By Arianna Maysonave
June 4, 2026
When enough people remember that they are not separate from nature, from one another, or from the consequences of their actions, everything changes.
Q: You were born in Trinidad and later migrated to the United States. How has that journey shaped who you are and the work you do today?
Knellee Bisram (KB): I was born and raised in Trinidad, and I’m third-generation Indian on the island. My family history is deeply tied to the land through generations of farmers, and that relationship with nature, even when it wasn’t explicitly named as such, shaped me early on. I migrated to Florida in my early twenties, and I’ve now lived in the United States for more than half of my life. That in-between identity, straddling island and diaspora, Global South and Global North, has given me a very embodied understanding of systems, inequities, and resilience.
I was also introduced to meditation and psychosomatic work very young, around age 11 or 12. My parents were practitioners and included my brother and me in formal training and practice. I was one of the few young people in those spaces, sitting in after-school programs focused on present-moment awareness and dharma. That practice, which was rooted in non-dual wisdom traditions, stayed with me for over a decade and continues to ground everything I do.
Professionally, my background is in international relations and foreign languages. I worked as a linguist and interpreter, including in international trade negotiations, and spent time living and working in Latin America. That work gave me insight into how decisions made in rooms far away deeply affect communities on the ground. It also created a great deal of inner conflict for me, especially given my family’s farming roots and the realities of exploitation tied to global economic systems.
What led you to found the Academy of the Heart and Mind (AHAM) Education?
KB: AHAM Education began in 2014, and initially just looked like me teaching mindfulness and meditation primarily to parents and young people. When my first child was born prematurely, with a 50 percent chance of survival, everything in my life shifted. I realized that the 60-hour work weeks I was doing, even in a field I loved, were not sustainable. The most valuable education I had ever received wasn’t academic—it was learning how to go inward.
I began volunteering for many years teaching conscious and mindful parenting. I also taught as a college professor and naturally integrated mindfulness into every classroom because I knew how much it had helped me as a student. Over time, AHAM evolved from parenting work to schools, community organizations, and out-of-school spaces—anywhere young people were gathering.
I became a certified in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and began to expand our modalities to also include areas like mind-body medicine. AHAM eventually became an accredited NGO to the United Nations, which opened many doors and set the stage for much of the work we do today on a global stage.
Last year marked our tenth anniversary. When we started, mindfulness work in institutions was rare and often questioned. Today, it’s more mainstream, and our focus has shifted toward building communities of resilience through young leaders.
One of AHAM’s core initiatives is the Girl’s Well-Being Project. Can you share more about that?
KB: The Girl’s Well-Being Project is about going deep, not wide. We work in communities where relationships already exist—places like Trinidad, Honduras, South Florida, and Abu Dhabi—as well as across diaspora communities. The program combines mindfulness-based practices with leadership development and a global citizenship framework that emphasizes care for self, community, and planet. We believe that individual transformation is a catalyst for community transformation!
While the project centers girls, boys also participate, because gender equity requires everyone. UNICEF’s recent reporting on the status of girls globally reinforces how urgent this work is.
That sounds so deeply impactful. What does the program look like in action?
KB: Each cycle includes a 12-week program with mentors, usually running from January to March, and culminates in participation at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Not everyone travels, but everyone participates. Over the last two years alone, we’ve brought 27 delegates ranging in age from 11 to 70.
Going to the UN isn’t about sitting in panels or discussing papers, it’s really about capacity and skill building. It’s about young people and intergenerational communities telling stories of transformation—what they are implementing on the ground, what has changed within them, and how that inner shift is shaping outer action.
We’ve seen incredible outcomes: girls facilitating mindfulness in peace-building sessions, young women winning national mental health awards, and youth from places like Afghanistan joining our delegations and returning home inspired to advocate for women and girls in their own communities. The opportunity to attend is really about creating a platform for girls to share about their actions and be seen!
The b.Nature Program feels like a cornerstone of AHAM’s work. What makes it unique?
KB: b.Nature is grounded in positive ecopsychology and mindfulness-based stress reduction, while also integrating Indigenous and traditional wisdom practices. At its core, it’s about restoring our relationship with nature, shifting the paradigm from seeing nature as not just something outside of us, but as something we are part of.
Rooted in communities of practice that gather monthly, b.Nature invites participants to move from awareness to action. Many participants are already climate activists or working in government, environmental agencies, or social justice organizations. What we offer is the rocket fuel—how to do this work consciously, without burning out, in the face of what we now call the polycrisis.
b.Nature is not simply a mindfulness program for climate activists. It is about asking deeper questions: Where did we lose our way? At what points did disconnection occur, and how can we heal and repair those ruptures?
The Girl’s Well-Being Project is a 12-week program that combines mindfulness, leadership, and a global citizenship framework for individual and community transformation.
Much of your work connects mental health, environmental issues, and justice. How do you understand the relationship between these crises?
KB: What we are seeing is a deep reaction to poor mental health that is rooted in stigma and a rejection of our own psyche. In many ways, we have created this crisis ourselves. There is an important distinction between individuals who are clinically diagnosed with mental illness and the broader mental health crisis affecting young people today. Unfortunately, our systems often fail to create space to differentiate between the two.
From my perspective as a mental health practitioner, the environmental crisis and the mental health crisis are not separate phenomena—they are the same crisis manifesting in different ways. Both stem from profound disconnection: from ourselves, from one another, and from the natural world.
One of the earliest points of disconnection happens when we lose our relationship with the land. That separation leads to further disconnection, which in turn creates both mental and environmental disruption. Often, there are solutions that can address multiple crises simultaneously if we are willing to approach them holistically.
You’ve also spoken about injustice as a form of disconnection. Can you elaborate?
KB: Injustice is another major point of disruption. We see this clearly in how technology is developed and used. Much of it functions as a coping mechanism, designed by people who are themselves deeply disconnected. Even some environmental solutions emerge from cultures of exploitation rather than regeneration.
If we allow technology companies to “solve” problems without shifting the underlying values toward regenerative and circular economic thinking, we are not actually solving anything. Sustainability without repair simply perpetuates harm.
This is why justice work must include the repair of harm and healing. Initiatives like the Fair Shares campaign within the U.S. Climate Action Network aim to right historical wrongs through climate reparations. Any crisis viewed through a justice lens requires us to acknowledge harm rather than turning a blind eye to it.
How do we create reconnection to the land and to each other?
KB: Reconnection has to happen from the inside out. That is the only sustainable path forward. While external interventions can serve as temporary support, they are often just band-aids in the face of deep harm.
Our work through the b.Nature program focuses on the inner work that enables outer change. It involves resetting how we see ourselves in relation to our work and our communities and asking whether we are acting from a place of wholeness or disconnection. When enough people in positions of influence or within communities adopt regenerative ways of thinking, their decisions naturally become more life-affirming.
We are particularly interested in community-level leadership—not just world leaders, but those shaping daily decisions within communities. Our 100 Communities of Resilience initiative is an experiment in building these spheres of influence through local leaders.
What does this look like in practice, and how does it scale?
KB: We’ve seen this model take root in our own community in South Florida and in places like Honduras, Trinidad, and the UAE. The key ingredients are leadership buy-in, community readiness, and supportive infrastructure, especially when working with young people. Change is hard, and young people need adults who are committed, trained, and willing to walk alongside them. Much of our work has been volunteer-driven, but we’re now seeing funders and institutions recognize the need for mind-body and social-emotional approaches, which is helping build momentum. We don’t force participation; willingness and readiness matter. Instead, we create communities of practice and let the work spread where conditions are ripe—sometimes accelerated by crisis, but ideally sustained even without one. When the commitment is there, the model can be replicated across cultures while staying rooted in local relationships and responsibility to one another.
How does this inner work translate into systems-level change?
Practice has to be paired with policy. I serve on multiple boards and task forces because without being in decision-making spaces, it’s very hard to create lasting change. For example, we’ve worked to integrate mental health into climate action planning, and I currently chair a mindfulness subcommittee within a local Commission for Women.
One issue I’m especially concerned about is how mental health is addressed—or mishandled—by systems. In Florida, for example, laws like the Baker Act can criminalize young people who are expressing distress, further traumatizing them rather than offering support. We need to normalize mental health care the way we normalize physical health checkups, and we need proactive, whole-person approaches rather than stigmatizing, reactive ones.
At the global level, we’re also advocating for psychological harm to be recognized in frameworks like climate loss and damage. If it’s not named, it’s not funded—and that omission has real consequences for communities facing disasters.
What’s next for AHAM Education?
KB: Our five-year goal is to train 1,000 young people across the Western Hemisphere, though we’ve already expanded beyond that geographically. As mentioned, we’re also in the midst of developing one hundred communities of resilience, led by people who are already influencing decisions in their communities.
We’re continuing work on our documentary series, Healing People, Healing the Planet, and seeking funding for post-production on the next installation, Healing Women, Healing the Planet. Storytelling is essential—it reminds us what’s possible.
Ultimately, this work is about reconnection. When enough people remember that they are not separate from nature, from one another, or from the consequences of their actions, everything changes.
This interview is part of the Nova Institute for Health’s Insight Collaborative for Mental Well-Being project. The Insight Collaborative is supported by a generous seed grant from the Mental Insight Foundation.
