Meet the Team: Nze Okoronta

Nze Okoronta, National Peer Support Training & Technical Assistance Coordinator, Doors to Wellbeing

Nze Okoronta (they/them) is a Mad, Black care worker, writer, and deathworker-in-study. Much of their work centers on building and participating in community-led alternatives to carceral crisis response, including non-carceral respites, warmlines and hotlines divested from 988 and 911, harm reduction and drug user support, alternatives to policing, non-police mobile crisis response, Mad Pride, Mad liberation, and mutual aid.

Nze centers their lived expertise as a psychiatric survivor of Igbo descent in their work. They have focused their career on creating alternative pathways for people to experience distress without force or punishment, and to build true sanctuary in community. Nze has worked within and alongside numerous organizations and communities doing work around alternative responses to mental health crisis, harm reduction and drug user support, alternatives to policing, mobile crisis teams, civil and human rights protections, disability justice, and policy advocacy and reform. They have extensive knowledge in lived experience (including peer support and things that are not) spanning areas including fidelity and practice, national standards, statewide certification processes, program implementation, workforce development, supervision and leadership, curriculum writing and development, and training and facilitation in the US.

Their work has been featured in Mad in America, Unapologetically Black Unicorns, and The Center for Mad Culture’s Mad Tea podcast. Outside of their work, Nze's interests include gothy stuff, horror movies, watercolor painting, handbuilding pottery, taxidermy and pitbulls.