Crafting Conscious Food Systems, with Sonita Mbah
Release Date: 09/02/2025
The Beautiful Wound, with Teddy Frank
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Kosha Joubert Produced by J’aime Rothbard. When Teddy Frank was diagnosed with breast cancer, her initial reaction was one of shock and denial. Then a more competent part of herself — a part she recognised from her ancestral lineage — took charge, seeking to gather as much information as possible about her treatment options. The visceral experience of existential terror came on much more slowly – and with it an initiation into what it means to feel at first helpless, and then embraced by a much bigger force. In this episode, Teddy speaks about the encounter with...
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The Prayers of Our Ancestors with Solea Anani
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. This episdode is a rebroadcast from July 1, 2025. Solea Anani sees the collective healing work taking place in the world today as the answer to prayers offered long ago by our ancestors. In this powerful dialogue, Solea opens a unique window into ancestral healing work – drawing on her roots as a member of the red-skinned Taino people of the Dominican Republic, who know the island as Quisqueya, or Mother of All Lands. Solea describes how the grief, fear and isolation she experienced as a child when her socialist parents moved...
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The Initiation of Parenthood as a Doorway to Ancestral Healing, with Thomas Hübl
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J’aime Rothbard. Do we need ‘parenting schools’? What does it mean to be initiated into the archetypal power of being a mother or father? And what responsibility do we hold to build the kind of healing communities that can nourish us in our daily lives – and allow us to nourish others in return? In this second part of a conversation first published on , co-founder builds on a question about the transmission of ancestral trauma from parent to child to set forth an expansive vision of the power of healing-oriented communities to support us through...
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Growing your Cup and Meeting Triggers with Compassion, with Thomas Hübl
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J’aime Rothbard. Why do we beat ourselves up for getting pulled into the same old triggers? And how can we grow our capacity to observe our emotional reactions – rather than being hijacked by them? co-founder has devoted his life to helping as many people as possible to ‘grow our cup’ – his term for building a capacity to meet the trauma loops playing out inside of us with more awareness, spaciousness and compassion. In this episode, Thomas and Matthew go back to basics by exploring how we can tell when we’re experiencing trauma...
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Peace Activation in Israel-Palestine, with Eva Dalak
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Matthew Green Produced by J’aime Rothbard. It’s often said that peace starts within. But what does that mean in practice? is a Palestinian peace activator, international consultant, and women’s empowerment coach with decades of experience as a gender and conflict expert working across Africa, Latin America and Asia. In the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, Eva founded , a global peace initiative that brings Israelis and Palestinians together to heal divides by bearing witness to each other’s pain. She continues to host this space every...
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What is Collective Healing?
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Kitbag Africa: The Decolonization of Trauma Healing in Action, with Wycliffe Ngoko Oloo
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Sonita Mbah. Produced by J’aime Rothbard. Wycliffe Ngoko Oloo is on a mission to support vulnerable young people to share what’s on their hearts. As team leader at the Kenyan organisation Kitbag Africa International, Wycliffe convenes sharing circles on soccer fields, in classrooms or under trees – anywhere he can find where people can gather. “I have seen young people drop their masks and speak their truth,” Wycliffe says. “I have seen widows laugh after years of silence, and this is always beautiful.” In this inspiring conversation with Sonita Mbah,...
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Grief as a Gateway to Resilience, with Luka Faradsch
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Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J’aime Rothbard. How can learning to grieve cultivate resilience? And why are people reviving the ancient social technologies of collective grieving rituals today? Luka Faradsch shares how teachers such as Francis Weller, Sobonfu Somé, Malidoma Somé, and Joanna Macy helped her understand how working with sorrow and loss — far from being only heavy and painful — could become a “sacred practice of aliveness.” By honouring the universal truth that the old must die for the new to be born, Luka describes how grief work can awaken a profound form of...
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Metabolizing Climate Grief, with Brother Spirit and Brother Embrace
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J’aime Rothbard. In the run-up to the , we ask: How can we live with the knowledge that humanity is rapidly destroying the foundations of the ecosystems that support all life on Earth? And how can we learn from suffering without falling into overwhelm or despair? In this inspiring dialogue, Kosha Joubert speaks with Brother Phap Dung (pronounced “Yung”), also known as Brother Embrace, and Brother Phap Linh, also known as Brother Spirit, who are both leading teachers in the monastic movement of Thich Nhat Hanh. Brother Embrace and Brother Spirit...
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Embodying Non-Violence as Combatants for Peace, with Rana Salman & Eszter Korányi
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J’aime Rothbard was founded in 2006 by Israelis and Palestinians committed to following a path of non-violence to push their leaders to stop perpetuating war, occupation, and the cycle of violence. In this episode, Kosha Joubert speaks with Rana Salman and Eszter Korányi, the organisation’s respective Palestinian and Israeli co-directors, about what it’s been like to continue jointly advocating for peace since the horrendous Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023 and subsequent mass killing of civilians caused by Israel’s subsequent bombardment...
info_outlineHosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.
Born into a farming family in Cameroon, Sonita Mbah grew up imagining that she would always be able to make her living off the land. But as she began to recognise how far patterns of colonialism, extraction and displacement still ruled the lives of African farmers, Sonita felt a deeper calling begin to stir.
In her inaugural appearance as a co-host of What Is Collective Healing?, Sonita shares about her mission to transform the “trauma architecture” of exploitative global food systems in line with a more equitable and sustainable future.
Rooted in a profound appreciation for Indigenous ways of living in harmony with the more-than-human world, Sonita explains how her approach was shaped by her time living among Indigenous communities in Cameroon, and deep dialogues with the Makhuwa people in Mozambique.
The conversation reveals how Sonita’s journey as an advocate for conscious food systems is intimately braided with her personal process of transmuting the collective trauma of colonialism. Not only does this global imprint live on in her own nervous system, Sonita explains, neocolonial ways of relating continue to deprive Indigenous communities of acknowledgement and resources to this day.
This deeply moving episode casts a new light on the many ways in which personal, inter-generational and collective trauma histories are enmeshwed with the exploitative ways we produce, trade and consume our food.
Sonita’s commitment to reweaving these outdated patterns will inspire anyone with an interest in the relationship between collective healing and the kind of systems change needed to pull life on this planet back from the brink.
Further Resources:
Conscious Food Systems Alliance
About Sonita Mbah:
Sonita serves as communications coordinator at the Pocket Project and holds a Masters in World Heritage Studies. She is a passionate food grower, permaculture designer and facilitator. For over 10 years, she was the administrator of Better World Cameroon and co-initiator of Bafut Ecovillage, an off-grid learning center. As Executive Secretary of the Global Ecovillage Network Africa, Sonita brings regenerative community and social enterprise development to several African communities. In 2017, Sonita received the Gender Just Climate Solutions Award from the Women and Gender Constituency for empowering women with earthen cook stove technology. Driven by her passion for healing colonial trauma, Sonita took the Principles of Collective Trauma Healing course with Thomas Hübl.
0:00 What is Collective Healing?
1:49 Introduction to Sonita Mbah
5:13 Being in Community is a Healing Process
7:20 Conscious Food System Transformation
10:20 Story : Discovery of Palm Wine
13:50 Corruption within our Global Food System
19:30 Colonialism's Impact on Food Systems
27:00 Confonting Internalized Colonialism and Healing
31:10 Stories from working with Ecovillages in Africa
43:11 Conscious Food Advocacy within larger International Agencies
44:20 Enriching the Indigenous Sources of Knowledge & Practices
48:20 Future Implications & Possibilities of Restoring Indigenous Wisdom