By participating in a wellbeing journey, I’ve become more patient and empathetic when interacting with others, allowing me to form stronger connections and communicate more effectively.”
Resilience for Changemakers
A transformative and nature-inspired 6-week journey for changemakers, focusing on nurturing resilience and sustainability – of self, teams, and communities.
Course dates:
March 6th – April 10th, 2025
Applications are open until February 7th.
This edition of the course is open to participants from Europe. You can sign up for an information session on January 15th.
About the learning journey
Changemakers work in challenging environments that demand mental, emotional, and physical resilience. Their impactful work—spanning social justice, environmental advocacy, and policy reform—can lead to burnout, stress, and isolation.
This six-module online program is a transformative journey designed to help changemakers deepen their awareness and strengthen their connection to their work and the world around them. Grounded in the Inner Development Goals framework, it weaves together personal resilience practices and nature-inspired reflections to explore the dimensions of Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating, and Acting. Participants will reflect on how their inner states, relationships, and systems influence resilience, uncovering insights and strategies to navigate challenges and enhance their leadership and impact.
Recognizing the pressures changemakers face, the program creates space for personal growth and renewal, equipping participants to act as champions of resilience and sustainability within their organizations and ecosystems.
This program is offered and facilitated by the Inner Green Deal team, members of Ashoka Europe’s Community, and hosted by Ashoka Europe One Community.
Learning objectives:
- Cultivate the adaptability to navigate the shifting challenges and pressures of changemaking with greater ease and presence.
- Experience different tools, perspectives, and practices that can cultivate inner skills for impactful and sustainable action.
- Explore the role of nature, relationships, and systems in navigating eco-anxiety, grief, and changemaking challenges.
- Develop specific transformative inner capacities to support you in changemaking.
Through this learning journey, you will:
- Gain concrete tools
- Receive guidance from experienced facilitators
- Hear the stories of experienced leaders within our community
- Reflect on leadership qualities
- Connect to a community of changemakers through authentic and reflective spaces and engage in peer learning with other changemakers in the Ashoka Europe community.
Who this is for
This experience is designed for Ashoka Community members with motivation and commitment to build or strengthen resilience in themselves and their team or community. Especially in the face of stress, crises, and/or high pressure, as we collectively work towards a positive impact for the good of all.
This is for you if:
- You are part of a team of activists who want to learn how to cultivate inner resilience to navigate an ever-changing policy system,
- You are part of a team that wants to integrate nature into your wellbeing/resilience practices,
- Your work is about the planet, but you haven’t given yourself time to integrate nature-inspired practices into your wellbeing,
- You host communities and community spaces for marginalized/underrepresented groups and want to build resilience for long-term support,
- You are part of a team of caregivers and want to develop inner resilience skills to strengthen your practice and wellbeing,
- You are an educator and want to learn more about how to support yourself and others to develop inner resilience skills.
This includes:
- Ashoka Fellows and members of their team
- Ashoka Young Changemakers
- Ashoka Support Network members (ASN)
- Ashoka staff
- Ashoka Partners
- Ecosystem of support for young changemakers
- Policy-makers
- Public opinion influencers
Applications are open until February 7th.
This edition of the course is open to participants from Europe. You can sign up for an information session on January 15th.
Practical information
Format:
- 6 weekly online sessions of 120 minutes (including nature walks, guest speakers, and peer exchange)
- Access to an online social learning platform for additional resources and exchange with peer participants on deeper questions.
- Access to an app with guided contemplative practices, including meditation, compassion practices, and specific nature walks.
- Opportunities to foster peer support and community building
Dates:
March 6th – April 10th, 2025
Commitment:
- We encourage commitment to 6 sessions, as each builds on the previous, creating a transformative journey. At a minimum, 4 sessions need to be attended as a prerequisite for the sponsorship.
- Allocate 1-3 hours per week for self-study, practices, and peer engagement to fully immerse yourself in the experience.
There are only 30 sponsored places for this learning journey and although we want to offer this experience to as many people as possible, we will select applicants based on the following criteria:
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (e.g.: geographical spread, diversity of identities),
- Interest and/or capacity to integrate the learnings in their programs, organizations and/or communities.
- Ability to commit to at least 4 of the 6 sessions (a prerequisite for this sponsored program)
Modules
Intro Module: Establishing a foundation for the program
Thursday, March 6, 2025, 9-11 CET (one hour earlier than all other weeks)
Module 1: Understanding the role of emotions and practicing emotional regulation to stay resilient in high-pressure environments
Thursday, March 13, 10-12 CET
Module 2: Understanding how change can be blocked and unblocked by the way we think
Thursday, March 20, 10-12 CET
Module 3: Developing a deeper sense of interconnectedness and becoming more skillful in dealing with difficulty
Thursday, March 27, 10-12 CET
Module 4: Collaborating to integrate resilience and inner development into your organization
Thursday, April 3, 10-12 CET
Module 5: Using storytelling to inspire change, acting as champions for inner development in your ecosystem
Thursday, April 10, 10-12 CET
I have gone back to practicing meditation again, after several years, and I am a bit calmer even when the work situation gets crazy. I realize I haven't lost my temper recently even when the triggers remain the same in my work environment. And I am a bit more hopeful about elevating our work."
Course Team
Katharina Buchgeister
Course Facilitator
Katharina is deeply committed to empowering individuals, teams, and organizations to maximize their impact on creating a flourishing future for all. With 20 years of international business experience, including 12 years in leadership roles, and a decade in systemic coaching and facilitation, she blends neuroscience, contemplative practices, embodiment, and systems thinking into her work. Whenever possible, she incorporates our natural environment to deepen reconnection and creativity. Katharina develops and facilitates Inner Green Deal programs, collaborating with leading organizations and changemakers in politics and business, to drive holistic, regenerative transformation.
Molly Stevenson
Course Facilitator
With two decades of experience in the not-for-profit sector leading projects and building cohesive teams, Molly now works as a trained coach and facilitator focused on transformation and lasting change. Her practice integrates therapeutic and coaching modalities—including Transformative Coaching, Team Coaching, Climate Change Coaching, Group Analysis, and Gestalt Therapy—with an emphasis on nature-based connection. As a coach and facilitator for the Inner Green Deal, she is dedicated to helping people engage in meaningful transformation that contributes to a healthier, more sustainable world for everyone.
Martyna Markiewicz
Course Lead
Martyna Markiewicz has been professionally supporting networks, organizations, groups, and individual changemakers for almost 20 years.
She mainly focuses on the areas of gender equity and diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI), and wellbeing in social change. Trainer, joker of the Theater of the Oppressed, and Design Thinking moderator.
Member of the Board and Head of Partnerships at Ashoka Poland, DEI Lead for One Community Europe, and member of Ashoka’s DEI Global Extended Team.
Ovidiu Condurache
Course Lead
Ovidiu is the Operations Manager for Global Venture at Ashoka and the Learning and Community Building Lead of the Ashoka One Community. Ovidiu has been part of Ashoka for more than five years. Previously, he organized events for the Ashoka Community in Romania (both online and in person), championed candidates for the Ashoka Fellowship, coordinated an Ashoka Central and Eastern Europe program on energy poverty and other local capacity-building processes, supported the Ashoka Europe DEI efforts and organized LGBTQIA+ events Ashoka-wide.
He has a background in Economics, graduating Faculty of Finance and Banking. However, driven by an authentic need for alternative learning he was part of the Economics Students Association in Romania and studied and worked for The Alternative University and Restart in Education Community. Ovidiu is passionate about dancing, sports for social good and DEI.
Explore Other Wellbeing Opportunities
1. WEEKLY SOCIAL INNOVATION MEDITATION
A free weekly offering led by Ashoka Fellow Bart Weetjens and open to any member of the Ashoka network worldwide interested in practicing meditation. All levels are welcome.
Dates & times:
Every Tuesday 9:00 - 9:30 am ET | 3:00 – 3:30 pm CET.
Format:
20min of practice plus 10min of Q&A
Register here!
2. COACHING (PRO BONO OR LOW BONO)
Coaching and mentoring can help you learn about yourself and the way you lead. It can give you tools and resources to amplify your strengths and gifts and to illuminate blind spots that may be holding you back from being the leader you want to be.
- Recommend a coach or mentor for Ashoka or offer your services as a professional coach or mentor through this form.
- Interested in receiving coaching or mentoring for you or your team? Reach out to Ashoka's Community integrator, Ada Andreoni.
Support our work
This program is sponsored by The Robert Ho Foundation through Inner Green Deal. It would be valued at 490 EUR per participant and is offered free of cost to changemakers within the Ashoka Community. To help us develop new content and make sure it is accessible to more changemakers please donate to Ashoka today! Any contribution is deeply appreciated.
