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Crystal Forman is the health and wellness educator, coach and owner of Holistic Wellness and Health where she offers plant-based cooking classes, wellness workshops, health coaching, gardening consultation, and mindfulness meditation to help all beings live a healthier, compassionate and more vibrant life. Crystal also works to improve food justice and sustainable food access. In addition to her public health and health administration degrees, Crystal is a certified Permaculture designer and a Certified Baltimore City Master Gardener. To learn more about her work or lend your support you can contact her at crystal.l.forman@gmail.com & Holistic Wellness and Health
Alex Epstein is an earthling, organizer, gardener, and student of the universe. He has spent 16 years building bridges across differences, organizing equitable, resilient, and radically inclusive communities, and advocating for social & environmental justice.
In 2010, Alex co-founded the Urban Creators, a North Philadelphia-based organization that uses Urban agriculture, art, and political education as tools to build resilience and self-determination in their community. For more than a decade, Alex led the strategic growth of the organization as a Co-Executive Director, while remaining committed to collaborative leadership and centering the voices of those most directly impacted by the racial & economic issues facing the community. Now, through his new organization, Root Catalyst, Alex is focused on creating 'Spaces of Reconnection' that offer opportunities for people to connect more intimately to their bodies, communities, and the earth. You can contact Alex here to learn about his programs and Root Catalyst aepstein1990@gmail.com
Vibhuti Aggarwal is a campaigner of the wisdom of playfulness. The journey of the Youth Alliance of India and her own started almost at the same time when she was a student at Lady Shri Ram College. Her questions about the current development paradigms inspired her to co-create Earth-Shastra, a program that she currently leads, along with unconditional support to alumni, team development, and ecosystem work. Vibhuti is a former Teach for India fellow, who continued her commitment to education through her work at Sri Ram Ashram, Haridwar, and Shikshantar, Udaipur. She brings the perspective of body wisdom and uses various arts-based modalities in facilitation through her training in Interplay and Clowning. A trained leader at Interplay, she facilities various editions of Yes! Jams, Learning Societies unConference among others. After more than a decade of her work in social change, she has recently shifted to a small city in Uttarakhand to dedicate her time and skills to bringing about a change at a local level. Contact Vibhuti to support the Youth Alliance of India or join one of their programs vibhuti@youthallianceofindia.org
Shashank Kalra has a reverence for nature and the spirit that pervades all. In the past decade, he has grown from a participant in The India Youth Alliance's first leadership program in 2012 to a volunteer, to a skilled facilitator, and now the CEO. He leads fund-raising, strategy-building, compliances, and ecosystem networking. His theatrics, playfulness, and keen inquiries awaken possibilities in people and collectives. Shashank is an Acumen Fellow, and a Bhoomi Senior Fellow, and a Youth Visionary Awardee of ITRI. He holds the gifts of being grounded and articulate on one hand and innocent, child-like on the other. Right now, living in Rudrapur he is rooting himself in local work and also building foundations for a nationwide movement. To connect with Shashank or lend support to his work please contact shashank@youthallianceofindia.org
Riddhi Shah has been working in the space of Education Development for the last 15 years. She believes that majority of the world's problems are solvable, provided there is a collective effort to approach them with a connection to the soil and to our higher purpose. She's travelled across India working in very remote, rural areas, in conflict areas near the borders, in tribal zones and in modern urban spaces engaging with over 800 schools and impacting more than 111,000 teachers to enable them to re-assess their roles as catalysts of transformation in the coming change. Her core focus has been to dialogue on how true education and not academics, is one of the keys to dissolving the crisis that we are all in today.
Daniel Abreu holds a MS in Environmental Studies and Climate Change from the Institute of Social Studies of Rotterdam University (ISS) and in Int. Relations from the University of Barcelona. He worked as a human development researcher for UNDP, and youth participation coordinator for UNICEF. An international negotiator in 5 world climate change conferences, including the Paris Agreement process, and the Focal Point of the Climatic Education Project for the UNITAR in collaboration with UNESCO.
Currently he works on environmental and climate change initiatives for various UN agencies, governments, businesses and community organizations. He has published at international level by the Catalan Institute for Peace in Barcelona, Greenpeace International in Amsterdam, Transparency International in Berlin and the offices of Latin America of the UN.
Daniel is facilitator of the spiritual ecology methodology “The Work that Reconnects”, co-creator together with his wife Ayala of the project Young Leaders for the Planet and of the children's book “Kai and the Song of Mother Earth”. He organizes public activities to connect with nature and the wisdom of our ancestors, especially facilitating cacao ceremonies, drum circles, and sacred connection with the whales. To learn more about his work or to participate in a nature retreat & ‘whale journey’ near the waters of Samana you can write him at danielabre@gmail.com
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