About Me

Stefanie Lyn Kaufman Mthimkhulu (they/she) is the Founder and Director of Project LETS. As a multiply Disabled, Mad, psychiatric survivor, they are deeply committed to interrupting patterns of historical and present-day ableism that impact Disabled people and those perceived as/labeled with mental illness in medical and psychiatric systems. They have over a decade of experience as an anti-carceral crisis responder, care worker, certified perinatal doula, death worker, and peer supporter in the so-called United States and eSwatini; and have supported multiply marginalized folks in a wide range of psychiatric and medical crises in community-based settings. They are rooted in historical and political lineages of Disability Justice and Mad Liberation; and are committed to creating options for folks to access self-determined care without police or cages of any form. Stefanie also supports care workers in building access-centered, trauma responsive practices that facilitate whole bodymindspirit healing. 

Stefanie is the editor of Abolition Must Include Psychiatry and the author of We Don’t Need Cops to Become Social Workers. They also have experience consulting and strategizing with folks around: curriculum development, anti-ableist leadership, mental health and Disability policy, and access-centered practices.

Other things I’m up to:

  • I am from a multiethnic and multicultural family of Ashkenazi Jewish and Boricua (Puerto Rican) descent. My own life is made possible by the interconnected legacy of both colonizer and colonized. Oppressor and oppressed. Ashkenazi Jews from Poland and Russia. European Spanish colonizers, some of whom were Sephardic Jew conversos. And Tainos of Boriken (Puerto Rico).

    As a white person deeply impacted by cultural assimilation/loss and indoctrination into whiteness, it has taken years of learning and unlearning to begin to access the wisdom of my ancestors– who knew how to heal, care, and practice interdependence radically, without borders – in ways that were in relationship with the land and with community. Knowledge that has been intentionally buried through genocide, shame, and trying to ride the coat tails of whiteness. Through every aspect of my work I seek to uplift and embody a holistic, anti-oppressive lens that divests from the project of whiteness. With deep gratitude to the lineages I sit inside of, which you can read about here.

 
ID: A photo of Stefanie, a white Latinx person, looking into the distance. They are wearing a blue t-shirt. Behind them are green trees and mountains.

ID: A photo of Stefanie, a non-binary person with white skin, looking into the distance. They are wearing a blue t-shirt. Behind them are green trees and mountains.