Boa Foundation

We work in alliance with indigenous communities to preserve and protect sacred land, culture, and ancient wisdom. We support projects including strategic land buybacks, restoration of native ecosystems, cultural exchange, and sustainable living solutions.

Our planet is a miracle. Life has evolved for millions of years, creating a rich and diverse ecosystem, an intricate web where all life can thrive. The climate crisis is the result of a deep man-made imbalance on the Earth. Our species has been extracting, producing, and polluting without much consideration for other forms of life, even our own. This imbalance is a symptom of our alienation from natural rhythms, cycles, and systems, and our lack of a caring relationship to our world. This also manifests in ever-increasing crises in mental health, breakdown of communities, and auto-immune diseases being diagnosed at alarming rates. The Boa Foundation works together with indigenous communities worldwide to address these issues holistically, ​supporting both cultural and natural diversity, and the healing of our selves and the planet.

Hafner, Judith

Her context of languages (German, Italian, English, French, Chinese) and professional experiences (business, international cooperation, community building) speaks of her longing to connect spaces through listening.

Her body-felt and mind-opening experience of flow in different trainings (Presencing Institute, Seele und Sein, Thomas Hübl, Art of Hosting) shifted her deeper into inner alignment and availability as basic drivers for growth.

She coordinates, together with four other women, the network future.bz.it in Nortnern Italy around the Agenda 2030, and tries to stay in service of the emerging field, driven by simplicity, curiosity and a sense of connection.

LeGrand, Thomas

Thomas Legrand is a wisdom’s seeker, living in France next to Plum Village, the monastery of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Holding a PhD in economics, he works in the field of sustainability for UN agencies, NGOs and companies.

Holding a Ph.D. in (Ecological) Economics and having studied international development, political science, and management, Thomas Legrand works in the field of sustainability for UN agencies, private companies, and NGOs. His focus is on forest conservation, climate change, sustainable finance, and organizational transformation.

His spiritual journey began at the age of 23 with an encounter with native spirituality in Mexico, before embracing the wisdom of a wide range of traditions and practices, including meditation, energetic healing and Tai-chi-chuan. He lives with his wife and their two young daughters near Plum Village, the monastery of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in the South West of France, his country.

His spiritual search, his thought as a social scientist and his professional experience have gradually converged on the importance of spiritual wisdom in humanity’s ongoing transition. Searching for a way to mainstream this understanding in the political and sustainability conversation, he has dedicated much of the last 10 years to researching and reflecting how we can radically rethink our model of development. The result is this book.

HIS JOURNEY

“What do we have except the possibility to walk a path with heart?”

-Thomas Legrand

You can find more on Thomas’ journey in the book, in particular at the end of the introduction. It is part of the excerpt you can receive by clicking here. You can also read the following blogposts on his spiritualscientific, and professional journeys.

Center, Athena

We are a center bridging science, business, and “ancient wisdom” from different traditions to bring sustainability and equality to the (business) world.

Lanying, Zhang

Lanying is currently the Executive Deputy Dean, Institute of Rural Reconstruction of China in Southwest University at Chongqing. Here she has developed and implemented projects, training/workshops and study programs in the area of sustainable agriculture, environmental education, health education and participatory development approach for poverty reduction. Her own field of interests includes participation for better governance, rural education for individual development and collectivism as well as sustainable development for the poor and marginalized people to be out of poverty and inequality.

Inner change and sustainability initiatives: exploring the narratives from eco-villagers through a place-based transformative learning approach

Abstract

In an earlier work, we suggested that connection, compassion and creativity could be used as key analytical dimensions of transformative place-based learning (Pisters et al. in Emot Sp Soc 34(8):100578, 2019). This analytical framework was cre- ated to study processes of place-based transformative learning which evoke shifts in our consciousness. This inner change might well be critical in the development of regenerative practices and places. This article aims to critically investigate the framework empirically using life-story interviews with people living in three different ecovillages. Ecovillages are so-called intentional communities which aim to develop sustainable, regenerative ways of living. Methodologically, the research is grounded in an ethnography and narrative inquiry. Following the empirical results, we will reflect on the merits and short- comings of the analytical framework. The article concludes that the framework proved useful for its purpose if it includes a fourth dimension of ’transgression’ and portraits the dimensions as continua.

(Taken from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-019-00775-9)