Dr Valerie Mason-John (hon.doc) M.A is one of the leading African descent voices in the field of Mindfulness for Addiction. She co-founded the accredited program Mindfulness Based Addiction Recovery, and 8 Step Recovery Meetings, which is also an award-winning book. She works is a senior compassionate inquiry facilitator for addiction and trauma, and works as a practitioner. Author and co-editor of 9 books, her most recent published this year, I'm Still Your Negro - An Homage to James Baldwin, is a social justice poetics that is responding to all the killings and traumas of black and brown bodies. President of the Buddhist Recovery Network, she is also public speaker and is based between North America and Europe.