Assétou Xango is a profound speaker, facilitator, storyteller and activist. Xango specializes in topics of women’s empowerment, genderqueer rights and racial issues. She utilizes story-telling and honest conversations to divulge and address areas of disparity in our systems and community.
In their decade long career as a speaker, Xango has received accolades from international poetry competitions, was featured in Westword’s top 100 Creatives and Is a two time at TEDxMileHigh speaker. Xango is currently the Poet Laureate of Aurora (2017-2019). As a community activist, she has founded several community forums to address issues from race to gender both locally and nationally in San Francisco. Assetou has a BFA in Film Production and is pursuing a Masters in Sociology. She uses the arts and public speaking to empower adults and youth alike to engage difficult topics and self-discovery around power and privilege and the systemic ways it exists in the institutions we inhabit.
Xango has trained extensively in conflict transformation, de-escalating conflict and trauma informed care. They founded this organization, Giving Ground, in partnership with Leanne Alaman after observing the strengths and deficits in organization out to do good. Xango is excited for the launch of this organization because it combines all of her strengths and passions to help good organizations do better in the areas of equitability and conflict transformation.
“Xango feels honored to be apart of such a powerful collective as Transformative Leadership Collective (TLC). TLC has already left such a strong legacy in Denver, she is grateful to be apart of it.“