Pulkita Anand
Pulkita Anand is an avid reader of poetry. She has translated one short story collection, “Tribal Tales from Jhabua”. Author of two children’s e-books, her eco-poetry collection is we were not born to be erased. Her creative works have been published in: Shortstory Kids, Twist and Twain, Tint Journal, Lapis Lazuli, The Creativity Webzine, Winc Magazine (Issue 1, 2, 5 &7), Stanza Cannon, Superpresent, Muse,Madwomen in the Attic, Poetica#11 &12, NCTE, The Uglywriters, Impspired (online &print issue) redsoethorns Journal (online) and magazine, Kritya, The Amazine, Carmina Magazine, Origami Press, Asiatic, Inanna Publication, Bronze Bird Books, New Verse News, Hakara Journal, Madras Courier, Green Verse: An anthology of poems for our planet (Saraband Publication), Comparative Women, Convergence anthology (selected), MAI and elsewhere.
Asta Mikijá Balto
Asta was born in Kárášjohka, on the Norwegian side of Sápmi, in 1948, into a Northern Sámi-speaking family. Her childhood was shaped by survival in the Arctic — fishing, hunting, berry picking, reindeer access, and her father’s carpentry work. Entering school was a shock: the challenge of a foreign language and boarding school life left deep marks. It took years to build her language skills, but once she did, she devoured every book available and learned Norwegian, English, and German. Sámi was not taught; she mastered it orally and later through formal adult studies. Awarded an honorary doctorate by the World Indigenous Nations University (WINU) in 2018 for her lifelong contributions to Sámi and Indigenous education, Asta Balto has dedicated her career to promoting the well-being of her Sámi people at both individual and community levels. She focuses on restoring pride and self-worth by supporting the revitalization of Sámi and Indigenous cultures and languages. For more than twenty years, she held key academic positions at the University of Applied Sciences in Norway, serving as rector, vice rector, lecturer, and professor. Her involvement in national and international Indigenous education and research committees has allowed her to maintain strong connections with Indigenous communities worldwide. She has been particularly active in advancing Sámi research and knowledge production, aiming to achieve greater intellectual self-determination for the Sámi people. Her research on traditional knowledge, pedagogy, values, and ways of life has strengthened the cultural foundation of the Sámi people. By integrating academic and traditional knowledge, she has advanced decolonizing practices within teacher education, schools, kindergartens, and other institutions. Her expertise is sought across health, art, law, politics, and church sectors, helping to integrate Sámi perspectives. Committed to decolonization, Balto advocates for centering Sámi knowledge in education and leadership. Her work supports Indigenous nation-building and leadership while fostering understanding and equitable relationships between Sámi and non-Sámi communities. She emphasizes the relevance of Sámi knowledge to nation-building, the indigenization of politics, and Indigenous-based leadership, serving as a vital resource for those seeking to engage with Sámi society respectfully.
Helen Bishop
Professor Helen Bishop is a First Nations scholar from Koongurrukun country and a researcher with the Indigenous Knowledge Institute at the University of Melbourne. A leading advocate for Indigenous knowledge systems, she specialises in peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. As a Nationally Accredited Mediator, she champions restorative justice, relational decision-making, and culturally grounded approaches to conflict resolution that centre First Nations-led solutions for community wellbeing and self-determination. Dr Bishop’s work is deeply rooted in the revitalisation of ancient knowledge systems and their integration into contemporary restorative practices. Her research and advocacy focus on restoring cultural and ecological balance, promoting procedural fairness, and supporting the next generation of First Nations peacemakers through community-driven, culturally embedded approaches. She has worked extensively across the Northern Territory—including in Ali Currung, Yuendumu, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, the Tiwi Islands, and Katherine—supporting and mentoring First Nations practitioners in their peacemaking work Dr Bishop is the Lead Indigenous Researcher with the University of Newcastle on the 2024 publication Exploring First Nations Approaches to Peacebuilding and Peacemaking in Australia – What We Found and What Next, following the report Gathering Food for Thought: First Nations Peoples’ Peacebuilding and Peacemaking Approaches in Australia (2024). She was formerly a member of the National Dispute Resolution Advisory Council and later served as a consultant to the Federal Court of Australia on the publication Solid Work You Mob Are Doing: Case Studies in Indigenous Dispute Resolution & Conflict Management in Australia.
Bryan Bixcul (Maya-Tz’utujil)
Bryan Bixcul (Maya-Tz’utujil) is a son of his community and an Indigenous rights advocate. He serves as Global Coordinator of the Securing Indigenous Rights in the Green Economy (SIRGE) Coalition. He previously served at Cultural Survival as Executive Assistant, Executive Coordinator and Advocacy Coordinator. Bryan has experience advocating for Indigenous rights at the CBD and UNFCCC. Bryan also serves in the Indigenous Advisory Group to the Banks and Biodiversity Initiative.
Johanna Fisher
Professor Johanna Fisher is an adjunct professor in the Department of English and Co-Director of the Women & Gender Studies Program at Canisius University. Her focus of study and teaching involves analysing representations of gender and race in medieval literature. She also taught in the Modern Languages Department as professor of German and German literature with an emphasis on contemporary German fiction. Her current course, Representations of Nazis in Euro Fiction is a popular course that explores these representations. Johanna Fisher has co-authored two books of poetry, Join The Conversation and Time, Place, Home, Space-The Conversation Continues. She has also contributed to various online academic and literary journals and she currently contributes on a regular basis to the EU funded digital cultural institution, Europeana. Johanna sees writing as an important conversation between the writer and reader, as well as between the writer and the inner voice that speaks in ways that bring inspiration to create other imagined worlds-perhaps of those that stand anathema to war, hate and conflict. Moreover, the created spaces for writing can on the other hand, accommodate the language of conflict, trauma, and deprivation providing spaces of healing perhaps otherwise not possible. In this way she is always conscious of words and how words carry both meaning and connection to history and culture. Johanna is currently working on an historical fiction novel exploring her parents’ experiences of Nazi Germany and of racist America and the aftermath of trauma that left as she states a story of two wounded people who tried to carve a life together.
Douglas P. Fry
Douglas P. Fry is a Professor in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Fry holds a PhD in Anthropology from Indiana University. Some of his related books include Nurturing Our Humanity (co-authored with Eisler), War, Peace, and Human Nature, and Beyond War.
Yaku Pérez Guartambel
Yaku Pérez Guartambel is an Ecuadorian Indigenous leader, environmentalist, and politician from the Cañari community. A long-time defender of Indigenous rights and water sovereignty, Pérez rose to prominence through his leadership in resisting extractive mining projects and advocating for the rights of rural and Indigenous communities. He served as President of the Andean Coordination of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI) and as an environmental coordinator for the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE). Pérez also held public office as governor of Azuay Province and was a presidential candidate in Ecuador’s 2021 elections, where his campaign foregrounded Indigenous worldviews, ecological justice, and political reform.
Tiago Hartung
Tiago Hartung is a social scientist trained in anthropology at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), with a focus on Amerindian studies, Indigenous ethnology, and Indigenous politics. His work has explored violence against Indigenous heritage, particularly conflicts surrounding territorial rights, land invasions, and delays in land regularisation, in collaboration with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers. Alongside his research, he is active in environmental and Indigenous advocacy, volunteering with Greenpeace Leste Paulista in communications, where he produces content on the Amazon and Indigenous peoples. He has also been involved in youth political initiatives, including legislative projects and parliamentary and UN simulations, and holds a diploma in public speaking from SENAC.
Joshua Konkankoh
Joshua Konkankoh is a Cameroonian indigenous elder, regenerative development consultant, and environmental journalist with 30+ years of experience in community-led innovation and ecological leadership. As founder of Better World Cameroon and creator of the Bafut Ecovillage—recognized by the UN and Global Ecovillage Network—he has helped pioneer sustainable solutions grounded in African ancestral knowledge, permaculture, and youth empowerment. He currently leads the Konkankoh Regenerative Consultancy, www.konkankoh.com offering advisory services in: Regenerative enterprise design, Indigenous-modern systems thinking, trauma-informed leadership, African rites of passage and facilitation, cross-cultural partnership building. His consultancy supports NGOs, funders, and educational networks seeking to embed holistic African approaches into global regenerative practices. Joshua has collaborated with the Global Ecovillage Network, Gaia Education, Re-Alliance, and The Regenerators Collective, among others. He is founder of the African Way Association and Indigenous & Modern, initiatives that bring together elders, youth, and changemakers across continents. Through storytelling, systems facilitation, and ecosystem restoration, he advances a vision of “economy as love” and borderless collaboration to regenerate culture, ecology, and community.
Paine Eulalia Mako
Paine Eulalia Mako is the Executive Director of the Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) in northern Tanzania, where she leads efforts to secure land rights, strengthen Indigenous governance, and advance women’s leadership. A Maasai pastoralist woman from Loliondo, Paine draws on both lived experience and academic training—holding a Master’s in Climate Change and Sustainable Development—to advocate for community-led conservation. For over a decade, she has worked to defend the rights of pastoralist and hunter-gatherer peoples, promote collective land ownership, and ensure that gender equity remains central to environmental stewardship. Guided by the belief that protecting land and culture are inseparable from protecting life itself, Paine continues to champion Indigenous-led approaches as essential to a just and sustainable future.
Blanca Mellor-Marsá
Blanca Mellor-Marsá, BSc, PhD, is a psychologist and psychotherapist based in Madrid. She worked in public epidemiological and transcultural research for eleven years and specialized in Social Psychology and Systemic Psychotherapy. Blanca has coordinated and collaborated in teaching in various Master’s Degrees and other courses and is the author of collaborative articles, chapters, and talks. She is also involved in activist work related to collective healing and mental health in the context of political, structural, and relational injustice. Other non-academic interests have shaped her understanding of the type of therapeutic bond she seeks to establish and the position she tries to hold within it. Throughout her career, she has also been influenced by various humanistic and social orientations from the fields of feminism, decolonization, ecological, and anti-capitalist movements.
Manulani Aluli Meyer
Manulani Aluli Meyer is the fifth daughter of Emma Aluli and Harry Meyer who grew up on the sands of Mokapu and Kailua beach on the island of Oahu and along the rainy shoreline of Hilo Palikū. The Aluli ʻohana is a large and diverse group of scholar-activists dedicated to Hawaiian education, restorative justice, land reclamation, ʻohana health practices, cultural revitalization, arts education, prison reform, transformational economics, food sovereignty, and Hawaiian music. Manu works in the field of indigenous epistemology and its role in world-wide awakening. Professor Aluli-Meyer obtained her doctorate in Philosophy of Education from Harvard (Ed.D.1998). She is a world-wide keynote speaker, writer, and international evaluator of Indigenous PhDs. Her books – Ho’oulu: Our Time of Becoming – Hawaiian Epistemology and Early Writings (2001) and Hoʻopono: Mutual Emergence (2025) can be found at Native Books Hawaii https://www.nativebookshawaii.org/ Her background is in wilderness education, coaching, and experiential learning. She has been an Instructor for Outward Bound, Hawaii Bound, Wilderness Hawaii, a coach for Special Olympics in three states, and she has been a passionate advocate for the Hawaiian Charter School movement. Dr. Aluli Meyer has been an Associate Professor of Education at UH Hilo and spent five years in Aotearoa/New Zealand as the lead designer/teacher for He Waka Hiringa, an innovative and accredited Masters of Applied Indigenous Knowledge at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, the largest Māori university with 30,000+ students. Aunty Manu is currently working at UH West O’ahu as the Konohiki of Kūlana o Kapolei, a movement affirmed by Hawaiʻi Papa O Ke Ao (University of Hawaiʻi System initiative) to help contextualize higher learning within a Hawaiian worldview. She is dedicated to expanding this vision beyond institutions to include our beloved community through EA HAWAIʻI, an organic Higher Education movement dedicated to mōʻike aloha – Hawaiian epistemology. Manu is a wahine kalai pohaku (stone carver) along with lei ano and lei hala maker (seed leis). She is dedicated to Indigenous Food Sovereignty and works to bring the coconut back into daily use. She is also a 40+ year practitioner of hoʻoponopono (Kaʻū Family Method) who appreciates and learns from the purpose and function of conflict. Ulu aʻe ke welina a ke aloha. Loving is the practice of an awake mind.
Nij
Nij is a miniaturist who works chiefly in pen and ink. She has recently become curious about the possibilities of image-editing software. Her creative process usually begins with an abstract idea that sternly resists materialisation—often successfully, but sometimes not. So her images represent ‘the failed efforts of some ideas to enjoy a purely cognitive existence’.
Ippei Okazaki
Ippei Okazaki is a facilitator, mediator and peacemaker based on Kaurna Country (Adelaide, Australia), whose work centres on healing and peacebuilding across cultures and communities. Inspired by his grandmother, a Hibakusha who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Ippei’s lifelong commitment to peace is shaped by lived experience, intergenerational memory, and the quiet power of dialogue. With close to two decades of practice, he brings a calm and culturally responsive presence to complex situations—whether walking alongside First Nations communities, guiding post-disaster recovery, or helping families navigate deep intergenerational and community conflict. Ippei calls his approach “restorative honour”: holding space with care so people feel safe enough to speak, listen, and imagine a shared future. He works closely with Aboriginal nations across regional and remote Australia and leads legal outreach initiatives through Community Legal Centres South Australia. He also mentors new mediators, fostering reflective, relational practice grounded in honour, humility and hope.
Jean-Philippe Steeger
Jean-Philippe Steeger is a communications and leadership coach working across Belgium, Germany, and France. His work explores regenerative and mycelial approaches to communication, leadership, and organisational culture, with a particular interest in embodied practice, relational intelligence, and queer leadership as sources of collective resilience and transformation.
Tanaya Winder
Tanaya Winder is an author, singer-songwriter, poet, and motivational speaker. She is an enrolled citizen of the Duckwater Shoshone Nation and comes from an intertribal lineage of Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, Navajo, and Black heritages. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Stanford University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico. Winder’s poetry collections include “Words Like Love” and “Why Storms Are Named After People and Bullets Remain Nameless.” Her performances and talks combine storytelling, singing, and spoken word to explore various expressions of love and the concept of “heartwork.” Tanaya specializes in youth and women empowerment, healing trauma through art, creative writing workshops, and mental wellness advocacy. You can learn more about her work at: www.tanayawinder.com