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Faculty & Staff
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Mari
Hollander
Mari is the Education Manager and
programme co-ordinator for the college. She
has lived and worked within the Findhorn Foundation
community for over 30 years and served the
in various capacities in the areas of management,
education, and in promotion of environmental
harmlessness. She experiences this life as
one great learning adventure, is a lover of
beauty and devoted to the path of peace-making.
She is the mother of two grown children. |
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Marian Chamrada, BA, MSc in Educational Research
Majk is Operations Manager at the College, responsible for organisational oversight of the programme. He has a background in International and Comparative Education, having studied at The International Necessary Teacher Training College in Denmark where he also worked as a teacher and in management from 2001-2005. During this period he travelled and worked extensively mainly in Asia and Africa in diverse educational settings and in developmental projects that ignited his passion for education and sustainability.
From 2006, he continued to use and deepen his experience at the University of Exeter, UK, where he first studied and later taught International and Comparative Education, Methods of Educational Enquiry, as well as worked on large international research projects.
His interests include Cross-Cultural Cooperation between teachers, Communities of Practice, and ways of creating an inspiring dialogic space between human beings that could facilitate personal growth in a holistic way, through education. Majk is also a writer and woodcarver. |
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Gilda Westermann |
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Richard Reardon |
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Semester program co-ordinator & Lead Faculty
Melissa Godbeer B.MSc & M.MSc University of Metaphysics, California; PhD student, Department of Philosophy, University of Sedona.
Melissa has worked with the Foundation College since 2005 in a variety of capacities predominantly offering her expertise in programme design, development, management and as a key student councillor.
Born in Zimbabwe and growing up during pre and post Apartheid South Africa, Melissa's first hand experience of widely diverse worldviews informs her role as a Lead faculty in the undergraduate semester programme. Intrigued by the process of world views and how they define our capacity for a collective capable consciousness, Melissa's PhD research focuses on how our 'industrialised mind programmes' shape our cultural norms, 'norms' that lie at the root of present global crisis. Melissa is inspired by the positive possibilities that are available to humanity through low-impact means. As an active minister and holistic councilor, Melissa advocates for 'Greening our Minds' |
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Graham Meltzer - BSc (Mathematics), BBE (Bachelor of Built Environment), BArch hons (Bachelor of Architecture), PhD (University of Queensland).
Graham grew up in New Zealand but lived, as an adult, mostly in Australia where he worked variously as building contractor, architect, university lecturer and commercial photographer. He currently works for the Findhorn Foundation as community architect and project manager. He has a deep abiding interest in communal living, having lived two years on Kibbutz, eight years in Australia’s largest commune and five years at Findhorn. His academic research of the last 20 years has focused on cohousing, looking specifically at the link between social cohesion and environmentalism. He is on the board of ICSA, the International Communal Studies Association, and is organising the next ICSA conference, to be held in Findhorn in 2013. |
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Lisa Shaw
M.F.A. Grays School of Art, Aberdeen,
2007-2009 (to be completed September, 2009).
B.F.A. The Cooper Union for the Advancement
of Science and Art, New York City, 2000-2004.
Lisa Shaw is an artist, designer and educator.
She is the art director of the Ecovillage
Institute, an ecological design and engineering
firm based in Findhorn, Scotland. She has
worked on water restoration projects in India,
China, Bolivia, Russia and the UK as part
of the Ecovillage Institute team, educating
for the restoration and sustainable use of
water and soil. This work targets problems
of water scarcity, contamination and land
degradation. Lisa is involved in community
building and ecological art and is currently
researching issues of self-image in relationship
to the environment in Scotland. She creates
paintings on canvas, photographs, videos,
murals and dialogical interventions and has
taught art to adults and children.
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Gill
Emslie- Dip. PW
Gill has extensive experience as an international
trainer and facilitator, drawing on her training
in transpersonal psychology, as a consultant
to organisations and communities, and as a
psychotherapist, to deliver trainings in group
dynamics and conflict facilitation, social
design, personal development, staff training,
supervision, and developing the relationship
between individual purpose and its application
in the workplace and the world. Gill currently
works within the corporate and voluntary sectors
both in Europe and Latin America as well as
teaching in a variety of educational programmes. |
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Joan Wilmot B.A. (Hons), CQSW
Joan's work has always been in the field of mental health and communities. In 1979, she co-founded the Centre for Supervision and Team Development. Joan has contributed to writings on supervision in 'Passionate Supervision' and 'Supervision as Transformation' both edited by Robin Shohet and to 'Supervision in the Helping Profession', Hawkins & Shohet. She co-wrote a cookery book, The Boxing Clever Cookbook based on EarthShare, the local CSA (community supported agriculture) scheme. She is co presenter with Dorota Owen of Northern Lights Conferences, a yearly conference in Findhorn committed to schools as holistic learning communities for the whole community. She is co-founder of Findhorn Playback Theatre (member of IPTN International Playback Theatre Network) – a form of improvisational drama for community story telling. She works in London and Findhorn as a trainer, supervisor, psychotherapist, couples therapist and consultant. She has lived in Findhorn and (part time in London) for 18 years with her family, the last 10 years in a 'trainee' eco house! She has four sons and one grandson. |
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Melinda de Smidt
With a connection to the Findhorn community since childhood, Melinda de Smidt is co-responsible for supporting Findhorn Foundation College students integrate into community life.
Born in South Africa and educated through the Steiner system, Melinda is deeply interested in holistic education and its capacity to bring healing into the world. After living in America where Melinda studied Natural Horsemanship it became clear that Melinda's skill in mentoring young adults in Horsemanship dove tailed her interests in world healing. Through this form of mentoring Melinda has found that the emotional tools needed to forge a natural bond with a horse are not unlike the process a new group of humans experience when first coming together. Melinda's most recent project; working within the Ecovillage design education team in Thailand gave evidence of this. Now living in the Findhorn Community Melinda finds a place to further this knowledge, and nurture her love of all aspects of Life and Spiritual growth, through mentoring and sharing of her personal journey. |
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Karl Baumgartner Dip of Psychotherapy. Teacher of Alexander Technique
Karl has a passion for community living including four years in Findhorn Community, and a number of different communities back in his homeland of Australia. Has a range of experiences from spiritual practices to working in mental health services. Karl is passionate about connecting sustainability, spirituality and personal development together and grounding that into everyday life. He is currently holds a role of a Findhorn Community Semester Community Life Co-Focaliser. |
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Harula Ladd, BA Hons, CELTA
Harula first came to Findhorn in 2005, after completing three years of voluntary work in Rwanda. This included two years teaching English through VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas). She currently teaches on our English and Community programme and lives in the wider community as a freelance writer. Through her work she aims to support others in discovering new and deeply authentic ways of communicating with each other, beginning with the words and then reaching beyond the boundaries of language and culture to a celebration of the humanness that we all share. |
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Javier Rodriguez was trained as a Clinical Psychologist, and has a broad and specific in-depth training in different approaches to Personal Development, Group Work and Transpersonal Psychology. He has been working for more than 25 years as a psychotherapist, workshop leader and coach. Javier lived in Findhorn Community since 1991 where he still lives with his partner and two children. He enjoys dancing, creative work with clay and quality time with family, friends and his Self in Nature.
For more than 5 years, he was responsible for the Membership Programme in the Findhorn Foundation designing the curriculum, delivering trainings and offering mentoring and supervision within the Spiritual and Personal Department. Javier sees healing as a deep transformative journey that goes beyond psychological theories and techniques. It seems to be facilitated under specific conditions that are more to do with openness, allowing and embracing our human experience of living. Something within human beings rests in a deep sense of wholeness and peace when they can experience and surrender to the Truth of our Eternal and Universal Nature. |
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Maria Olsthoorn Master in Fine Arts NL 1980 Teacher degree, Certificate Colour Therapy & Healing QINS ‘86, Tranformation Game Facilitator Findhorn ‘92, Diploma Aromatherapy & Massage SPICA ‘97, Diploma Nutritional Medicine PNMC ‘00, Graduate Brennen Healing Science 2005, Brennan Integration Work Advanced Studies '10
Maria is a Barbara Brennan trained Energy Healer, Process facilitator, Group Therapy facilitator and Supervisor. She draws on 30 years experience of working with individuals and groups in a transformational spiritual and educational context. She loves teaching and exploring the concept of healing and of the awakening consciousness.
Maria has been a member of the Findhorn Community since 1989. She gives individual healing sessions as well as does Supervision work with practising therapists, and also facilitates Healing for individuals through Group therapy. She teaches and facilitates workshops. |
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Findhorn
Foundation College, St Leonard's Rd, Forres, Morayshire,
Scotland, IV36 2RD, Scotland |
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