Facilitators and Peacemakers

Maija West (she/her)
Peacemaker, Advisor

  • Maija is an advisor, peacemaker and former attorney. As a person of both Latvian and German heritage, raised in Maidu territory where the Sierras meet the Cascades, her vocation is to offer support for healing and reconciliation so that we can be in right relations with our own lineage, with each other, and with mother earth.

    Maija carries a degree in Community Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, a law degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law, a collection of certifications in advanced mediation specific to families and diverse communities, and has been privileged to have had the support of a deep circle of advisors and healers through her process of learning. Maija's former profession as a lawyer for both rich and poor gave her a unique and privileged view of humanity that is central to her commitment to compassionate action.

    Combined with time spent living and working at the edges of Indigenous communities, and with Indigenous leaders who have largely informed and reinforced her world view, she now offer support to individuals and organizations who have also chosen to walk this path. Choosing it has given her the great honor to work with incredible individuals and organizations over the years, beyond her greatest imagination.

Annabelle Berrios (she/her)
Peacemaker, Facilitator

  • Annabelle is a social impact consultant, peacemaker and former attorney.   She has ancestral roots in Borikén, the Taíno name for Puerto Rico, where she was born and raised. She is a person of Taino, African and Spanish heritage who currently resides in the ancestral lands of the Ohlone, now known as Berkeley, California.  

    Annabelle has a law degree from Boston College Law School.  She also has a Master of Arts in East West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she focused her studies in Terrapsychology and Holistic Education. She is the author of “Alternative Mapping: Tracking Solidarity with Sacred Land” in Terrapsychology: Further Inquiry into Self, Place and Planet, Craig Chalquist, Garret Barnwell (Ed.), (Routledge 2023) and “Traveling Landscapes” in Vento e Agua online magazine, 2022.

Adrian Bello (she/her)
Facilitator Team

  • As a person of Seneca, Irish, Scottish and Polish descent who was raised on Ohlone lands of the East Bay Area, Adrian has always lived between worlds. Between East and West, urban and rural, native and settler. Moving between these various spheres has been both a challenging and gifted walk that has opened her to the path of community weaving, bridge building, facilitation and peacemaking. 

    Adrian graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Anthropology and minor in Native American Studies. From her multidisciplinary art practices, she organically grew into grassroots organizing that focused on protecting cultural art spaces within the Bay Area while cultivating autonomy in local creative communities. 

    After frustrations with gentrification, housing and food insecurity, Adrian shifted her focus to food sovereignty. She co-founded The Kindness Grocery Cooperative in 2020 which quickly transformed into a journey of exploring land stewardship and decentralized economic and governance systems. Since then, Adrian has held various roles in land based community projects as a community gatherer, bridge builder, facilitator and farmer. She has witnessed both the power and the difficulty of what it means to weave our human communities back together. Especially in multicultural spaces, she has naturally fallen into mediating and peacekeeping roles. 

    Today, Adrian feels the core of her work is to support ancestral healing and community weaving so that we may remember ourselves and our responsibilities as human beings. She knows that personal and community healing is essential to embodying a reality where we may live in true sovereignty and harmony with the land and all of natural existence. Adrian is deeply honored and excited to be collaborating with HRI to continue expanding beside like minded community in this meaningful work. 

Cynthia Valdez (she/her)
Facilitator Team

  • Hello!  Dagotee!  My name is Cynthia Valdez and I go by the pronouns she/her.  From my maternal side I am Mescalero Apache from western Texas/New Mexico border.  From my paternal side I am Chicana and come from a first generation Mexican American father.  I was raised in Southern California in Gabrieleno/Tongva territory, currently known as Los Angeles, California.  At 18 I moved to Tule River Indian Reservation in Central California and came back to the city at 21 years old.

    I am a dancer, artist, mom and business woman within my Native community.  For the past 6 years I have worked for an all female, Native-owned company that focuses on spreading awareness on MMIW and gang violence within urban and rural Native communities through traditional and urban art.  I believe in community, healing, the red road and healthy relationships.  I advocate for reconnecting and healing through culture.  I believe in creating equal opportunities for Native women, men, elders and children, who are often underrepresented in both urban and rural areas throughout California, the United states and Canada.
    I am very excited and honored to participate in the Healing and Reconciliation Institute's Learning Journey and Facilitator Training.  It has truly inspired me to focus on peacemaking intergenerationally and interculturally.

Klarity Coleman (she/they)
Facilitator Team

  • Klarity Coleman has Finnish and German heritage, grew up in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula in California. Klarity uses she/they pronouns. She resides on the ancestral lands of the Esselen, Rumsen, and Ohlone Indigenous Nations. She was previously known as Kaye in her peacemaking work and is transitioning to her more authentic self as Klarity.

    Her peacemaking journey began when she witnessed the twin towers collapse on 9/11/2001 and attended her first peace protest in New York City on 9/16/2001. She worked as a mental health worker in the Brooklyn Women’s Shelter serving women diagnosed with mental illness and chemical addiction. She began her restorative justice activism in January 2016 when she first met and began speaking with Activist and Descendent Gerry Low-Sabado about how to change the Feast of Lanterns (FOL) in Pacific Grove, California. In October 2021, Klarity publicly apologized for her personal racism in participating in the FOL and called the City of PG to action. She began formal training with the Healing and Reconciliation Institute in January of 2020. She worked alongside the Coalition for Asian Justice to address the Board of Directors for the FOL and the City of Pacific Grove to take a hard look at the event. This resulted in the FOL being dissolved and a formal public apology issued to the AAPI community at the Walk of Remembrance on May 14, 2022.

    Klarity is a freelance facilitator with HRI. In her professional life she has a private practice, is a clinical hypnotherapist, a facilitator of classes and retreats.

Sandhya Atkinson (she/her)
Facilitator Team

  • Sandhya Atkinson (she/her) is a white-bodied, cisgender female facilitator descended from Celtic and other European ancestry. Originally from the waters and lands of the Chumash people in what is now called Santa Barbara, CA, Sandhya now occupies the traditional homelands of the Nuuchiu (Ute), Diné, Jicarilla Apache and Pueblos peoples in Southwest Colorado. She is fascinated by our human relationship and connection to the natural world and more-than-human beings.

    As the Founder and Lead Facilitator of Sagebrush Ltd., Sandhya facilitates community circle processes, organizational strategic planning, retreats, and training, and community coalition work with diverse groups in Southwest Colorado and beyond. Her intention is to hold space for all voices to be heard so that powerful collective decisions and actions can be taken for more equitable and interconnected communities, living right-relationship with the earth. Sandhya is a member of the International Association of Facilitators, and has completed a Mastery of ToP (Technology of Participation) facilitation methods.

    Participating in the Healing & Reconciliation Institute’s Learning Journey and Facilitator Trainings have inspired her to more deeply commit to peacemaking, both interculturally and intergenerationally.