The Sisters' Retreat: Wellness Retreats for Muslim Women

Gilary Massa and Timaj Garad are community organizers, artists, and writers with a passion for creating beautiful spaces for Muslim women to connect and grow.

Together they founded The Sisters' Retreat, a travel company based out of Toronto that specializes in women-only all-inclusive vacations and local events.

Our mission is to create self-care and vacation opportunities that feel safe, inclusive and are dedicated to nurturing the mind, body, and soul. 

Our Panama retreat aims to create an all-inclusive vacation for Muslim women that is intimate and authentic.

Our events and Panama retreat are about supporting and promoting sisterhood and celebrating local economies and culture of women.

The Team

Gilary Massa is an Afro-Panamanian Muslim who calls Toronto, Canada her home. As her day job Gilary works as the Advocacy Coordinator for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, where she leads campaigns and training programs that challenge Islamophobia and is pursuing her Masters in Leadership and Community Engagement at York University.

Gilary has been an active member of the student and labour movements for over a decade and is dedicated to creating spaces for communities to unite for social justice and promote civic engagement. 

She was driven to create The Sisters’ Retreat, out of her love for her home country of Panama, and her own desire to have some time in the sun connecting with women who spend their days taking care of community.

Timaj Garad is a Toronto-based Ethiopian multi-disciplinary storyteller, using poetry, theatre, and music to bring her stories to life. Her art is auto-biographical, working at the intersections of a black Muslim woman challenging injustice, unearthing truths, and healing. As an award-winning Artist, Timaj Garad has graced over 250 stages and facilitated several arts-based workshops.

Timaj is known for creating and leading community arts programs such as Stellar (R)evolution: a poetry & theatre series for Black Muslimahs, Project Heartwork multi-arts wellness retreat series for Muslimah change-makers, and LUMINOUS Fest - Canada's first Black Muslim Arts Festival, to name a few. Timaj has coordinated a community storytelling initiative for the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), in addition to working on her debut album to be released in 2020.

Timaj believes in the transformative power of the arts to meaningfully engage in