Educator
Maisha launched her own arts in education company, Urban Actors Academy, now Urban Artivist Academy combining her passion for filmmaking with her commitment to working with youth and social justice issues. She credits her grad school years as being the cataylst for learning the value of partnering passion with purpose. This experience coupled with her work as a teaching artist and administrator with film festivals such as Tribeca Film, African American Women in Cinema and Cannes Festival provided a clear vision for the content taught and created by the arts-in-education vehicle.
UAA now offers DEI (Diversity Equity & Inclusion) video curriculum created for young people by young people and aims to cultivate the conversation around racial equity in classrooms throughout L.A. County.
Maisha Sebastiany holds an advanced degree (MBA) in the field of Media Management and has over ten years experience in youth development, including curriculum and program design of diversity education, leadership training and arts in education programs at both the collegiate and high school levels. She has worked with universities and school districts across the country before serving as the Director of both New York City’s Mayor’s Youth Leadership Council and the New York City Youth Council through Coro New York Leadership Center.
Maisha also helped to create the Inner City Media Arts Summit, a yearly CTE (Career and Technical Education) city-wide educational networking event for youth film program participants. The event ran for 3 years in partnership with Social Cinema LLC, and the Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated Downtown Community Television Center. More recently, she directed the launch of the American Film Institute’s Screenwriting Bootcamp in collaboration with Los Angeles Unified School District.
Maisha has since pivoted her experience as a facilitator and trainer, into MAS Diversity Consultancy where she brings a creative energy and authenticity to workshops that facilitate compassionate yet challenging conversations on racism and social injustice.
She has trained with Theater of the Oppressed, The Undoing Racism Workshop, The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, The Masterful Trainer, and Cambridge Leadership Associates Adaptive Leadership Framework. She has also worked with Interpersonal Leadership Styles and is deeply influenced by her years as a teaching artist utilizing drama therapy.
As a consultant and speaker, she creates spaces for people to engage authentically in self-reflection, building awareness and empathy for multiple perspectives when addressing tough issues such as racial and gender inequality.
