Grandmother of six grandsons and 6 Granddaughters, the great grandmother of three Suns and the great grand Princess.

As we approach our 7th decade in Living, with a pilgrimage to the Motherland of Africa this Spring, we endeavor to share many of the "tools" we have gained from many teachers to those on a common or similar lifepath.

Our website is in the signature below...

 a conscious agent of change

www.kindredofsangoma.org,

Amy Hyatt has been involved in nature connection mentoring since 2001, when she began as a participant and apprentice at Vermont Wilderness School located in Abenaki Territory. For over 20 years she has been designing and directing youth and adult programs at the Vermont Wilderness School. Amy was one of the first women facilitators and leaders of the Art of Mentoring, an intergenerational weeklong workshop in nature connection mentoring. In recent years Amy joined the Shared Leadership Hub of the Nature Connection Network, playing an active role in current movement dialogues around decolonization and anti-racism. Amy is of mixed European ancestry - born and shaped by the lifeshed of the Great Miami River in southwest Ohio, Shawandasse & Myaamia Territories. She grew up with attention on challenging inequalities in race, class, and gender in our everyday lives as well as spending time outside exploring and helping in the family vegetable garden. At age 19, she began overtly encountering Indigenous people who engaged her with everyday issues of colonization, cultural appropriation, and decolonization…and the living practice of listening to different species and asking permission before harvesting or developing areas. She has continued to ask the questions and seek to make changes creating more equity for humans and other species, a sense of welcome and safety for people of different backgrounds, and a sense of Trust and allyship in working together for well-being of the children and multi-species future generations on this Earth.

For nearly a decade now, Estephanie Martinez-Alfonzo has been tracking language down a set of winding trails exploring the relationships between linguistics, cultural mythologies, integrities, and healing- birthing their organization Mycorrising, which works with individuals, local, and national organizations. They help to illuminate developmental relational strategies and practices. These often include reflective organizational awareness, conflict transformation, accountability, natural organizational models, and other mechanisms which are rooted in more supportive and mutual paradigms that make room for everyone’s gifts to thrive.

Estephanie is queer, Brown, primarily spanish-speaking, and the oldest of five. Descended of the Cumanagoto people, she lives in Penobscot Wabanaki territory, also called midcoast Maine, with their husband and three dogs. Estephanie is dedicated to re-membering their cultural traditions through food, dance, and story. With nature, community, and heart at the center of their work- they share embodied practices for decolonizing and cultivating deeper knowing to the natural within ourselves as pathways to re-membering our lifeways relationally.

Maggie Gotterer is the Executive Director of Two Coyotes Wilderness School in Connecticut. She joined the leadership team of NCN in 2020 after serving on the planning team for the Nature Connection Leadership Conference that year. She also serves on the boards of Green Village Initiative and Bridgeport Generation Now, which strive for food justice and a healthy democracy in Bridgeport, CT, where she lives.

Her love for the outdoors was cultivated at an early age growing up in Connecticut and spending summers on an island in Maine. She and her husband met as outdoor adventure guides at Georgetown University, and they are grateful to be raising their young family in Bridgeport.

maggie@twocoyotes.org.

A mother and grandmother, Lisa Donahue has worked and raised her family in various bio-regions in what is now called the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, awakening her curiosity and appreciation for the intersection of nature and culture. Since leaving corporate positions with  Apple, Time Warner, and DK Publishing, she has worked extensively in leadership positions with local and regional environmental organizations. When volunteering at her children’s school near Lake Ontario, Lisa developed a keen awareness and appreciation of the benefits of deep nature connection for all ages.  From 2018 Lisa has served on the Board of the Nature Connection Mentoring Foundation (dba 8 Shields Institute), and currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for the Guelph Outdoor School.  She lives with her favorite human and two cats on the traditional territories and ancestral homelands of the Cheyenne, Ute and Arapaho nations (now called Boulder, Colorado USA), where she is grateful for the inspiration and protection of the Flatirons.

Lucia Colombaro is an economic researcher and strategist with a focus on regenerative economics and an organizational development consultant specializing in embedding equity and justice practices into financial structures. She works with a variety of clients centered around advancing Indigenous sovereignty, Black liberation, the truth of more than two genders, the health and well-being of mothers, children, families, and communities, and feminine leadership. A mother and scholar, her devotional practice is in service to the perpetuation of Life and the use of care.