Susan Andrews

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Biographical Information

Susan Andrews "graduated from Harvard University in Literature and Anthropology, with a Masters degree in Sociology from Ateneo de Manila University in Manila, Philippines, and a doctoral degree in Transpersonal Psychology from Greenwich University in the USA. She studied the Mayan Indian shamans in Mexico as an anthropologist with the Harvard Chiapas Project, and the psychic healers of the Philippines, before traveling to India and becoming an instructor of meditation in 1972. She received training in Ayurvedic diagnosis and healing at the Ayurvedic Center of Holy Family Hospital in New Delhi, and the International Institute of Ayurveda in Poona, India.

"She has lectured and held seminars in 42 countries, and during her extensive travels she learned 10 languages including Bengali, Mandarin Chinese, and Sanskrit. The author of 12 books and educational manuals, several of which have been translated in 15 languages, she writes on themes ranging from education and psychology, health and yoga, to nutrition and ecology. Susan has been living in Brazil since the UNCED conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, when she founded (and is presently coordinating) the Future Vision Ecological Park in Tatuí in the state of São Paulo, a 250-acre environmental center developed with the help of SIDA, the Swedish International Development Agency. The Ecological Park is an “ecovillage” or rural development center based on a new humanistic vision of maximum utilization of human and natural resources, cooperation and harmony with nature. With its organic garden, bakery and medicinal plant laboratory, the Park is practically self-sufficient in food, cosmetics and basic medicines, and its various projects provide full employment for forty families in the area. The Eco-Park, with its social, educational and ecological installations, lakes to capture rainwater, biological filtration systems and root-zone waste water treatment, composting and wind and solar energy, has attracted national and international media attention, and received various awards as a model environmental and “minimum entropy” project. It is also a self-development center which hosts weekend workshops for children, youth and adults on inner and outer ecology, biopsychology, spirituality, and Ayurveda. Its goal is to be a reference for physical health, economic self-sufficiency, artistic creativity, mental expansion and spiritual peace — a vision of the future.

"During the past five years, Susan has developed “Programa Transforma” (Transformational Program), a three-day program for personal and organizational change, designed to overcome barriers to communication and cooperation and stimulate a climate of synergy between individuals, and within the larger community. She has trained over one hundred facilitators of this project, who are conducting this program throughout Brazil, many on a volunteer basis, to youth, teachers, executives, police, public servants, health workers, and anyone who seeks to become the agent for their own self-transformation.

"Susan is the coordinator of the Gross National Happiness movement in Brazil and has developed a GNH Process for the business community to promote well-being and participatory leadership in businesses throughout Brazil. "

Affiliations

• Member, Global Leadership Network