of veterans and cancer patients. When her Mother transcended, Rissi deepened the conscious sphere of her meditation. With the intention of purifying energy fields for the healing of life source vibration, Rissi began engaging practices to sustain balanced frequencies of life force exchange while guiding Suhaiila meditations. To maintain balance of honor across a whole-system of interwoven life she developed Peace.Rise.Bloom.
Becoming Peace.Rise.Bloom Spirit Dancer, Rissi trained under Daansekou, Joko International / Fode Sissoko, United for Peace Movement Inc, Pape’s Little Village, Babacar N’Diaye and Peace Yoga.
Her current focus is rooted in developing the United for Peace World through the framework of Peace.Rise.Bloom: Mother Earth Prayer.
