Introducing the Regional Hearth SummitsIntroducing the Regional Hearth Summits
It’s Time to Break Taboos Around Mental Health: Fatou Dieye FallIt’s Time to Break Taboos Around Mental Health: Fatou Dieye Fall
Stories from the Hearth
Interview With:
Fatou Dieye Fall
Founder, Safe Open Space
🌍 Dakar, Senegal
In this interview, Fatou Dieye Fall, Founder of Safe Open Space, tells us about her journey with mental health and Safe Open Space, the first active listening platform in Senegal, which she created in 2019. Safe Open Space offers spaces where every young person can talk freely about their mental health, without fear of judgment.
During Hearth Summit Thiès 2024, changemakers addressed the growing mental health challenges among African youth and explored community solutions through sessions and workshops. A particularly impactful workshop taught changemakers skills on how to express their emotions and listen to others with empathy, promoting psychological safety and connection.
Fatou emphasizes the importance of intergenerational dialogue and the interest in destigmatizing mental health issues in the African context, including the role played by the family in this process.
The regional summits hosted by Tostan in Thiès aim to encourage youth engagement and intergenerational dialogue to address the challenges facing our communities.
Watch the interview below.
EXPLORE THE REGIONAL SUMMITS FURTHEREXPLORE THE REGIONAL SUMMITS FURTHER
Dive Into Stories From Around the World
Discover the Wellbeing Movement in AfricaDiscover the Wellbeing Movement in Africa
Meet and hear stories from the changemakers championing the wellbeing movement in Africa.
Building Relationships Is the Key to Creating Wellbeing: Birima FallBuilding Relationships Is the Key to Creating Wellbeing: Birima Fall
Stories from the Hearth
Interview With:
Birima Fall
Senior Program Manager, Tostan
🌍 Dakar, Senegal
The first regional wellbeing summit for social change in Africa, hosted by Tostan in Thiès in 2023, was an opportunity to reflect on wellbeing from a perspective rooted in African values. The conception that one can have of wellbeing differs from one place to another, from one culture to another; it is therefore important to hear the African perspective on the different aspects that affect well-being.
According to Birima Fall, Senior Program Manager at Tostan, although the notion of wellbeing encompasses a holistic dimension, one of its main foundations according to Tostan’s approach lies in relationships. It is thanks to an approach based on the relationships that communities are able to discuss, work together and make important decisions in order to accomplish their vision of an ideal of wellbeing.
Watch the interview below.
EXPLORE THE REGIONAL SUMMITS FURTHEREXPLORE THE REGIONAL SUMMITS FURTHER
Dive Into Stories From Around the World
Discover the Wellbeing Movement in AfricaDiscover the Wellbeing Movement in Africa
Meet and hear stories from the changemakers championing the wellbeing movement in Africa.
A Plastic-Free Future for Senegal: Modou FallA Plastic-Free Future for Senegal: Modou Fall
Stories from the Hearth
Interview With:
Modou Fall
L’Homme Plastique (The Plastic Man)
🌍 Dakar, Senegal
In this interview, meet L’Homme Plastique (Modou Fall), a former soldier as he shares his journey after his military service, and how he became aware of environmental issues in his country. He highlights the urgent need to raise awareness about reducing plastic waste and adopting more sustainable lifestyles. Modou’s campaign of wearing a dress made from collected plastic bags highlights the devastating impact of discarded plastic waste and the importance of environmental health for the wellbeing of all, which he shared at the first regional wellbeing summit in Thiès.
Watch the interview below.
EXPLORE THE REGIONAL SUMMITS FURTHEREXPLORE THE REGIONAL SUMMITS FURTHER
Dive Into Stories From Around the World
Discover the Wellbeing Movement in AfricaDiscover the Wellbeing Movement in Africa
Meet and hear stories from the changemakers championing the wellbeing movement in Africa.
Connect with Dr. Corinna on social media:
Connect with the Draifflessen Collection on social media:
Dr. Corinna Otto
Museum Director and Curator, Draiflessen Collection
Corinna sees her work not just as a job, but a vocation. For over 25 years, she has worked at the head of various exhibition centres and initiatives and as a consultant for art collectors. Her focus and expertise lie in contemporary art. After studying adult education, art history and philosophy she completed her doctorate on the communicability of contemporary art. As museum director and curator for Draiflessen Collection, Corinna is highly interested in tension fields between tradition and future, faith and doubt, boundaries and freedom, reality, and fiction. With her work it is always her aim to ask questions and to raise awareness of differing viewpoints and her conviction is that in the process, works of art can take on the function of mediation or translation, encouraging people to think and to discover new ways of seeing, promoting and supporting a critical look at themselves, the world around them, and society. As part of a single world that – whether we realise it or not – is closely interconnected, rooted and branched, she wants her work to draw attention to the fact that we are not just looking at an ecological system from the outside, but that we are a living and creative part of it.
Tiu de Haan
Ritual Designer & Founder, The Possibility of Wonder
Tiu de Haan is an Oxford educated ritual designer, creative facilitator, inspirational speaker and “idea doula”, who curates and creates experiences designed to shift your perspective to see the wonder in the world, helping people to birth their creative ideas and design their own unique path filled with moments of meaning.
As a ritual designer, she creates bespoke ceremonies for times of transition for individuals, communities and organizational change. Tiu has created all sorts of rituals that honour the thresholds in our lives, be that a rite of passage for an organization at a point of transition, an individual stepping across a threshold in life or work, or any number of other transformations that call for a moment of meaning.
She also teaches ritual design and has been a visiting lecturer at UAL and Bristol University, as well as being on the faculty for the Odyssey Works Experience Design Certification Program and a Professor at the College of Extraordinary Experiences.
Tiu has worked with global organisations including Google, the World Economic Forum, L’Oreal and the UN and consults for global brands on rituals for beauty, food and wellbeing, as well as working with pioneers in the death industry to reimagine funerals with more heart and human-centred experience design. She also collaborates with world-leading neuroscientists, quantum physicists and chemists to create experiences that shift our perspective to see the magic in the mundane, both in person and in VR.
She has been a keynote speaker at Google, Sunday Assembly, and the UN International Day of Happiness and her TEDx talk ‘Why we still need ritual’ is about the art of celebrating the transitions of life, love and death and has had over 29k views.
Tiu lives on a beautiful houseboat in London and is exploring the creation of a “monastery for artists and experience designers” somewhere in Europe, where moments of meaning are made as magical artworks and experiences are both created and gifted, as acts of collaborative creativity and sacred, soulful generosity.
Connect with Tiu on social media :
Connect with The Possibility of Wonder on social media :
IN TIU'S WORDSIN TIU'S WORDS
How do you think individual, collective, and planetary wellbeing are connected?
When we are able to feel our innate connection to ourselves, to others and to the planet, we tap into our true nature, our interconnectedness. It is where science and sacredness meet, where the evidence stacks up to support the concept of our “interbeing” as Thich Nhat Hanh put it. To live within an awareness of this means we might perceive ourselves not as fragmented, isolated or wounded individuals, but rather as a part of an infinitely complex whole. If we were to live with this as our guiding principle, the very idea of it might allow both our thoughts and our actions to be infused with a new depth of compassion and care, transforming how we treat our bodies, minds and our fellow humans and non humans and also to care for the wider world that surrounds and supports us as a part of ourselves. Conversely, to live in disconnection is to deny our bounty, our beauty and our community with all things, human and beyond human.
Also – we are united by so much more than that which divides us. The work I do within the realm of creating non religious ritual engages with the universal experiences we all share – birth, death, love, grief, home, food, family, reflection, seasonal changes, work, rest, rites of passage from one life stage to another… Regardless of our beliefs, the list goes on and on, for ritual denotes meaningful moments of transitions of all kind, whether they pertain to our identity, our location, our race, our challenges, our losses and our joys.
Our lived experiences are so often demarcated by the same thresholds and so to find kinship and connection amid all our many differences allows us to accompany each other through the same transitions we all face, offering a way to feel less alone along the path we all walk through birth, life and death.
What do you hope the outcomes are from the global Hearth Summit?
Enhanced appreciation for art in nature as the tie that binds us, heals us, generates our curiosity, and creates those awe-filled moments that teach us to feel in our bodies.
WHAT TIU IS READING, LISTENING TO, AND WATCHING
TEDxHeythrop College Talk: “Why We Still Need Ritual with Tiu de Haan”
Lalita Suzuki
Special Projects Manager, The Omidyar Group
Lalita Suzuki serves as Special Projects Manager at The Omidyar Group. She supports their philanthropic programs through grant administration, research, and project management. Prior to this position, Lalita worked at Hopelab, also part of The Omidyar Group, where she managed user-centered research in the development of innovative products designed to improve the health and wellbeing of adolescents and young adults.
Lalita holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Psychology from UCLA with an emphasis in Child Development.
Connect with the Omidyar Group on social media:
IN LALITA’S WORDSIN LALITA’S WORDS
How do you think individual, collective, and planetary wellbeing are connected?
When the planet is well, it provides gifts of clean air and water, nourishment, and inspiration so the collective can flourish. When the collective is well, it provides physical, emotional, and spiritual support so individuals can thrive. When individuals are well, they can continue to put energy into improving the wellbeing of themselves, the collective, and the planet as a whole. Wellbeing builds upon wellbeing, and flows up and down this chain. We all play a part in this process.
What do you hope the outcomes are from the global Hearth Summit?
The sparking of creativity, curiosity, compassion, and connection.
ArtistsArtists
The most engaging artists from around the world will take the stage to guide our reflections and discussions around the Hearth, through talks, panel discussions, conversations, workshops, embodied practices and artistic experiences. These incredible voices will co-create a holistic and multi-faceted view of wellbeing and social change with their diverse perspectives from different backgrounds, cultures and traditions.
To ensure a diverse and representative arts experience, we’ve drawn on the expertise of renowned leaders in the field. Meet our Arts & Experience Advisory Board here.
