SEKIS (Self-Help Contact and Information Center Berlin) empowers Berlin's citizens to take control of life's challenges through self-help tools and peer support groups.

My personal journey with SEKIS began as a recipient of their services at the end of 2022. I quickly realized the profound effectiveness of their advice and free resources in fostering collective empowerment. Driven by this success, I sought to contribute more. In late 2024, I successfully pitched a project with the help of SEKIS to funders, securing 3 years of dedicated funding. 

This allows me to work 20 hours per week on a crucial mission: Foster visibility of SEKIS' services as well as community by spreading awareness and making SEKIS resources more accessible (using English) for Berlin's international community. Ultimately, bringing residents together in self-organized, solidarity-based groups to build a healthier and more thriving life in Berlin for all.

What SEKIS offers:

• A database of existing support groups across a plethora of topics/health challenges

• Rooms across the city for your group to meet in

• Marketing help and tools to create and build your group

• Further education all about the topic of peer-support groups

  • What are peer support groups and how and for what can they be used...

  • How to get people to join your group...

  • How can you get your group funded...

  • How to moderate, lead, resolve conflict...

  • Much more...

How I'm contributing:

2022:

• • I found SEKIS while looking for a room to house my self-coaching group: Mindfulness for Mental Health that later became The Create Your Life Community.

2023:

• • I supported in the transfer of the the peer-support groups across Berlin from the old database to the new one, ensuring data completeness for all of the self-help contact points.

  • I participated in several photoshoots and video productions to spread awareness and educate people on the self-help and peer-support group resources across Berlin:

    • • Jungeselbsthilfe (Young Self-help for people aged 18-35)

      • 40-Years SEKIS Celebration Video 

      • Video version of the self-help contact point map

      • Self-help and peer-support groups for unique challenges faced by immigrants

2024:

• • I created and managed a traveling exhibition tour of an exhibition that tells the 40-year historical story of SEKIS:

    • • The story highlights how peer-support groups added to democratic and civil society movement across the city, culminating in the recognition of self-help practices and groups as the fourth pillar of the German health care system. 

      • I brought the exhibition into several Berlin boroughs in public places like City Halls, Libraries, Universities, and Neighborhood Houses.

  • I created an awareness-spreading campaign for my peer-support group, The Create Your Life Community, by getting the group funded and organizing six self-help workshops facilitated by internationals that took place inside the group meetings. See the one and only newsletter edition where it's all described. I issued it some months before I pitched my project idea to SEKIS, which then became the expansion of this group as I could no longer run the group and the project at the same time.

  • I facilitated several workshops teaching self-leadership premises that aid in dealing with and coming out of depression within the "Young and Depressed" project at the self-help contact point in Mitte, StadtRand gGmbH

  • I facilitated the creation and stabilization of an English-speaking self-help group for depression.

2025:

• • I've been leading a project that aims to spread awareness about SEKIS' offerings via the English language for international citizens of Berlin as well as supporting people in joining or creating their own support groups / self-organized initiatives.

  • I facilitated a "start-up" workshop that taught people how to start their own peer-support group.

  • I am currently planning The Berlin Mental Health Labs: a series of all-day, interdisciplinary workshops to empower and facilitate immigrants of all walks of life to create sustainable solutions (including peer-support groups) for increased mental health across the city.

Baumhaus Berlin is more than just a place...it's proof of what happens when we all become agents of balance! Baumhaus is on a mission to make Berlin and the world a truly humane, meaningful, and satisfying place to live. And how do we do it? Through joyful, natural collaboration! This amazing, collaboratively built indoor treehouse is an interdisciplinary hub for sustainability. The magic lies in the fact that everyone pitches in willingly (from their own volition!), using the best skills and talents that come most naturally and joyfully to them. Imagine if the rest of the world operated in this way! 

1000+ volunteers have built Das Baumhaus over the past decade, making it the physical manifestation of what's possible when many people contribute what they do best to achieve a massive, shared goal! It shows that a balanced, sustainable world is built by people doing what makes their heart sing.

I first came in contact with Das Baumhaus in May 2025 at the Creative Mornings breakfast lecture where the founder, Scott Bolden gave an inspiring talk about how he thinks we can save the world before we destroy it.

Das Baumhaus has been a pivotal location for me on my transformative journey and every time I set foot in side of it, I am reminded of just how acutely we as a collective need more spaces based in values like Das Baumhaus where we can show up and just be ourselves and let our creativity flow.

What Das Baumhaus offers:

• Team building and sustainable solution incubation services

• Event space for like-minded organizations / events

• Talks and Workshops

• Tools for sustainable design across six sustainability dimensions: personal, ecological, aesthetic, cultural, economic, and social (P.E.A.C.E.S).

• Real-life example of what's possible for us when we come together naturally and contribute towards building a balanced, healthy, and real existence together.

• Community Networking Night / Open House every last Saturday of the month

How I'm contributing:

I actively supported the mission of Das Baumhaus through speaking engagements, community involvement, physical space development, and strategic digital expansion throughout 2025:

• Emergent Festival 2025: I contributed a talk and workshop focused on internal and collective sustainability. The premise was to help sustainability thinkers align their choices with their values, prioritizing internal balance as a foundation for broader collective balance.

• Baumhaus Community Night (June 2025 – Present): I have been a regular volunteer and active participant, committing my presence, facilitating tours of the space, assisting with clean-up and cooking, hosting guests, and contributing to the concluding FLOW meditation session. I look forward to being present in most upcoming Baumhaus events.

• Small Bathroom Wooden Ceiling Mosaic During Summer of Ceilings 2025: I collaborated intensively with Scott Bolden to complete two major sections of the small bathroom's ceiling mosaic. My technical contributions included:

  • • Designing the wooden stain color scheme

    • Drilling holes, inserting screws, and constructing walls for clay application, spreading adhesive

    • This project offered a profound, real-life experience in sustainable design and construction, embodying the spirit of building our collective home, together.

• Strategic Outreach: Spreading Baumhaus values and concepts, as well as developing OurWorld.Solutions...I worked closely with Scott Bolden to develop strategies for broadening awareness of Das Baumhaus's services and cultivating the online platform, OurWorld.Solutions. My work included:

• Drafting comprehensive business plans for OurWorld.Solutions

• Developing sustainable structural ideas for a truly collectively-owned online platform

• Recruiting team members and actively spreading awareness of the platform's core concepts and values

• Performing ongoing quality assurance and influencing the platform's development to ensure it remains strictly mission and values-based and oriented

• At the end of 2025, i'll be starting a new digital publication called "That PEACES Life / Baumhaus Radio" where I will be covering Baumhaus events with interviews, anecdotes, and sounds from volunteers, guests, and others collaborating in Das Baumhaus.

OurWorld.Solutions was born in the collaborative spirit of the Baumhaus Berlin, aspiring to amplify its mission of regenerative balance throughout Berlin and globally. It is a simple, trusted online network designed exclusively for mission-driven solutionists. Entry is by personal invitation only! No one can join unless they have met an existing member, ensuring a secure and high-trust community. The platform is built on data ethics: it extracts no data from members. All shared information is used only for its transparent and intended purpose: to help individuals and projects focused on personal, ecological, aesthetic, cultural, economic, and/or social balance to connect, share resources, and support each other's missions.

Working on this epic, collaborative project has taught me many things about what it means to be one part of a greater whole and to remember that in everything you do. It's a great depiction of what our world can be and will be as we grow it and come out of capitalistic individualism and into a village way of life.

What OurWorld.Solutions offers:

• A trusted network of change-makers, builders, and creators open and willing to share their resources

• A platform to amplify and make important world-changing projects noticeable.

• A market place to trade ideas, services, goods and beyond for the expansion and success of all members.

How i'm contributing:

• Strategy consulting

• QA and early-stage testing and consulting.

• Spreading awareness and referring new users.

• Recruiting more contributers to help build it.

WahlheYmat  - a play on the German phrase: "Wahlheimat" aka "Chosen Homeland" is a grassroots initiative focusing on bringing citizens of Berlin together to incubate and act on sustainable ideas for creating a Berlin where EVERYONE feels at home.

Since coming in contact with WahlheYmat, I have been met with immense support in getting my voice heard, propelling me forward in my mission.

What WahlheYMat offers:

• WahlheYmat Talks: Monthly panel discussions with locals, natives, immigrants and the like discussing topics on how to come together and create a new, sustainable Berlin with civil society next to the goverment...not with.

• WahlheYmat Post: is a weekly guide for the international community in Berlin that raises the voices of Berliner immigrants, reports on local events, and shares concrete ways to get involved in building our shared home of Berlin - together!

How I'm contributing:

• I contribute 1-2 articles per month to WahlheYmat post teaching internationals in Berlin how to build a sustainable life of thriving via inner balance and outer contribution.

• I attend almost every WahlheYmat talks, contributing with my presence and voice, as well as talking to attendees and supporting them in their current struggles while being an immigrant here in Berlin and Germany.

• I also gave an interview for the WahlheYmat post in November 2025.

• I've been spreading stickers and postcards for WahlheYmat post throughout the city for outreach

• Strategic consulting on creating WahlheYmat advocacy and more

Nestled at the foot of Mount Pisgah in Candler, Missed Path Sanctuary is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to the rehabilitation of rescue horses and fostering meaningful human connection. 

Every horse that arrives is a survivor who missed the path to care and purpose, bringing their own story of trauma and recovery. These animals are now at the heart of the Missed Path mission, providing a quiet, grounded presence that helps people slow down, notice, and reconnect. Their programs...including Yoga with Horses, Reading with Horses, Breath Work with Horses, Sound Bathing with horses, as well as Painting with Horses...focus on small-group and one-to-one experiences that build partnership with the land and the herd, promoting a healing flow that benefits both horses and humans.

This sanctuary is founded and owned by my coach and friend, Marc DiFrancia. He invited me to collaborate on this project and it has greatly benefitted me in my growth and internal capacity expansion in a very short period of time.

What Missed Path Sanctuary offers:

• Rehabilitation and a forever home for horses

• Volunteer positions

• Collaborations with local organizations

• Healing opportunities to be around horses and their big, loving hearts:

  • Yoga with Horses

  • Painting with Horses

  • Sound Bathing with Horses

  • Reading with Horses

How i'm contributing:

2025

• Participating in and moderating weekly operational and outreach strategy meetings

• Support in creating and curating the monthly newsletter and regular social media posts

• Website editing and sprucing as well as creating and maintaining the blog and Better Together page