A Deep Dive Into Hearth Summit Nairobi 2024A Deep Dive Into Hearth Summit Nairobi 2024
Stories from the Hearth
Reflections From:
The Axum Team
Organizers of Hearth Summit Nairobi 2024
🌍 Nairobi, Kenya
Quick Reads
- Axum hosted the first regional Hearth Summit in East Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, in July 2024.
- The Summit’s four main pillars — restorative justice, intergenerational wellbeing, ecological belonging, and faith and wellbeing — guided insightful discussions on integral aspects of societal wellbeing.
- The Summit embraced an embodied and uniquely Kenyan approach to wellbeing with diverse arts experiences, wellbeing practices, and celebrations of Kenyan culture throughout the event.
- The main takeaways from the Summit centered around the need for driving systemic change using homegrown solutions: for Africa, by Africa!
The Axum and The Wellbeing Project teams gather after a successful first Hearth Summit in Nairobi.
In July, we partnered with The Wellbeing Project to host Hearth Summit Nairobi, the first regional Hearth Summit in East Africa.
The two-day Summit hosted over 300 changemakers from diverse cultures, backgrounds, and fields to explore the intersection of wellbeing and social change. The Summit was thoughtfully crafted to ignite engaging discussions and interactive experiences centered on pillars crucial to our societal wellbeing: restorative justice, intergenerational trauma, ecological belonging, and faith and wellbeing. Within these pillars, participants explored themes that included movements of change and community organizing, wellbeing in the workplace, wellbeing and parenting, sports and wellbeing, among others.
Beyond the breakout sessions, the Summit also offered immersive and interactive art experiences designed to allow participants to explore the concept of wellbeing. These experiences included dance, flower arrangements, and biokinesthetics. Additionally, participants engaged with immersive art such as spoken word and stage readings, musical performances, dances, paintings, tapestries, and a live caricature setup.
For its look and feel, the Summit embraced an Afrocentric aesthetic to cultivate a strong local community atmosphere within our environment. This included using furniture adorned with traditional Kenyan cloth prints and vibrant, patterned banner graphics. The team aimed to create a Summit experience that felt as anti-conference as possible. We wanted our guests to step outside the typical hotel conference room setting, immerse themselves in nature, and participate in physical activities.
Catch a glimpse of the Summit here in this short video:
The four panel sessions touched on the following The four panel sessions touched on the following
Restorative Justice
This panel was co-chaired by Edwin Macharia, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Axum, and Chief Justice Martha Koome, a prominent legal authority with over 30 years of experience in criminal, land, and welfare issues in Kenya. The panel explored justice as a shared responsibility and lived experience, requiring empowered individuals, accessible courts, and support for the marginalized. Critical issues discussed included addressing the overrepresentation of people with disabilities in prisons, reducing stigma, and decolonizing the justice system to promote restorative justice.
Her Ladyship Chief Justice Martha Koome speaks at Hearth Summit Nairobi with Waizeh Solonka, AJAR Trust, and Felicia Mburu, Article 48.
Ecological Belonging
The panel was chaired by Wanjira Mathai, MD, Africa & Global Partnerships at the World Resource Institute (in absentia), who unfortunately could not attend the summit. Our very own Fridah Kiboori moderated it, and it explored the deep connection that individuals and communities have with their natural and built environments. The session explored the profound interdependence between humans and nature, recognizing that our wellness and identity are deeply rooted in the health of our ecosystems and spaces.
Faith and Wellbeing
This panel was moderated by Archbishop Anthony Muheria of the Archdiocese of Nyeri, one of the co-chairs. The session explored faith as a lifelong journey of questioning our formal or informal beliefs and recognizing that our collective consciousness and actions unite us. Within formal religion, the panel discussed the common challenge of reconciling it with the perception of religion as oppressive.
Archbishop Anthony Muheria of the Archdiocese of Nyeri speaks at Hearth Summit Nairobi.
Intergenerational Wellbeing
Chaired and moderated by Edwin Macharia, this panel explored how individuals, families, and communities are interconnected and shape our collective ecosystem. The session explored how traditional methods can address community trauma and bridge generational gaps by preserving cultural knowledge and fostering overall wellbeing.
Sam Mugacha, Imaginable Futures, speaks on the intergerational wellbeing panel with Julie Gichuru, Mastercard Foundation, and peace practitioner Tecla Namachanja.
These were our key takeaways based on overarching themes from the Summit:
The significance of decolonizing our political, religious, and social structures to dismantle narratives of inequality and create systems that support collective wellbeing.
The power of intentionally and collectively identifying traumas and unlearning unhealthy habits, especially from an intergenerational perspective.
The need to remove economic, social, and infrastructural barriers to wellbeing initiatives and ensure accessible and inclusive resources for all.
For Africa by Africa. Homegrown solutions work, and we have what it takes to solve Africa’s challenges.
We left the Summit feeling reinvigorated by the insightful conversations and the deep spirit of community. We’re excited to continue the dialogue around the wellbeing movement in Kenya and look forward to championing a pan-African effort to bring the movement to the rest of the continent!
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.
Cycles of Trauma and the Journey to Wellbeing
A Framework for Trauma-Informed Practices and Positive Social Change
In 2023, the Think Tank released the executive summary of “Cycles of Trauma and the Journey to Wellbeing: A Framework for Trauma-Informed Practices and Positive Social Change”
Written by the Think Tank’s multidisciplinary, cross-institutional Research and Design Team, guided by 12 leaders in academia and the social change sector, the framework offers a synthesised view of trauma, healing, and social change, and invites changemakers to reflect on how they can adopt a trauma-informed approach in their work.
Watch Webinar Series
Intergenerational Trauma & Systems Change
Intergenerational Trauma Explorations Across Our Network
Explore More
Empowering Kenyans Through Justice: Chief Justice Martha Koome on Wellbeing in Kenya Empowering Kenyans Through Justice: Chief Justice Martha Koome on Wellbeing in Kenya
Stories from the Hearth
Reflections from:
Her Ladyship Chief Justice Martha Koome
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Kenya
🌍 Nairobi, Kenya
Her Ladyship Martha K. Koome assumed office as Chief Justice and the President of the Supreme Court of Kenya on May 21, 2021.
Prior to her appointment as the 15th Chief Justice of the Republic of Kenya, she was a Senior Judge of the Court of Appeal. During her stint as an Appellate Judge, she headed the Criminal Division of the Court and in addition, chaired Committees which developed the Court of Appeal Practice Directions in Civil and Criminal Appeals as well as the Registry Manual that standardized the registry experience at the Court.
At Hearth Summit Nairobi, the Chief Justice was chair of the pillar on restorative justice, providing deep insights on the role of formal and informal justice in societal wellbeing. She also spoke about the need to support the wellbeing of actors in the judicial system, like judges.
Read her reflections below, originally published on her blog, and watch her exclusive interview with The Star Kenya.
“I have the immense honour to co-host the Hearth Summit Nairobi, 2024 alongside Archbishop Anthony Muheria, Archbishop of Nyeri, Kenya, Wanjira Mathai, Managing Director, Africa and Global Partnerships, World Resources Institute and Edwin Macharia, Partner, Axum Kenya; The Wellbeing Project’s Advisory Board.
The Hearth Summit, hosted by local communities of changemakers, advances a hopeful vision of individual, collective and ecological wellbeing for all – catalyzing a culture of wellbeing for changemakers and in changemaking everywhere.
At this critical moment in our country and planet, wellbeing in all aspects remains core to our survival. At the Judiciary, we are focused on nurturing restorative justice which will heal the justice system by reshaping it through the lens of our innate, empowering age-old reconciliatory systems.
We are deliberately deploying green justice to ease remand and prison congestion and encouraging parliament to review our penal laws in alignment with the Constitution and post-independence state.
By investing in alternative justice systems, we acknowledge that justice is not only found in the formal court system but in homes, communities, places of worship and markets hence the need to have multiple ways of resolving disputes.
We will continue to nurture cohesion through justice and to find uplifting homegrown ways to ensure that the justice system holds safe and sacred the fabric of our society. As we protect the wellbeing of our nation, we also seek your support to nurture and protect the wellbeing of our exceptional judges, judicial officers and staff.
It is not the structure of the systems we build that guard our humanity, it is the humanness of those systems that make our lives dignified and worthy.”
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.
Wellbeing Wisdom From India: An Interview with Dr. Mala Kapadia on Intergenerational Trauma and Ecological Belonging Wellbeing Wisdom From India: An Interview with Dr. Mala Kapadia on Intergenerational Trauma and Ecological Belonging
A CONVERSATION WITH:
Dr. Mala Kapadia
Director, Anaadi Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Anaadi Foundation
🌍 Tamil Nadu, India
What can traditional Indian Knowledge Systems teach the world about wellbeing?
Dr. Mala Kapadia, director of the Anaadi Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems at the Anaadi Foundation, shares knowledge and practices from the Indian sciences of Ayurveda, Yoga, Aesthetics, and Poetry, around Ecological Belonging and intergenerational trauma.
Watch the full video for her teachings, or read the highlights below.
“In India, I realized that the ideal could be that India becomes the voice for humanity — where you see the vibrancy of people practicing Ayurveda, practicing Yoga, living their civilizational, cultural values, which is slowly happening post-pandemic. It is slowly happening.”
WHAT ARE THE SCIENCES OF AYURVEDA AND YOGA AND HOW DO THEY RELATE TO WELLBEING?
Ayurveda, as they describe it, is a manual of life skills. It’s not just a medicinal system. It’s Veda- knowledge of ayu. Ayu is life. Ayurveda actually describes Life, and the beauty of Ayurveda is that it is for everyone. It’s not only for Indian people. It’s not for the people from a certain region, but the Sages talked about humanity at large. They say that our life has purpose and meaningfulness and to achieve that, there are paths, right?
The path begins with dharma, a Sanskrit word coming from the etymology Dharayati Iti Dharma. Meaning, anything that sustains you, holds you together, is dharma. I feel it’s a beautiful way to look at our life. It’s only psychology that has taken more than 200 years to reach positive psychology where Martin Seligman and others are talking about meaningfulness. And here there are sages many, many millennia ago who wrote about how life has to be meaningful for us to be healthy and happy. They describe life as Hita, beneficial to self and others, because they always saw life as a continuum: we and the Cosmos, we and everyone else, are interconnected. And only when we are leading a life which is interconnected and integral, can we be happy. And happiness is, not the pursuit of happiness that we understand today in a modern language, but it’s all about the State of Being. With the wellbeing crises that we see today, I realize that Ayurveda beautifully connects the wellbeing of the planet and wellbeing of an individual.
With the wellbeing crises that we see today, I realize that Ayurveda beautifully connects the wellbeing of the planet and wellbeing of an individual.
WHAT DO AYURVEDA, YOGA AND OTHER INDIAN SCIENCES TELL US ABOUT NEUROSCIENCE, EMOTIONS, AND HEALING?
What Yoga, Ayurveda, and the science of Aesthetics are talking about is being rediscovered and not just rediscovered, it’s being validated scientifically by some modern theorists. Today a lot of scientists talk of neurotransmitters, et cetera, but they look at only the brain. If you revisit our biology or anatomy from a Yogic perspective, our physical body that can be seen and studied or x-rayed is one reality, but we are also energy sheets.
So we are still stuck learning biology and anatomy from a Newtonian or Cartesian perspective dividing body and mind. But what is mind? People are still struggling to understand it. While in Ayurveda and Yoga, the body-mind continuum is very beautifully described. We have seven chakras, the major chakras, and many minor chakras. And I’m glad today chakra, like mantra and dharma, is a word in Western vocabulary as well. These are what Georgetown University neuroscientist Candace Pert talks about nodal points of neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitters on those nodal points of the chakras are either blocked or they are open. So when they are blocked, naturally the energy flow is restricted and therefore the energy or Prana does not reach those organs which are connected with those nodal points. She was one of the, I think, first Western scientists to say that body and mind is a continuum.
HOW CAN THIS KNOWLEDGE HELP US WITH HEALING FROM TRAUMA?
So when I go back to Yoga and Ayurveda as ancient sciences as I said, “If we all are integrated, we all are connected, then my energy and the world’s energy is somewhere merging together, right?” Energy, we all know, cannot be created or destroyed. It needs to be transformed. So when we look at trauma, trauma is an energy block as I see it personally. If it’s a blocked energy, then which chakra is it impacting? Is it impacting your security? Is it impacting your relationships? Is it about your power or victimhood? Is it about your heart experiencing gratitude or is it about your heart experiencing a closed xenophobic existence where you switch on to a survivalistic mode? This is what scientifically people talk about trauma and the response to trauma as fight, flight, or freeze. But that fight, flight, freeze is not just limited to the brain. It travels all over the body. So, if my mind is in every cell of my body, then my trauma response is also coming from every cell in my body. It’s not only a cognitive skill.
This is where Yoga and Ayurveda come into play because they have a lot of practices which can help you dissolve these traumatic emotional imprints without wanting to bring them up to the brain, which is not able to cope.
And they can be dissolved with a lot of Ayurvedic treatments, Ayurvedic lifestyle guidance meditations and Yogic lifestyle. And when I say Yoga, it’s not just exercise or breathing exercises or physical postures. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, one of the oldest texts of Yoga talks of Yama and Niyama, which are the behavioural codes at the individual level and collective level. So unless we practice them, doing breathing exercises and doing postures will not give us results.
DO INDIAN SCIENCES TELL US HOW INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA AND ECOLOGICAL BELONGING ARE CONNECTED?
In all ancient indigenous cultures, I found one thing common is, apart from being connected with nature, they’re also connected with their ancestors. Our history, our ancestors, are living within us, not just genetically, but psychologically and spiritually. Ancestor healing is a major ritual in most of the indigenous cultures, including India. In India, we have birth charts. The moment you are born, depending on the time of the birth, a birth chart for every child is created. Most of the birth charts have a problem with ancestors. It’s called Pitru Dosha. Pitru are ancestors and Dosha is some problem. Now, obviously, we really don’t know what our ancestors were going through, right? Beyond a certain generation, we don’t even know our ancestors. And we don’t even know what their life was. We don’t even know what trauma they went through. But whatever their trauma, we have inherited it and the trauma of Mother Earth. That’s also an ancestral trauma. There are a lot of rituals connected with the five elements – the element of sky or ether or Akaash; the element of air or Vayu; Fire; Water; and Earth – because many ancient indigenous cultures believe that the entire universe and our body all are made up of these five elements.
WHAT IS AN EXAMPLE OF AN INDIAN PRACTICE ONE CAN DO TO WORK ON INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE HEALING?
One ritual we have is ending all the prayers with saying, “Shanti hi, Shanti hi, Shanti hi.” Shanti means peace. Why do all prayers end with saying peace three times? Just one time could have been enough. The three “peace” is invoking peace at three levels: one, individual, me and myself; two, collective, which is the community around me, society, Nature around me, my nation; and three, the global level and Universal level.
Today, when there are wars happening, when there is so much destruction happening, when there is so much human suffering, working on peace and giving it priority is very important. I realized that, unfortunately, most of the Western researchers define peace as an absence of war or conflict. Peace is not seen as a positive construct in itself, which is there in India. In Indian literature, in Indian philosophy, peace is a positive construct. Health is a positive construct. Health is not as opposed to disease and peace is not opposed to war or conflict. So, if peace is a construct in itself, how do you arrive at it? How do you actually start experiencing peace from within? And chanting mantras, chanting simple Om, is one way.
Why do all prayers end with saying peace three times? The three “peace” is invoking peace at three levels: one, individual; two, collective ; and three, the global level and universal level.
YOU’RE DESCRIBING HOW MODERN SCIENCES ARE “VALIDATING” TRADITIONAL SCIENCES. DOES THIS MEAN THEY ARE THE SAME?
We talk of ancient or indigenous wisdom at one level and modern at another. And a lot of people have this misconception that ancient is outdated and modern is more scientific, or modern is the complete know-how. Unfortunately – or fortunately – we realize that what is ancient is being rediscovered by many modern theorists. So we as humanity, we just have to take a U-turn and go back to our own cultural roots, civilizational roots. I realize that most of the indigenous cultures, they were connected and rooted in nNature. I’ve been to Hawai’i. I’ve met some of the Kahunas, the wisdom holders. And one of the Kahuna, I still remember, she held my hands and she said, “You are one of us.” I realized that she felt that and I felt that because of the Mother Earth. We could have lived in different lifetimes. We could have lived in different geographical locations, but ultimately, it’s all One.
I’ve been to Hawai’i. I’ve met some of the kahunas, the wisdom holders. And one of the Kahuna, I still remember, she held my hands and she said, “You are one of us.” I realized that she felt that and I felt that because of the Mother Earth.
IN FACING OUR 21ST CENTURY CHALLENGES, WHAT ROLE DO YOU THINK SPIRITUALITY AND THIS ANCIENT WISDOM CAN PLAY IN THE SOLUTIONS?
The industrial revolution has uprooted people from nature. Nature has become a resource to be used and exploited. People became a resource that needs to be used and exploited and we didn’t realize that we ourselves became this resource. This trauma needs to be addressed because today, corporates have to wake up to the spiritual aspect, which is not a philosophical aspect, it is a practical aspect. Most of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are far away from being met.
When we are spending so much money on sustainability goals, climate change, et cetera, what we don’t realize is, we just need to bring back that foundation of spirituality, Dharma, in everything we do. And the moment that foundation comes back, everything will fall into place. Right now, we have lost the bigger picture. We are all struggling with pieces of puzzles, trying to fit them here and there. But spirituality is like a bigger picture, and without looking at that bigger picture, we are not able to fit in those pieces of the puzzles.
About Mala
Dr. Mala Kapadia is a highly accomplished scholar and practitioner with a distinguished career spanning research, education, journalism, human resources, and consulting. She is a passionate advocate for integrating ancient Indian wisdom with modern approaches to wellbeing, leadership, and organizational development. Dr. Kapadia is currently the Director of Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems, at the Anaadi Foundation and the Principal Investigator for a Ministry of Education (India) Indian Knowledge Systems Research Project on Wellbeing and Happiness based on Ayurveda. Mala is also a Guru participating in Grateful to Gurus, an initiative by Indica Academy, in which she inspire young minds in ancient wisdom. She is also a member of the Advisory Council of Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems at Chanakya University, Bengaluru, India.
About the Anaadi Foundation
Anaadi Foundation is a spiritual organisation founded in 2015 and located near Palani in Tamil Nadu, India. With key focal areas on Education, Culture, Wellbeing and Sustainability, the Anaadi Foundation focuses on imparting Indian Knowledge Systems through various initiatives including Dharma Gurukulam, IKS-funded projects, publication of books, and training programs. The Anaadi Foundation provides various programs aimed at physical, emotional, and cognitive stability. These include the Mouna Sadhana program, which integrates asana, pranayama, dharana, dhyana, and Bhagavad Gita sessions. The foundation actively engages in sharing and preserving the depth of Indian culture, sciences, and values.
Want to know more about trauma and its impacts?
Watch the first virtual convening in our webinar series hosted by The Wellbeing Project and the Collective Change Lab. You can also visit our new hub for research and stories on intergenerational trauma. Together, we explore how we can move from trauma-informed to healing-centered ways of working for systemic change.
