March-May 2022: “Integral Transformative Justice and Collective Trauma” Ph-D. level

A PhD-level course entitled “Collective Trauma and Integral Transformative Justice” was delivered at Meridian University by Home for Humanity Co-Founders Rama Mani and Alexander Schieffer between March and May 2022.

The course embarked the highly engaged students on a transcultural journey across our home planet and into the inner home of our humanity, through the framework, practice, and process of integral transformative justice, in all its interconnected dimensions: systemic, socio-economic, cultural, ecological, epistemic, human and spiritual. The course drew extensively on real-life transformative testimonies from trauma to transformation, and integral case stories from around the world, and featured many of our exemplary Homes for Humanity and Pioneering Pathways contributors.

The course actively encouraged students to tap the potential within each human and in each of our diverse cultures to transform injustice and to step forward, as humanity in unity, to transform our unequal and unjust world into a just, inclusive, regenerative, and joyful Earth Civilization for all life.

As students actively applied the course material to their lives, contexts, and professional practice, a rich tapestry of transformation emerged week after week. It culminated in a participatory “Earth Agora” in the final session, where students presented their own creative personal testimonies for enacting transformative justice.

Vanessa Nguyen’s testimony from the course, presented below, showcases the transformative impact this course had on all participants.

Testimony by Vanessa Nguyen:

Alexander and Rama's course, Collective Trauma and Transformative Justice was one of my favorite courses this year. Alexander and Rama were both able to create such a safe and powerful space for us students to explore and develop an integral perspective towards healing trauma within crisis-affected communities. I was able to learn and discover how trauma and crises around the world are rooted in the interconnected dimensions of systemic, socio-economic, cultural, ecological, epistemic, human, and spiritual realms. I became so inspired by the teachings and work of both Rama, Alexander, and by Home for Humanity that I decided to join the Humanity team to support Home for Humanity's mission! It has been such an incredible and powerful journey learning from them, and the knowledge gained from the course and their teachings has encouraged me to show up for my communities and loved ones by contributing to building an inclusive Earth family. This special and unique course has the potential to change anyone's worldview and can teach us all so much about humanity, connection, and compassion."

Vanessa Nguyen, USA