Jasmine Jordaan

Coherence Holder and Logistical Facilitator

I am so excited to be co-creating this amazing opportunity for vegans to come together. I have been vegan for over 17 years with a break about 9 years ago when I ate some dairy and fish for a few years and then saw the Octopus Teacher movie while lying in bed with Covid and had a realization that all creatures are sentient beings not only those on land (not sure why it took me longer to get that realization). Now being vegan is non negotiable. I was born in Jerusalem, Israel and grew up in an atmosphere of conflict and food was always a big part of feeling safe when alone and was the way love was shown in my family. I moved to the United States at the age of 11 and always wanted to help make peace in the Middle East. I went to law school with that in mind and became a certified mediator. However, life took me in a different direction and I realized being a lawyer wasn’t my path. After my second son was born almost 18 years ago I started noticing the energy of animal suffering in my body when I ate them and I just couldn’t keep eating animals. It was a huge shift for me since I was a big cook and all I knew how to make was animal heavy dishes. I spent a year learning to cook vegan and became a good vegan cook. My energy and my health improved dramatically with this switch and at the moment I am basically raw vegan doing juicing to heal my cysts which have been persistent at sticking around. Food is medicine and live food has been my greatest medicine so far. I have been involved in vegan education through creating an event for the Woodstock Animal Sanctuary and fundraising. I want to do more for the cause of helping raise awareness about animal suffering and its impact on the earth along with peacemaking within ourselves by being in peace with what we chose to put into our bodies and also being at peace with each other by coming from love and compassion. I feel this is needed on a global scale and I don’t want to do things alone. I want to do things in community together and thus this incubator was born :)

Cherie Soria  

Guest Facilitator

Cherie Soria is author of many books including Raw Food For Dummies and Raw Food Revolution Diet. Known as the Mother of Gourmet Raw Living Food, she founded Living Light Culinary Institute in 1998 and has trained many of the world’s top raw vegan chefs, culinary instructors and cookbook authors from over 65 countries.   Cherie discovered the joys of trail running at age 65 and now, at 78 years young she is a competitive ultra runner, inspiring and motivating women to make health and fitness a way of life, no matter what their age.  Since retiring full time in Costa Rica, Cherie has developed a passion to minimize global food transport and reduce food waste. She has been busy creating delicious recipes and new food preparation techniques using fresh, locally grown and indigenous plant foods; cutting down on the use of packaged foods; maximizing food storage to reduce waste, and promoting respect for the gifts of Mother Earth

Her Offering:

​

People care about animals, the planet, and their health—but they are reluctant to change unless the food wows them.

In Cherie’s workshop we will learn to win hearts with a 15-minute demo, 6 ingredients, and bold flavors—crispy, creamy, irresistible.

In this 2-hour class, Cherie will show us how to master simple, delicious demos, smart prep, and foolproof demo cards—so people taste it and say, “I could go vegan.”

Watch  Living Light Culinary Institute - BIOVIE Interview of Cherie Soria here.

 

Darío Alvarado

Lead Facilitator

Darío has practiced veganism since 2011. He works at the intersection of education, liberation, and culture. His facilitation work has taken him to collaborate with diverse organizations around the world, shaping a practice rooted in holding space for self-discovery and authentic expression across a variety of formats.

Through this work, he focuses on creating the conditions for the emergence of contexts and infrastructures of compassion, play, and love, supporting individual and collective transitions from separation toward unity.

Ana Lucía Castaño 

Facilitator

​Lucía is a Colombian anthropologist and agroecologist — a bridge-builder between worlds: human and more-than-human, local and global, knowing and feeling.

As co-founder of Arare, she weaves food sovereignty and territorial care across more than 10 countries in Latin America and beyond, sustaining the living threads between communities, landscapes, and all beings that make their life possible. She collaborates as a conspirator in building new forms of socio-environmental education at Universidad del Medio Ambiente, and is trained in non-violent communication and mediation. For over 11 years, she has held transformative group processes — in forests, classrooms, fields, and ceremony.

Her facilitation draws from wisdom traditions across the Americas, from agroecology, and from what she calls gozo — the deep, embodied joy of being fully alive in relationship with all that is.

She comes to this incubator not from the safety of a fixed shore, but from the river itself: someone who has lived veganism, loves it, and is still finding her way back through the complexity of health and honest becoming. For a space about transitions, she brings a most essential gift — presence on the threshold. She offers her voice, her deep listening, her knowledge of living systems and culture change, and the felt, embodied knowing of how compassion and care actually move people towards inspired action.

Amanda Wright

Facilitator

Amanda Wright is an Australian-trained practitioner of diagnostic Shiatsu, food medicine, corrective yoga and energy healing with more than 25 years’ experience supporting wholefood, plant-based living. A graduate of the Zen Renaissance College of Natural Medicine and Yoga, she specialises in chronic conditions and preventive care, guiding clients to restore balance within their internal ecosystems through nourishment and universal principles of health. After discovering during her travels that she felt healthier without meat, Amanda adopted a vegan lifestyle nearly 30 years ago, a decision later strengthened by her commitment to animal welfare and environmental sustainability.
 

Her work, shaped by personal recovery after serious accidents, integrates Oriental medicine, spiritual study and cellular healing practices. Internationally, she has taught yoga and facilitated peacebuilding initiatives across the Middle East, Europe, the United States and Australia. She co-founded SulhaOz, creating listening circles and cross-cultural dialogue programs, and contributed to projects including EcoMe Centre, supporting sustainability and reconciliation initiatives across divided communities.